Introduction and Survey; F.2.2 [Analysis of Algorithms and Problem Complexity]: Nonnumerical Algorithms and Problems --- Sorting and Searching; E.5 [Data]: Files --- Sorting/searching; G.3 [Mathematics of Computing]: Probability and Statistics --- Probabilistic algorithms; E.2 [Data Storage Representation]: Composite structures, linked representations. General Terms: Algorithms, Theory. Additional Key Words and Phrases: Adaptive sorting algorithms, Comparison trees, Measures of disorder, Nearly sorted sequences, Randomized algorithms. A Survey of Adaptive Sorting Algorithms 2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I.1 Optimal adaptivity I.2 Measures of disorder I.3 Organization of the paper 1.WORST-CASE ADAPTIVE (INTERNAL) SORTING ALGORITHMS 1.1 Generic Sort 1.2 Cook--Kim division 1.3 Partition Sort 1.4 Exponential Search 1.5 Adaptive Merging 2.EXPECTED-CASE ADAPTIV

Writing portable programs that perform well on multiple platforms or for varying input sizes and types can be very difficult because performance is often sensitive to the system architecture, the runtime environment, and input data characteristics. This is even more challenging on parallel and distributed systems due to the wide variety of system architectures. One way to address this problem is to adaptively select the best parallel algorithm for the current input data and system from a set of functionally equivalent algorithmic options. Toward this goal, we have developed a general framework for adaptive algorithm selection for use in the Standard Template Adaptive Parallel Library (STAPL). Our framework uses machine learning techniques to analyze data collected by STAPL installation benchmarks and to determine tests that will select among algorithmic options at run-time. We apply a prototype implementation of our framework to two important parallel operations, sorting and matrix multiplication, on multiple platforms and show that the framework determines run-time tests that correctly select the best performing algorithm from among several competing algorithmic options in 86-100 % of the cases studied, depending on the operation and the system.

We introduce the concept of presorting algorithms, quantifying and evaluating the performance of such algorithms with the average reduction in number of inversions. Stages of well-known algorithms such as Shellsort and quicksort are evaluated in such a framework and shown to cause a meaning drop in the inversion statistic. The expected value, variance and generating function for the decrease in number of inversions are computed. The possibility of "presorting" a sorting algorithm is also investigated under a similar framework.