相关论文: An Almost-Optimal Upper Bound on the Push Number o…

This paper explores special arrangements of clues in $m \times n$ Numbrix puzzles. The maximum number of clues which fails to define an $m \times n$ puzzle is demonstrated for all $m$ and $n$. In addition, a small upper bound on the minimum…

The monotone minimal perfect hash function (MMPHF) problem is the following indexing problem. Given a set $S= \{s_1,\ldots,s_n\}$ of $n$ distinct keys from a universe $U$ of size $u$, create a data structure $DS$ that answers the following…

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…

We develop value iteration-based algorithms to solve in a unified manner different classes of combinatorial zero-sum games with mean-payoff type rewards. These algorithms rely on an oracle, evaluating the dynamic programming operator up to…

There are distributed graph algorithms for finding maximal matchings and maximal independent sets in $O(\Delta + \log^* n)$ communication rounds; here $n$ is the number of nodes and $\Delta$ is the maximum degree. The lower bound by Linial…

In the popular computer game of Tetris, the player is given a sequence of tetromino pieces and must pack them into a rectangular gameboard initially occupied by a given configuration of filled squares; any completely filled row of the…

We study the problem of solving matrix games of the form $\min_{\mathbf{p}\in\Delta}\max_{\mathbf{w}\in\mathcal{W}}\mathbf{p}^{\top}A\mathbf{w}$, where $A$ is a matrix and $\Delta$ is the probability simplex. This problem encapsulates…

The Number Rotation Puzzle (NRP) is a combination puzzle in which the goal is to rearrange a scrambled rectangular grid of numbers back into order via moves that consist of rotating square blocks of numbers of fixed size. Over all possible…

In this paper we study the number $M_{m,n}$ of ways to place nonattacking pawns on an $m\times n$ chessboard. We find an upper bound for $M_{m,n}$ and analyse its asymptotic behavior. It turns out that $\lim_{m,n\to\infty}(M_{m,n})^{1/mn}$…

Consider the commonly known puzzle, given $k$ glass balls, find an optimal algorithm to determine the lowest floor of a building of $n$ floors from which a thrown glass ball will break. This puzzle was originally posed in its original form…

Several works have shown unconditional hardness (via integrality gaps) of computing equilibria using strong hierarchies of convex relaxations. Such results however only apply to the problem of computing equilibria that optimize a certain…

This paper studies lower bounds for fundamental optimization problems in the CONGEST model. We show that solving problems exactly in this model can be a hard task, by providing $\tilde{\Omega}(n^2)$ lower bounds for cornerstone problems,…

We are interested in pick-and-place style robot manipulation tasks in cluttered and confined 3D workspaces among movable objects that may be rearranged by the robot and may slide, tilt, lean or topple. A recently proposed algorithm, M4M,…

It is known that there is no EPTAS for the $m$-dimensional knapsack problem unless $W[1] = FPT$. It is true already for the case, when $m = 2$. But, an FPTAS still can exist for some other particular cases of the problem. In this note, we…

We consider the following balls-into-bins process with $n$ bins and $m$ balls: each ball is equipped with a mutually independent exponential clock of rate 1. Whenever a ball's clock rings, the ball samples a random bin and moves there if…

Consider a variant of Tetris played on a board of width $w$ and infinite height, where the pieces are axis-aligned rectangles of arbitrary integer dimensions, the pieces can only be moved before letting them drop, and a row does not…

We analyze the computational complexity of Tetris clearing (determining whether the player can clear an initial board using a given sequence of pieces) and survival (determining whether the player can avoid losing before placing all the…

We study the repeated balls-into-bins process introduced by Becchetti, Clementi, Natale, Pasquale and Posta (2019). This process starts with $m$ balls arbitrarily distributed across $n$ bins. At each round $t=1,2,\ldots$, one ball is…

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…

We improve the complexity of solving parity games (with priorities in vertices) for $d={\omega}(\log n)$ by a factor of ${\theta}(d^2)$: the best complexity known to date was $O(mdn^{1.45+\log_2(d/\log_2(n))})$, while we obtain…