From the Wikipedia page for block sort I figured out that block sort works by dividing the initial array into small subarrays of length 16 for example, sorting all those subarrays in O(n) time, then merging all these blocks in a way I can't understand.
For example, considering an array of length 16, dividing it in 4 block, each of length 4, and sorting those blocks, we get:
10 1 8 3 4 19 20 13 14 17 8 9 12 18 7 20
10 1 8 3 ----- 4 19 20 13 ----- 14 17 8 9 ----- 12 18 7 20
1 3 8 10 ----- 4 13 19 20 ----- 8 9 14 17 ----- 7 12 18 20
Can anyone please explain me how does merge step works?
Usually merge sort goes even further and splits the array in blocks of 2. To merge, it creates a pointer to the begging of both blocks and compares their values. It picks the smaller and increments the corresponding pointer.
1 4 5 ...
^
2 3 4 ...
^
Pick 1, because its smaller, and update pointer
1 4 5 ...
^
2 3 4 ...
^
Pick 2
1 4 5 ...
^
2 3 4 ...
^
Pick 3 and so on....
These values are put on an array which is gonna be compared with another array created with the same technique. And it goes on and on merging until all the members are sorted. I'm not considering the whole lot of optimizations that you could do in a real merge algorithm.
The first thing of block sort merging is to extract buffers. That is the only thing I know a lot about, and it starts like this. Find the square root of the array's length, and find that many unique values in the beginning and end. Using either rotations or reversals, you can put them all in the beginning and end. Then, I don't know how to merge the other stuff.
I think this is a very complicated dynamic programming problem.
Two spies each have a secret number in [1..m]. To exchange numbers they agree to meet at the river and "innocently" take turns throwing stones: from a pile of n=26 identical stones, each spy in turn throws at least one stone in the river.
The only information is in the number of stones each thrown in each turn. What is the largest m can be so they are sure they can complete the exchange?
Develop a recursive formula to count. Here is the start of the table; complete it to n=26. (You should not expect a closed form.)
n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
m 1 1 1 2 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 23
Here are some hints from our professor: I suggest changing the problem to making the following table: Let R(n,m) be the range of numbers [1..R(n,m)] that A can indicate to B if they start with n stones, and both know that A has to also receive a number in [1..m] from B.
For example, if A needs no more information, R(n,1) can be computed by considering how many stones A could throw (one to n), then B thows 1 (if any remain) and A gets to decide again. The base cases R(0,1) = R(1,1) = 1, and you can write a recursive rule if you are careful at the boundaries. (You should find the Fibonacci numbers for R(n,1).)
If A needs information, then B has to send it by his or her choices, so things are a little more complicated. Here is the start of the table:
n\ m 1 2 3 4 5
0 1 0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 0 0
2 2 0 0 0 0
3 3 1 0 0 0
4 5 2 1 0 0
5 8 4 2 1 1
6 13 7 4 3 2
7 21 12 8 6 4
8 34 20 15 11 8
9 55 33 27 19 16
From the R(n,m) table, how would you recover the entries of the earlier table (the table showing m as a function of n)?
Can somebody please explain this heuristic function, for example for the following arrangement of 4x4 puzzle, whats the X-Y heuristic cost?
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
0 13 14 15
(0 indicates blank space)
As from here and here the X-Y heuristic is computed by the sum of the minimum number of column-adjacent blank swaps to get all tiles in their destination column and the minimum number of row adjacent blank swaps to get all tiles in their destination row.
So in this situation:
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
0 13 14 15
the only misplaced tiles are 13 , 14 and 15, assuming the goal state is
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 0
So in this case the we have to compute at first the number of column swaps the blank has to do to get all the tiles in the correct position. This is equivalent to 3, since the blank has to move three times to the the right column to be in the right position (and to have all the tiles in the right position)
Then we have to compute the number of row swaps the blank has to do. This is 0 thanks to the fact that all the tiles are already on the correct row.
Finally h(n) = 3 + 0 = 3 .
The third item in the FinnAPL Library is called “Cumulative maxima (⌈) of subvectors of Y indicated by X ” where X is a binary vector and Y os a vector of numbers. Here's an example of its usage:
X←1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Y←9 78 3 2 50 7 69 22
Y[A⍳⌈\A←⍋A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]]] ⍝ output 9 78 78 78 50 50 69 69
You can see that beginning from either the beginning or from any 1 value in the X array, the cumulave maximum is found for all corresponding digits in Y until another 1 is found in X. In the example given, X is divding the array into two equal parts of 4 numbers each. In the first part, 9 is the maxima until 78 is encountered, and in the second part 50 is the maxima until 69 is encountered.
That's easy enough to understand, and I could blindly use it as is, but I'd like to understand how it works, because APL idioms are essentially algorithms made up of operators and functions. To understand APL well, it's important to understand how the masters were able to weave it all together into such compact and elegant lines of code.
I find this particular idiom especially hard to understand because of the indexing nested two layers deep. So my question is, what makes this idiom tick?
This idiom can be broken down into smaller idioms, and most importantly, it contains idiom #11 from the FinnAPL Library entitled:
Grade up (⍋) for sorting subvectors of Y indicated by X
Using the same values for X and Y given in the question, here's an example of its usage:
X←1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Y←9 78 3 2 50 7 69 22
A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]] ⍝ output 4 3 1 2 6 8 5 7
As before, X is dividing the vector into two halves, and the output indicates, for each position, what digit of Y is needed to sort each of the halves. So, the 4 in the output is saying that it needs the 4th digit of Y (2) in the 1st position; the 3 indicates the 3rd digit (3) in the 2nd position; the 1 indicates the 1st digit (9) in the third position; etc. Thus, if we apply this indexing to Y, we get:
Y[A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]]] ⍝ output 2 3 9 78 7 22 50 69
In order to understand the indexing within this grade-up idiom, consider what is happening with the following:
(+\X)[A←⍋Y] ⍝ Sorted Cumulative Addition
Breaking it down step by step:
A←⍋Y ⍝ 4 3 6 1 8 5 7 2
+\X ⍝ 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2
(+\X)[A←⍋Y] ⍝ 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 SCA
A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]] ⍝ 4 3 1 2 6 8 5 7
You can see that sorted cumulative addition (SCA) of X 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 applied to A acts as a combination of compress left and compress right. All values of A that line up with a 1 are moved to the left, and those lining up with a 2 move to the right. Of course, if X had more 1s, it would be compressing and locating the compressed packets in the order indicated by the values of the SCA result. For example, if the SCA of X were like 3 3 2 1 2 2 1 1 1, you would end up with the 4 digits corresponding to the 1s, followed by the 3 digits corresponding to the 2s, and finally, the 2 digits corresponding to the 3s.
You may have noticed that I skipped the step that would show the effect of grade up ⍋:
(+\X)[A←⍋Y] ⍝ 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 SCA
⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y] ⍝ 1 2 4 8 3 5 6 7 Grade up
A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]] ⍝ 4 3 1 2 6 8 5 7
The effect of compression and rearrangement isn't accomplised by SCA alone. It effectively acts as rank, as I discussed in another post. Also in that post, I talked about how rank and index are essentially two sides of the same coin, and you can use grade up to switch between the two. Therefore, that is what is happening here: SCA is being converted to an index to apply to A, and the effect is grade-up sorted subvectors as indicated by X.
From Sorted Subvectors to Cumulative Maxima
As already described, the result of sorting the subvectors is an index, which when applied to Y, compresses the data into packets and arranges those packets according to X. The point is that it is an index, and once again, grade up is applied, which converts indexes into ranks:
⍋A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]] ⍝ 3 4 2 1 7 5 8 6
The question here is, why? Well, the next step is applying a cumulative maxima, and that really only makes sense if it is applied to values for rank which represent relative magnitude within each packet. Looking at the values, you can see that 4 is is the maxima for the first group of 4, and 8 is for the second group. Those values correspond to the input values of 78 and 69, which is what we want. It doesn't make sense (at least in this case) to apply a maxima to index values, which represent position, so the conversion to rank is necessary. Applying the cumulative maxima gives:
⌈\A←⍋A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]] ⍝ 3 4 4 4 7 7 8 8
That leaves one last step to finish the index. After doing a cumulative maxima operation, the vector values still represent rank, so they need to be converted back to index values. To do that, the index-of operator is used. It takes the value in the right argument and returns their position as found in the left argument:
A⍳⌈\A←⍋A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]] ⍝ 1 2 2 2 5 5 7 7
To make it easier to see:
3 4 2 1 7 5 8 6 left argument
3 4 4 4 7 7 8 8 right argument
1 2 2 2 5 5 7 7 result
The 4 is in the 2nd position in the left argument, so the result shows a 2 for every 4 in the right argument. The index is complete, so applying it to Y, we get the expected result:
Y[A⍳⌈\A←⍋A[⍋(+\X)[A←⍋Y]]] ⍝ 9 78 78 78 50 50 69 69
My implementation:
X←1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Y←9 78 3 2 50 7 69 22
¯1+X/⍳⍴X ⍝ position
0 4
(,¨¯1+X/⍳⍴X)↓¨⊂Y
9 78 3 2 50 7 69 22 50 7 69 22
(1↓(X,1)/⍳⍴X,1)-X/⍳⍴X ⍝ length
4 4
(,¨(1↓(X,1)/⍳⍴X,1)-X/⍳⍴X)↑¨(,¨¯1+X/⍳⍴X)↓¨⊂Y
9 78 3 2 50 7 69 22
⌈\¨(,¨(1↓(X,1)/⍳⍴X,1)-X/⍳⍴X)↑¨(,¨¯1+X/⍳⍴X)↓¨⊂Y
9 78 78 78 50 50 69 69
∊⌈\¨(,¨(1↓(X,1)/⍳⍴X,1)-X/⍳⍴X)↑¨(,¨¯1+X/⍳⍴X)↓¨⊂Y
9 78 78 78 50 50 69 69
Have a nice day.
I'm trying to solve this problem and I'm new to backtracking algorithms,
The problem is about making a pyramid like this so that a number sitting on two numbers is the sum of them. Every number in the pyramid has to be different and less than 100. Like this:
88
39 49
15 24 25
4 11 13 12
1 3 8 5 7
Any pointers on how to do this using backtracking?
Not necessarily backtracking but the property you are asking for is interestingly very similar to the Pascal Triangle property.
The Pascal Triangle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_triangle), which is used for efficient computation of binomial coefficient among other things, is a pyramid where a number is equal to the sum of the two numbers above it with the top being 1.
As you can see you are asking the opposite property where a number is the sum of the numbers below it.
1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1
1 6 15 20 15 6 1
1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1
1 8 28 56 70 56 28 8 1
For instance in the Pascal Triangle above, if you wanted the top of your pyramid to be 56, your pyramid will be a reconstruction bottom up of the Pascal Triangle starting from 56 and that will give something like:
56
21 35
6 15 20
1 5 10 10
Again that's not a backtracking solution and this might not give you a good enough solution for every single N though I thought this was an interesting approximation that was worth noting.