Related papers: Polynomial-time sortable stacks of burnt pancakes

We initiate the study of sorting permutations using prefix block-interchanges, which exchange any prefix of a permutation with another non-intersecting interval. The goal is to transform a given permutation into the identity permutation…

A permutation of n letters is k-prolific if each (n-k)-subset of the letters in its one-line notation forms a unique pattern. We present a complete characterization of k-prolific permutations for each k, proving that k-prolific permutations…

It is known that the set of permutations, under the pattern containment ordering, is not a partial well-order. Characterizing the partially well-ordered closed sets (equivalently: down sets or ideals) in this poset remains a wide-open…

We give a positive answer to a question raised by Davis et al. ({\em Discrete Mathematics} 341, 2018), concerning permutations with the same pinnacle set. Given $\pi\in S_n$, a {\em pinnacle} of $\pi$ is an element $\pi_i$ ($i\neq 1,n$)…

Permutation puzzles, such as the Rubik's Cube and the 15 puzzle, are enjoyed by the general public and mathematicians alike. Here we introduce quantum versions of permutation puzzles where the pieces of the puzzles are replaced with…

In this article, we study the problem of finding the longest common separable pattern between several permutations. We give a polynomial-time algorithm when the number of input permutations is fixed and show that the problem is NP-hard for…

The famous pancake theorem states that for every finite set $X$ in the plane, there exist two orthogonal lines that divide $X$ into four equal parts. We propose an algorithm whose running time is linear in the number of points in $X$ and…

We consider the problem of determining the maximum number of moves required to sort a permutation of $[n]$ using cut-and-paste operations, in which a segment is cut out and then pasted into the remaining string, possibly reversed. We give…

We study a class of functional problems reducible to computing $f^{(n)}(x)$ for inputs $n$ and $x$, where $f$ is a polynomial-time bijection. As we prove, the definition is robust against variations in the type of reduction used in its…

We explore various techniques to compress a permutation $\pi$ over n integers, taking advantage of ordered subsequences in $\pi$, while supporting its application $\pi$(i) and the application of its inverse $\pi^{-1}(i)$ in small time. Our…

We consider the problem of upper bounding the number of circular transpositions needed to sort a permutation. It is well known that any permutation can be sorted using at most $n(n-1)/2$ adjacent transpositions. We show that, if we allow…

In the context of the genome rearrangement problem, we analyze two well known models, namely the reversal and the prefix reversal models, by exploiting the connection with the notion of permutation pattern. More specifically, for any $k$,…

Previous compact representations of permutations have focused on adding a small index on top of the plain data $<\pi(1), \pi(2),...\pi(n)>$, in order to efficiently support the application of the inverse or the iterated permutation. In this…

We present new theoretical algorithms that sums the n-ary comparators output in order to get the permutation indices in order to sort a sequence. By analysing the parallel ranking algorithm, we found that the special comparators number of…

A fork stack is a generalised stack which allows pushes and pops of several items at a time. We consider the problem of determining which input streams can be sorted using a single forkstack, or dually, which permutations of a fixed input…

We study the behavior of West's stack-sorting map $s$ on permutations whose last entry is also their least. Let $S_{n}':=\{\pi0\mid \pi\in S_n\}$ where $\pi0$ denotes the concatenation of $\pi$ and $0$. For each permutation $\pi\in S_n'$,…

We assume the permutation $\pi$ is given by an $n$-element array in which the $i$-th element denotes the value $\pi(i)$. Constructing its inverse in-place (i.e. using $O(\log{n})$ bits of additional memory) can be achieved in linear time…

For a given set of intervals on the real line, we consider the problem of ordering the intervals with the goal of minimizing an objective function that depends on the exposed interval pieces (that is, the pieces that are not covered by…

This work shows that the following problems are equivalent, both in theory and in practice: - median filtering: given an $n$-element vector, compute the sliding window median with window size $k$, - piecewise sorting: given an $n$-element…

We introduce an algorithm to determine when a sorting operation, such as stack-sort or bubble-sort, outputs a given pattern. The algorithm provides a new proof of the description of West-2-stack-sortable permutations, that is permutations…