Related papers: Polynomial-time sortable stacks of burnt pancakes
Pancake Flipping is the problem of sorting a stack of pancakes of different sizes (that is, a permutation), when the only allowed operation is to insert a spatula anywhere in the stack and to flip the pancakes above it (that is, to perform…
In this paper we study several variations of the \emph{pancake flipping problem}, which is also well known as the problem of \emph{sorting by prefix reversals}. We consider the variations in the sorting process by adding with prefix…
Using existing classification results for the 7- and 8-cycles in the pancake graph, we determine the number of permutations that require 4 pancake flips (prefix reversals) to be sorted. A similar characterization of the 8-cycles in the…
Given a permutation pi, the application of prefix reversal f^(i) to pi reverses the order of the first i elements of pi. The problem of Sorting By Prefix Reversals (also known as pancake flipping), made famous by Gates and Papadimitriou…
The "pancake problem" asks how many prefix reversals are sufficient to sort any permutation $\pi \in \mathcal{S}_k$ to the identity. We write $f(k)$ to denote this quantity. The best known bounds are that $\frac{15}{14}k -O(1) \le f(k)\le…
The pancake problem is concerned with sorting a permutation (a stack of pancakes of different diameter) using only prefix reversals (spatula flips). Although the problem description belies simplicity, an exact formula for the maximum number…
A sequence of reversals that takes a signed permutation to the identity is perfect if at no step a common interval is broken. Determining a parsimonious perfect sequence of reversals that sorts a signed permutation is NP-hard. Here we show…
In this work, we consider the burnt pancake problem, which is a well-studied problem going back to a work of Gates and Papadimitriou from 1979.The problem is to sort a stack of~$n$ one-sided burnt pancakes of different sizes, by a sequence…
We are given a stack of pancakes of different sizes and the only allowed operation is to take several pancakes from top and flip them. The unburnt version requires the pancakes to be sorted by their sizes at the end, while in the burnt…
Perfect sorting by reversals, a problem originating in computational genomics, is the process of sorting a signed permutation to either the identity or to the reversed identity permutation, by a sequence of reversals that do not break any…
Given a signed permutation on $n$ elements, we need to sort it with the fewest reversals. This is a fundamental algorithmic problem motivated by applications in comparative genomics, as it allows to accurately model rearrangements in small…
In 1937, biologists Sturtevant and Tan posed a computational question: transform a chromosome represented by a permutation of genes, into a second permutation, using a minimum-length sequence of reversals, each inverting the order of a…
We consider the number of passes a permutation needs to take through a stack if we only pop the appropriate output values and start over with the remaining entries in their original order. We define a permutation $\pi$ to be $k$-pass…
We consider a stack sorting algorithm where only the appropriate output values are popped from the stack and then any remaining entries in the stack are run through the stack in reverse order. We identify the basis for the $2$-reverse pass…
A wide range of applications, most notably in comparative genomics, involve the computation of a shortest sorting sequence of operations for a given permutation, where the set of allowed operations is fixed beforehand. Such sequences are…
Ranking bit patterns -- finding the index of a given pattern in an ordered sequence -- is a major bottleneck scaling up numerical quantum many-body calculations, as fermionic and hard-core bosonic states translate naturally to bit patterns.…
Permutation patterns and pattern avoidance have been intensively studied in combinatorics and computer science, going back at least to the seminal work of Knuth on stack-sorting (1968). Perhaps the most natural algorithmic question in this…
We study a family of sorting match puzzles on grids, which we call permutation match puzzles. In this puzzle, each row and column of a $n \times n$ grid is labeled with an ordering constraint -- ascending (A) or descending (D) -- and the…
Inspired by a common technique for shuffling a deck of cards on a table without riffling, we formalize the pile shuffle and investigate its capabilities as a sorting device. Our study is novel in that we consider pile shuffle in three…
Flip-sort is a natural sorting procedure which raises fascinating combinatorial questions. It finds its roots in the seminal work of Knuth on stack-based sorting algorithms and leads to many links with permutation patterns. We present…