Labeling schemes for weighted dynamic trees

A Distance labeling scheme is a type of localized network representation in which short labels are assigned to the vertices, allowing one to infer the distance between any two vertices directly from their labels, without using any additional information sources. As most applications for network representations in general, and distance labeling schemes in particular, concern large and dynamically changing networks, it is of interest to focus on distributed dynamic labeling schemes. The paper considers dynamic weighted trees where the vertices of the trees are fixed but the (positive integral) weights of the edges may change. The two models considered are the edge-dynamic model, where from time to time some edge changes its weight by a fixed quanta, and the increasing-dynamic model in which edge weights can only grow. The paper presents distributed approximate distance labeling schemes for the two dynamic models, which are efficient in terms of the required label size and communication complexity involved in updating the labels following the weight changes.