Related papers: Solving Mahjong Solitaire boards with peeking
Various forms of sorting problems have been studied over the years. Recently, two kinds of sorting puzzle apps are popularized. In these puzzles, we are given a set of bins filled with colored units, balls or water, and some empty bins.…
In this paper, using the similarity method, we construct particular solutions with singularities for degenerate high-order equations. The considered equations have singularities of the first and second kind. Particular solutions are…
The theory of holographic algorithms, which are polynomial time algorithms for certain combinatorial counting problems, yields insight into the hierarchy of complexity classes. In particular, the theory produces algebraic tests for a…
We consider the chessboard pebbling problem analyzed by Chung, Graham, Morrison and Odlyzko [3]. We study the number of reachable configurations $G(k)$ and a related double sequence $G(k,m)$. Exact expressions for these are derived, and we…
We give a method to determine an explicit solution to a system of two inhomogeneous linear recursive sequences of higher order. Our approach can be used efficiently in solving certain combinatorial problems. We finish the paper by…
The problem of searching a polygonal region for an unpredictably moving intruder by a set of stationary guards, each carrying an orientable laser, is known as the Searchlight Scheduling Problem. Determining the computational complexity of…
We prove that the number of 01-fillings of a given stack polyomino (a polyomino with justified rows whose lengths form a unimodal sequence) with at most one 1 per column which do not contain a fixed-size northeast chain and a fixed-size…
We explain a highly efficient algorithm for playing the simplest type of dots and boxes endgame optimally (by which we mean "in such a way so as to maximise the number of boxes that you take"). The algorithm is sufficiently simple that it…
The purpose of this paper is to show how the problem of finding the zeros of unilateral n-order quaternionic polynomials can be solved by determining the eigen-vectors of the corresponding companion matrix. This approach, probably…
Simplicial arrangements are classical objects in discrete geometry. Their classification remains an open problem but there is a list conjectured to be complete at least for rank three. A further important class in the theory of hyperplane…
We study an iteration approach to solve the coupled algebraic Riccati equations when they appear in general two player closed-loop type Nash differential games over an infinite time horizon. Also, we propose an effective algorithm for…
Counting interior-disjoint empty convex polygons in a point set is a typical Erd\H{o}s-Szekeres-type problem. We study this problem for 4-gons. Let $P$ be a set of $n$ points in the plane and in general position. A subset $Q$ of $P$, with…
An algorithm for resolution of singularities in characteristic zero is described. It is expressed in terms of multi-ideals, that essentially are defined as a finite sequence of pairs, each one consiting of a sheaf of ideals and a positive…
The NP-hard Distinct Vectors problem asks to delete as many columns as possible from a matrix such that all rows in the resulting matrix are still pairwise distinct. Our main result is that, for binary matrices, there is a complexity…
In this paper we study a variant of the solitaire game Lights-Out, where the player's goal is to turn off a grid of lights. This variant is a two-player impartial game where the goal is to make the final valid move. This version is playable…
Number the cells of a (possibly infinite) chessboard in some way with the numbers 0, 1, 2, ... Consider the cells in order, placing a queen in a cell if and only if it would not attack any earlier queen. The problem is to determine the…
In the ordinal Matroid Secretary Problem (MSP), elements from a weighted matroid are presented in random order to an algorithm that must incrementally select a large weight independent set. However, the algorithm can only compare pairs of…
The analysis of the modular structure of networks is a major challenge in complex networks theory. The validity of the modular structure obtained is essential to confront the problem of the topology-functionality relationship. Recently,…
We consider the problem of determining the minimum number of moves needed to solve a certain one-dimensional peg puzzle. Let N be a positive integer. The puzzle apparatus consists of a block with a single row of 2N+1 equally spaced holes…
Su-Doku, a popular combinatorial puzzle, provides an excellent testbench for heuristic explorations. Several interesting questions arise from its deceptively simple set of rules. How many distinct Su-Doku grids are there? How to find a…