Related papers: Tetris with Few Piece Types
The relationship between topology and dynamics of complex systems has motivated continuing interest from the scientific community. In the present work, we address this interesting topic from the perspective of simple games, involving two…
We study a family of sorting match puzzles on grids, which we call permutation match puzzles. In this puzzle, each row and column of a $n \times n$ grid is labeled with an ordering constraint -- ascending (A) or descending (D) -- and the…
Arithmetic puzzle games provide a controlled setting for studying difficulty in mathematical reasoning tasks, a core challenge in adaptive learning systems. We investigate the structural determinants of difficulty in a class of integer…
Boolean nets are Petri nets that permit at most one token per place. Research has approached this important subject in many ways which resulted in various different classes of boolean nets. But yet, they are only distinguished by the…
Partial order reductions have been successfully applied to model checking of concurrent systems and practical applications of the technique show nontrivial reduction in the size of the explored state space. We present a theory of partial…
We propose a new kind of sliding-block puzzle, called Gourds, where the objective is to rearrange 1 x 2 pieces on a hexagonal grid board of 2n + 1 cells with n pieces, using sliding, turning and pivoting moves. This puzzle has a single…
We study the complexity of the problem of searching for a set of patterns that separate two given sets of strings. This problem has applications in a wide variety of areas, most notably in data mining, computational biology, and in…
We investigate an approach to matroid complexity that involves describing a matroid via a list of independent sets, bases, circuits, or some other family of subsets of the ground set. The computational complexity of algorithmic problems…
Shellings of simplicial complexes have long been a useful tool in topological and algebraic combinatorics. Shellings of a complex expose a large amount of information in a helpful way, but are not easy to construct, often requiring deep…
For verifying the safety of neural networks (NNs), Fazlyab et al. (2019) introduced a semidefinite programming (SDP) approach called DeepSDP. This formulation can be viewed as the dual of the SDP relaxation for a problem formulated as a…
In the minimum constraint removal ($MCR$), there is no feasible path to move from the starting point towards the goal and, the minimum constraints should be removed in order to find a collision-free path. It has been proved that $MCR$…
Patterned self-assembly tile set synthesis PATS is the problem of finding a minimal tile set which uniquely self-assembles into a given pattern. Czeizler and Popa proved the NP-completeness of PATS and Seki showed that the PATS problem is…
In the "Game about Squares" the task is to push unit squares on an integer lattice onto corresponding dots. A square can only be moved into one given direction. When a square is pushed onto a lattice point with an arrow the direction of the…
This paper develops a Multiset Rewriting language with explicit time for the specification and analysis of Time-Sensitive Distributed Systems (TSDS). Goals are often specified using explicit time constraints. A good trace is an infinite…
Many popular puzzle and matching games have been analyzed through the lens of computational complexity. Prominent examples include Sudoku, Candy Crush, and Flood-It. A common theme among these widely played games is that their generalized…
We exactly settle the complexity of graph realization, graph rigidity, and graph global rigidity as applied to three types of graphs: "globally noncrossing" graphs, which avoid crossings in all of their configurations; matchstick graphs,…
We obtain sufficient criteria for simplicity of systems, that is, rings $R$ that are equipped with a family of additive subgroups $R_s$, for $s \in S$, where $S$ is a semigroup, satisfying $R = \sum_{s \in S} R_s$ and $R_s R_t \subseteq…
Reductions---rules that reduce input size while maintaining the ability to compute an optimal solution---are critical for developing efficient maximum independent set algorithms in both theory and practice. While several simple reductions…
We show that reconstructing a tree from order information on triples is NP-hard. This is in contrast to the case for ultra-metrics and for subtree information on quadruples which are both known to allow polynomial time reconstruction.
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…