Related papers: Deciding Foot-sortability and Minimal 2-bounded No…

We use stack words to find a new, simple proof for the best known upper bound for the number of 3-stack sortable permutations of a given length. This is the first time that stack words are used to obtain such a result.

Sorting algorithms have attracted a great deal of attention and study, as they have numerous applications to Mathematics, Computer Science and related fields. In this thesis, we first deal with the mathematical analysis of the Quicksort…

In responding to a question on Math Stackexchange, the author formulated the problem of determining the number of strings of balls colored in most $n$ colors with a number $k$ of repeated colors. In this paper, we formulate the problem more…

There is a long list of open questions rooted in the same underlying problem: understanding the structure of bases or common bases of matroids. These conjectures suggest that matroids may possess much stronger structural properties than are…

We address the problem of the number of permutations that can be sorted by two stacks in series. We do this by first counting all such permutations of length less than 20 exactly, then using a numerical technique to obtain nineteen further…

Sorting is one of the fundamental problems in computer science. Playing a role in many processes, it has a lower complexity bound imposed by $\mathcal{O}(n\log{n})$ when executing on a sequential machine. This limit can be brought down to…

This work studies rearrangement problems involving the sorting of robots or objects in stack-like containers, which can be accessed only from one side. Two scenarios are considered: one where every robot or object needs to reach a…

Generalized sorting problem, also known as sorting with forbidden comparisons, was first introduced by Huang et al. together with a randomized algorithm which requires $\tilde O(n^{3/2})$ probes. We study this problem with additional…

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…

Classification is a central problem for dynamical systems, in particular for families that arise in a wide range of topics, like substitution subshifts. It is important to be able to distinguish whether two such subshifts are isomorphic,…

Two finite groups are said to have the same order type if for each positive integer $n$ both groups have the same number of elements of order $n$. In 1987 John G. Thompson asked if in this case the solvability of one group implies the…

Given $n$ colored balls, we want to detect if more than $\lfloor n/2\rfloor$ of them have the same color, and if so find one ball with such majority color. We are only allowed to choose two balls and compare their colors, and the goal is to…

We consider the offline sorting buffer problem. The input is a sequence of items of different types. All items must be processed one by one by a server. The server is equipped with a random-access buffer of limited capacity which can be…

A novel paradigm for sorting is introduced, based upon resetting. Using simple examples, we demonstrate that sorting is achieved by resetting the velocity component(s) or orientation of the particles, rather than position. The objects to be…

We consider first-order logics of sequences ordered by the subsequence ordering, aka sequence embedding. We show that the \Sigma_2 theory is undecidable, answering a question left open by Kuske. Regarding fragments with a bounded number of…

For any fixed surface Sigma of genus g, we give an algorithm to decide whether a graph G of girth at least five embedded in Sigma is colorable from an assignment of lists of size three in time O(|V(G)|). Furthermore, we can allow a subgraph…

If $G$ is the symmetry group of an uncolored pattern then a coloring of the pattern is semiperfect if the associated color group $H$ is a subgroup of $G$ of index 2. We give results on how to identify and enumerate all inequivalent…

The sorting operation is one of the most commonly used building blocks in computer programming. In machine learning, it is often used for robust statistics. However, seen as a function, it is piecewise linear and as a result includes many…

We describe a seriation algorithm for ranking a set of items given pairwise comparisons between these items. Intuitively, the algorithm assigns similar rankings to items that compare similarly with all others. It does so by constructing a…

We generalize the classical nuts and bolts problem to a setting where the input is a collection of $n$ nuts and $m$ bolts, and there is no promise of any matching pairs. It is not allowed to compare a nut directly with a nut or a bolt…