Time analysis for different types of trees
The terms |V|, id, |V'| and id' are all clearly O(n), but on the other hand neither |V| and id nor |V'| and id' are independent. Intuitively, if there are a lot of internal nodes in a tree, they will not have a very large internal degree. We address in this section, how this dependency will affect the running time for different types on trees.
The worst theoretical running time of the algorithm for calculating the quartet distance presented above is O(n3). Consider a tree with an internal node of degree n2 MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUbqaaiabikdaYaaaaaa@2F13@, connected to n2 MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUbqaaiabikdaYaaaaaa@2F13@ internal nodes of degree three each connected to two leaves, see Fig. 2. Such a tree has n leaves, O(n) internal nodes and a maximal internal degree that is O(n). If the algorithm is run on two such trees, the running time will be O(n3). In d-ary trees (trees where all internal nodes have degree d) |V| = O (nd MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUbqaaiabdsgaKbaaaaa@2F72@), the time complexity of calculating the quartet distance will be O (n2d MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUnaaCaaaleqabaGaeGOmaidaaaGcbaGaemizaqgaaaaa@309B@).
Figure 2  A worst case input tree for the algorithm. A tree with an internal node of degree n2 MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUbqaaiabikdaYaaaaaa@2F13@, connected to n2 MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUbqaaiabikdaYaaaaaa@2F13@ internal nodes of degree three each connected to two leaves. This tree has both a maximal degree of O(n) and at the same time O(n) inner nodes. The two cases above are somewhat extreme. The first case has a very large gap between the maximal and minimal degree of internal nodes, while the second has little or no gap. The theoretical performance of the algorithm on the two types of trees reflects this difference. Let dmin = min{minv dv, minv' dv'}, be the minimal degree of any internal node in either tree, then each tree has O(ndmin MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUbqaaiabdsgaKnaaBaaaleaaieGacqWFTbqBcqWFPbqAcqWFUbGBaeqaaaaaaaa@33C0@) internal nodes and the time complexity is O (n2dmin2 MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaadaWcaaqaaiabd6gaUnaaCaaaleqabaGaeGOmaidaaaGcbaGaemizaq2aa0baaSqaaGqaciab=1gaTjab=LgaPjab=5gaUbqaaiabikdaYaaaaaaaaa@35DC@ min{id, id'}). If min{id, id'} is O(dmin2 MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaafiart1ev1aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacH8akY=wiFfYdH8Gipec8Eeeu0xXdbba9frFj0=OqFfea0dXdd9vqai=hGuQ8kuc9pgc9s8qqaq=dirpe0xb9q8qiLsFr0=vr0=vr0dc8meaabaqaciaacaGaaeqabaqabeGadaaakeaacqWGKbazdaqhaaWcbaacbiGae8xBa0Mae8xAaKMae8NBa4gabaGaeGOmaidaaaaa@333E@) the time usage of calculating the quartet distance will be O (n2). In the following section we will do practical verification of the theoretical results in this section.