Testing frequency distributions in a stream

Abstract

We study how to verify specific frequency distributions when we observe a stream of $N$ data items taken from a universe of $n$ distinct items. We introduce the \emph{relative Fr\'echet distance} to compare two frequency functions in a homogeneous manner. We consider two streaming models: insertions only and sliding windows. We present a Tester for a certain class of functions, which decides if $f $ is close to $g$ or if $f$ is far from $g$ with high probability, when $f$ is given and $g$ is defined by a stream. If $f$ is uniform we show a space $\Omega(n)$ lower bound. If $f$ decreases fast enough, we then only use space $O(\log^2 n\cdot \log\log n)$. The analysis relies on the Spacesaving algorithm \cite{MAE2005,Z22} and on sampling the stream.