Related papers: A Gale-Berlekamp permutation-switching problem in …
In this work, we consider a restricted case of the well studied Sorting by Block Interchanges problem. We put an upper bound k on the length of the blocks (substrings) to be interchanged at each step. We call the problem Sorting by k-Block…
For some m \ge 4, let us color each column of the integer lattice L = Z^2 independently and uniformly into one of m colors. We do the same for the rows, independently from the columns. A point of L will be called blocked if its row and…
Lights Out is a single-player electronic handheld game from the 1990s that features a 5 by 5 grid of light-up buttons. The game begins with some lights on and others off. The goal is to turn off all lights but pressing a button changes its…
We consider an online vector balancing game where vectors $v_t$, chosen uniformly at random in $\{-1,+1\}^n$, arrive over time and a sign $x_t \in \{-1,+1\}$ must be picked immediately upon the arrival of $v_t$. The goal is to minimize the…
The $1-N$ generalized Stackelberg game (single-leader multi-follower game) is intricately intertwined with the interaction between a leader and followers (hierarchical interaction) and the interaction among followers (simultaneous…
The transmission switching problem aims to determine the optimal network topology that minimizes the operating costs of a power system. This problem is typically formulated as a mixed-integer optimization model, which involves big-M…
In this paper we formulate and study an optimal switching problem under partial information. In our model the agent/manager/investor attempts to maximize the expected reward by switching between different states/investments. However, he is…
This survey addresses pluri-periodic harmonic functions on lattices with values in a positive characteristic field. We mention, as a motivation, the game "Lights Out" following the work of Sutner, Goldwasser-Klostermeyer-Ware,…
A fairly general expression for a light beam is found as a solution of the paraxial Helmholtz equation. It is achieved by exploiting appropriately chosen complex variables which entail the separability of the equation. Next, the expression…
Classical real-time lattice simulations play an important role in understanding non-equilibrium phenomena in gauge theories and are used in particular to model the prethermal evolution of heavy-ion collisions. Due to instabilities, small…
An optimal control problem is considered for a stochastic differential equation containing a state-dependent regime switching, with a recursive cost functional. Due to the non-exponential discounting in the cost functional, the problem is…
We propose a new LMI approach to the design of optimal switching sequences for polynomial dynamical systems with state constraints. We formulate the switching design problem as an optimal control problem which is then relaxed to a linear…
We introduce the idea of an n-simplex graph and games upon simplicial complexes. We then define moves on a labeled graph and pose the problem of whether given two labelings of a graph it is possible to change one into another via these…
In "Recognizing the Maximum of a Sequence", Gilbert and Mosteller analyze a full information game where n measurements from an uniform distribution are drawn and a player (knowing n) must decide at each draw whether or not to choose that…
We consider a class of pattern matching problems where a normalising transformation is applied at every alignment. Normalised pattern matching plays a key role in fields as diverse as image processing and musical information processing…
We present a full quantum mechanical three dimensional theory describing an electromagnetic field interacting with an ensemble of identical atoms. The theory is constructed such that it describes recent experiments on light-matter quantum…
Let $\mathbb{F}$ be any field, we consider solving $Ax=b$ repeatedly for a matrix $A\in\mathbb{F}^{n\times n}$ of $m$ non-zero elements, and multiple different $b\in\mathbb{F}^{n}$. If we are given a zero forcing set of $A$ of size $k$, we…
Finding a counterfeit coin with the different weight from a set of visually identical coin using a balance, usually a two-armed balance, known as the balance question, is an intersting and inspiring question. Its variants involve…
In this work, we study a triangular variant of the Lights Out game, proposed in the 2025 Capixaba Mathematics Olympiad. We present a combinatorial description of the game, formally characterize its operations, and introduce the notion of a…
We study a new reconfiguration problem inspired by classic mechanical puzzles: a colored token is placed on each vertex of a given graph; we are also given a set of distinguished cycles on the graph. We are tasked with rearranging the…