Related papers: Prefix reversals on binary and ternary strings
In this paper we study several variations of the \emph{pancake flipping problem}, which is also well known as the problem of \emph{sorting by prefix reversals}. We consider the variations in the sorting process by adding with prefix…
Pancake flipping, a famous open problem in computer science, can be formalised as the problem of sorting a permutation of positive integers using as few prefix reversals as possible. In that context, a prefix reversal of length k reverses…
The genome rearrangement problem computes the minimum number of operations that are required to sort all elements of a permutation. A block-interchange operation exchanges two blocks of a permutation which are not necessarily adjacent and…
The pancake problem is concerned with sorting a permutation (a stack of pancakes of different diameter) using only prefix reversals (spatula flips). Although the problem description belies simplicity, an exact formula for the maximum number…
The "pancake problem" asks how many prefix reversals are sufficient to sort any permutation $\pi \in \mathcal{S}_k$ to the identity. We write $f(k)$ to denote this quantity. The best known bounds are that $\frac{15}{14}k -O(1) \le f(k)\le…
Perfect sorting by reversals, a problem originating in computational genomics, is the process of sorting a signed permutation to either the identity or to the reversed identity permutation, by a sequence of reversals that do not break any…
Sorting a permutation by reversals is a famous problem in genome rearrangements. Since 1997, quite some biological evidence were found that in many genomes the reversed regions are usually flanked by a pair of inverted repeats. This type of…
Motivated by applications in polymer-based data storage, we study the problem of reconstructing a string from part of its composition multiset. We give a full description of the structure of the strings that cannot be uniquely reconstructed…
A number of fields, including the study of genome rearrangements and the design of interconnection networks, deal with the connected problems of sorting permutations in "as few moves as possible", using a given set of allowed operations, or…
Motivated by mass-spectrometry protein sequencing, we consider a simply-stated problem of reconstructing a string from the multiset of its substring compositions. We show that all strings of length 7, one less than a prime, or one less than…
Motivated by studies of data retrieval in polymer-based storage systems, we consider the problem of reconstructing a multiset of binary strings that have the same length and the same weight from the compositions of their prefixes and…
We give a positive answer to a question raised by Davis et al. ({\em Discrete Mathematics} 341, 2018), concerning permutations with the same pinnacle set. Given $\pi\in S_n$, a {\em pinnacle} of $\pi$ is an element $\pi_i$ ($i\neq 1,n$)…
We consider the problem of upper bounding the number of circular transpositions needed to sort a permutation. It is well known that any permutation can be sorted using at most $n(n-1)/2$ adjacent transpositions. We show that, if we allow…
In the context of the genome rearrangement problem, we analyze two well known models, namely the reversal and the prefix reversal models, by exploiting the connection with the notion of permutation pattern. More specifically, for any $k$,…
A sequence of reversals that takes a signed permutation to the identity is perfect if at no step a common interval is broken. Determining a parsimonious perfect sequence of reversals that sorts a signed permutation is NP-hard. Here we show…
We initiate the study of sorting permutations using prefix block-interchanges, which exchange any prefix of a permutation with another non-intersecting interval. The goal is to transform a given permutation into the identity permutation…
We study a twist on the classic secretary problem, which we term the secretary ranking problem: elements from an ordered set arrive in random order and instead of picking the maximum element, the algorithm is asked to assign a rank, or…
We consider the problem of determining the maximum number of moves required to sort a permutation of $[n]$ using cut-and-paste operations, in which a segment is cut out and then pasted into the remaining string, possibly reversed. We give…
We explore various techniques to compress a permutation $\pi$ over n integers, taking advantage of ordered subsequences in $\pi$, while supporting its application $\pi$(i) and the application of its inverse $\pi^{-1}(i)$ in small time. Our…
Pancake Flipping is the problem of sorting a stack of pancakes of different sizes (that is, a permutation), when the only allowed operation is to insert a spatula anywhere in the stack and to flip the pancakes above it (that is, to perform…