Related papers: A path formula for the sock sorting problem
A rotor walk in a directed graph can be thought of as a deterministic version of a Markov Chain, where a pebble moves from vertex to vertex following a simple rule until a terminal vertex, or sink, is reached. The ARRIVAL problem, as…
An ordered set partition of $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ is a partition with an ordering on the parts. Let $\mathcal{OP}_{n,k}$ be the set of ordered set partitions of $[n]$ with $k$ blocks. Godbole, Goyt, Herdan and Pudwell defined…
We study a sorting procedure (run-sorting) on permutations, where runs are rearranged in lexicographic order. We describe a rather surprising bijection on permutations on length $n$, with the property that it sends the set of peak-values to…
We consider walks on a triangular domain that is a subset of the triangular lattice. We then specialise this by dividing the lattice into two directed sublattices with different weights. Our central result is an explicit formula for the…
Answering a question of Haugland, we show that the pooling problem with one pool and a bounded number of inputs can be solved in polynomial time by solving a polynomial number of linear programs of polynomial size. We also give an overview…
This paper deals with two problems about splitting fairly a path with colored vertices, where "fairly" means that each part contains almost the same amount of vertices in each color. Our first result states that it is possible to remove one…
Reducing the conditions under which a given set satisfies the stipulations of the subset sum proposition to a set of linear relationships, the question of whether a set satisfies subset sum may be answered in a polynomial number of steps by…
To make a joint decision, agents (or voters) are often required to provide their preferences as linear orders. To determine a winner, the given linear orders can be aggregated according to a voting protocol. However, in realistic settings,…
Suppose that your mother gave you n candies. You have to eat at least one candy each day. One possibility is to eat all n of them the first day. The other extreme is to make them last n days, and only eat one candy a day. Altogether, you…
We examine sorting algorithms for $n$ elements whose basic operation is comparing $t$ elements simultaneously (a $t$-comparator). We focus on algorithms that use only a single round or two rounds -- comparisons performed in the second round…
The n-way number partitioning problem, a fundamental challenge in combinatorial optimization, has significant implications for applications such as fair division and machine scheduling. Despite these problems being NP-hard, many…
Algorithms which sort lists of real numbers into ascending order have been studied for decades. They are typically based on a series of pairwise comparisons and run entirely on chip. However people routinely sort lists which depend on…
We consider a 1-machine scheduling problem where the temperature of a job rises during processing, and cools down when not being processed according to given linear heating and cooling rates. No job's temperature is allowed to rise above a…
Several cycle lexicographical orders are found to describe the relative likelihood of elements of the random walks on the symmetric group generated by the conjugacy classes of transpositions, 3-cycles, and n-cycles. Spectral analysis finds…
A recursive algorithm is constructed which finds all solutions to a class of Diophantine equations connected to the problem of determining ordered n-tuples of positive integers satisfying the property that their sum is equal to their…
Matching is a method of the design of experiments. If we had an even number of patients and wanted to form pairs of patients such that their ages, for example, in each pair be as close as possible, we would use nonbipartite matching. Not…
Casting is a manufacturing process where liquid material is poured into a mold having the shape of a desired product. After the material solidifies, the product is removed from the mold. We study the case where the mold is made of a single…
Stochastic dynamic matching problems have recently gained attention in the stochastic-modeling community due to their diverse applications, such as supply-chain management and kidney exchange programs. In this paper, we study a matching…
We consider the distribution of free path lengths, or the distance between consecutive bounces of random particles, in an n-dimensional rectangular box. If each particle travels a distance R, then, as R tends to infinity the free path…
An ordinal pattern for a finite sequence of real numbers is a permutation that records the relative positions in the sequence. For random walks with steps drawn uniformly from $[-1,1]$, we show an ordinal pattern occurs with probability…