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The partition problem is a well-known basic NP-complete problem. We mainly consider the optimization version of it in this paper. The problem has been investigated from various perspectives for a long time and can be solved efficiently in…
The evaluation function for imperfect information games is always hard to define but owns a significant impact on the playing strength of a program. Deep learning has made great achievements these years, and already exceeded the top human…
In this article we demonstrate how to solve a variety of problems and puzzles using the built-in SAT solver of the computer algebra system Maple. Once the problems have been encoded into Boolean logic, solutions can be found (or shown to…
In the Maker-Breaker positional game, Maker and Breaker take turns picking vertices of a hypergraph $H$, and Maker wins if and only if she possesses all the vertices of some edge of $H$. Deciding the outcome (i.e. which player has a winning…
Shikaku is a pencil puzzle consisting of a rectangular grid, with some cells containing a number. The player has to partition the grid into rectangles such that each rectangle contains exactly one number equal to the area of that rectangle.…
We consider several families of combinatorial polytopes associated with the following NP-complete problems: maximum cut, Boolean quadratic programming, quadratic linear ordering, quadratic assignment, set partition, set packing, stable set,…
Tic Tac Toe is amongst the most well-known games. It has already been shown that it is a biased game, giving more chances to win for the first player leaving only a draw or a loss as possibilities for the opponent, assuming both the players…
We study the problem of colouring visibility graphs of polygons. In particular, for visibility graphs of simple polygons, we provide a polynomial algorithm for 4-colouring, and prove that the 5-colourability question is already NP-complete…
A polynomial algorithm is obtained for the NP-complete linear ordering problem.
Sudoku is a famous logic puzzle where the player has to fill a number between 1 and 9 into each empty cell of a $9 \times 9$ grid such that every number appears exactly once in each row, each column, and each $3 \times 3$ block. In 2020,…
We present efficient algorithms for computing optimal or approximately optimal strategies in a zero-sum game for which Player I has n pure strategies and Player II has an arbitrary number of pure strategies. We assume that for any given…
Suppose some objects are hidden in a finite set $S$ of hiding places which must be examined one-by-one. The cost of searching subsets of $S$ is given by a submodular function and the probability that all objects are contained in a subset is…
We consider a planar graph $G$ in which the edges have nonnegative integer lengths such that the length of every cycle of $G$ is even, and three faces are distinguished, called holes in $G$. It is known that there exists a packing of cuts…
We describe, study, and experiment with an algorithm for finding all solutions of systems of polynomial equations using homotopy continuation and monodromy. This algorithm follows a framework developed in previous work and can operate in…
Zen Puzzle Garden (ZPG) is a one-player puzzle game. In this paper, we prove that deciding the solvability of ZPG is NP-complete.
We prove NP-hardness and #P-hardness of Tetris clearing (clearing an initial board using a given sequence of pieces) with the Super Rotation System (SRS), even when the pieces are limited to any two of the seven Tetris piece types. This…
We consider a card guessing game with complete feedback. An ordered deck of $n$ cards labeled $1$ up to $n$ is shelf-shuffled exactly one time. One after the other a single card is drawn from the shuffled deck. The guesser makes has guess…
In this expository article, we discuss the rank-derangement problem, which asks for the number of permutations of a deck of cards such that each card is replaced by a card of a different rank. This combinatorial problem arises in computing…
To count the number of maximum independent arrangements of $n^2$ kings on a $2n\times 2n$ chessboard, we build a $2^n \times (n+1)$ matrix whose entries are independent arrangements of $n$ kings on $2\times 2n$ rectangles. Utilizing upper…
We consider a problem, which we call secure grouping, of dividing a number of parties into some subsets (groups) in the following manner: Each party has to know the other members of his/her group, while he/she may not know anything about…