Related papers: Palindromic Length and Reduction of Powers

The relationship between the length of a word and the maximum length of its unbordered factors is investigated in this paper. Consider a finite word w of length n. We call a word bordered, if it has a proper prefix which is also a suffix of…

Based on a reduction processing, we rewrite a hypergeometric term as the sum of the difference of a hypergeometric term and a reduced hypergeometric term (the reduced part, in short). We show that when the initial hypergeometric term has a…

Two finite words $u$ and $v$ are called Abelian equivalent if each letter occurs equally many times in both $u$ and $v$. The abelian closure $\mathcal{A}(\mathbf{x})$ of (the shift orbit closure of) an infinite word $\mathbf{x}$ is the set…

We generalize the familiar notion of periodicity in sequences to a new kind of pseudoperiodicity, and we prove some basic results about it. We revisit the results of a 2012 paper of Shevelev and reprove his results in a simpler and more…

We consider rational functions of the form $V(x)/U(x)$, where both $V(x)$ and $U(x)$ are polynomials over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$. Polynomials that permute the elements of a field, called {\it permutation polynomials ($PPs$)}, have…

We consider finite trees with edges labeled by letters on a finite alphabet $\varSigma$. Each pair of nodes defines a unique labeled path whose trace is a word of the free monoid $\varSigma^*$. The set of all such words defines the language…

A \emph{palindrome} is a word that reads the same forwards and backwards. A \emph{block palindrome factorization} (or \emph{BP-factorization}) is a factorization of a word into blocks that becomes palindrome if each identical block is…

We consider the set of finite random words $\mathcal A^\star$, with independent letters drawn from a finite or infinite totally ordered alphabet according to a general probability distribution. On a specific subset of $\mathcal A^\star$,…

Around the year 2007, one of the authors, Tsai, accidentally discovered a property of the number $198$ he saw on the license plate of a car. Namely, if we take $198$ and its reversal $891$, which have prime factorizations $198 = 2\cdot…

We introduce and study a complexity function on words $c_x(n),$ called \emph{cyclic complexity}, which counts the number of conjugacy classes of factors of length $n$ of an infinite word $x.$ We extend the well-known Morse-Hedlund theorem…

Let $p$ be an odd natural number $\ge 3$. Inspired by results from Euclid's {\em Elements}, we express the irrational $$y=\sqrt[p]{d+\sqrt R}, $$ whose degree is $2p$, as a polynomial function of irrationals of degrees $\le p$. In certain…

The factor complexity ${\mathcal C}_{\mathbf u}$ of a sequence ${\mathbf u} = u_0u_1u_2 \cdots$ over a finite alphabet counts the number of factors of length $n$ occurring in $\mathbf u$, i.e., ${\mathcal C}_{\mathbf u}(n) = \#{\mathcal…

We study the palindrome complexity of infinite sequences on finite alphabets, i.e., the number of palindromic factors (blocks) of given length occurring in a given sequence. We survey the known results and obtain new results for some…

The avoidability, or unavoidability of patterns in words over finite alphabets has been studied extensively. A word (pattern) over a finite set is said to be unavoidable if, for all but finitely many words, there exists a morphism mapping…

A word is said to be \emph{bordered} if it contains a non-empty proper prefix that is also a suffix. We can naturally extend this definition to pairs of non-empty words. A pair of words $(u,v)$ is said to be \emph{mutually bordered} if…

We study words that barely avoid repetitions, for several senses of "barely". A squarefree (respectively, overlap-free, cubefree) word is irreducible if removing any one of its interior letters creates a square (respectively, overlap,…

Let S be a finite set of words over an alphabet Sigma. The set S is said to be complete if every word w over the alphabet Sigma is a factor of some element of S*, i.e. w belongs to Fact(S*). Otherwise if S is not complete, we are interested…

We prove that if a uniformly recurrent infinite word contains as a factor any finite permutation of words from an infinite family, then either this word is periodic, or its complexity (that is, the number of factors) grows faster than…

Let $f_W(n)$ be the number of different factors of length $n$ appearing in $W$. A classical result of Morse and Hedlund, stated in 1938, asserts that an infinite word $W$ is ultimately periodic if and only if $f_W(n)\leq n$ for some $n\in…

We introduce and study a new complexity function in combinatorics on words, which takes into account the smallest second occurrence time of a factor of an infinite word. We characterize the eventually periodic words and the Sturmian words…