Lets say in my company there are a number N of workers and M sectors. Each worker is currently assigned to a sector, also each worker is all willing to change to another sector.
For example:
Worker A is in sector 1 but want to go to sector 2
B is in 2 but want 3
C is in 3 but want 2
D is in 1 but want 3
and so on...
But they all must change with eachother.
A go to B position and B go to A position
or
A go to B position / B go to C position / C go to A position
I know that not everyone will change sectors, but I'm wondering if there is any specific algorithm that could find what movements will yield the maximum amount of changes.
I tought about naively swap two workers but some of them may be missing, they could all form a "loop" and no one would be left out (if possible)
I could use Monte Carlo to chain the workers and find the longest chain/loop but that would be too expensive as N and M grows
Also tought about finding the longest path in a graph using djikstra but as it looks like a NP-hard problem
Does anyone know an algorithm or how could I solve this efficiently? Or I'm trying to fly too close to the sun here?
This can be solved as a min-cost circulation problem. Construct a flow network where each sector corresponds to a node, and each worker corresponds to an arc. The capacity of each arc is 1, and the cost is −1 (i.e., we should move workers if we can). The conservation of flow constraint ensures that we can decompose the worker movements into a sum of simple cycles.
Klein's cycle canceling algorithm is not the most efficient, but it's very simple. Use (e.g.) Bellman−Ford to find a negative-cost cycle in the network, if one exists. If so, reverse the direction of each arc in the cycle, multiply the cost of each arc in the cycle by −1, and loop back to the beginning.
You could use the following observations to generate the most attractive sector changes (measured as how many workers get the change they want). In order of falling attractiveness,
Identify all circular chains of sector changes. Everybody gets the change they want.
Identify all non-circular chains of sector changes. They can be made circular at the expense of one worker not getting what s/he wants.
Revisit 1. Combine any two circular chains at the expense of two workers not getting what they want.
Instead of one optimal solution, you get a list of many more or less attractive options. You will have to put some bounds on steps 1 - 3 to keep options down to a tractable number.
I've been challenging myself to look at algorithms and try to change them in ordem to make them the fastest i can. Recently i tried an algorithm which searches for the longest sequence of any letter on a string. The naive answer looks at all letters and when the current sequence is bigger than the biggest sequence found, the new biggest become the current. Example:
With C for current sequence and M for maximum sequence, order of letters checked and variables updates goes like this:
AAAACCDDD-> A(C=1,M=1)->A(C=2,M=2)->A(C=3,M=3)->A(C=4,M=4)->C(C=1,M=4)->C(C=2,M=4)->D(C=1,M=4)->D(C=2,M=4)->D(C=3,M=4) Answer: 4 It can be faster by stopping when there is no way to get a new biggest sequence given M,the place you are in the string and the string size.
I've tried and came up with an algorithm which usually accesses less elements of the string, I think will be easier to explain like this:
Instead of jumping 1 by 1, you jump what would be necessary to have a new biggest sequence if all letters across the jump were the same. So for example after you read AAAB, you would jump 3 spots because you suppose all 3 next letters are B (AAABBBB). Of course they might not be, and that is why you now go backwards counting consecutive B's right behind your position. Your next "jump" will be lower depending on how many B's you've found. So for instance
AAABCBBBBD after the jump you are in the third B. You go backwards and find one B, backwards again and finding a C you stop. Now you already know you have a sequence of 2 so your next jump can't be of 3 -you might miss a sequence of 4 B's. So you jump 2 and get to a B. Go backwards one and find a B. The next backwards position is where you started so you know that you found a sequence of 4.
In that example it didnt have much of a difference but if you use instead a string like AAABBBBCDDECEE you can see that after you jumped from the first C to the last C you would only need to backtrack once because after seeing that the letter behind you is E you don't care anymore about what was across that jump.
I've coded both methods and that second one has been 2 to 3 times faster. Now I'm really curious to know, is there a faster way to find it?
I have been sitting on this for almost a week now. Here is the question in a PDF format.
I could only think of one idea so far but it failed. The idea was to recursively create all connected subgraphs which works in O(num_of_connected_subgraphs), but that is way too slow.
I would really appreciate someone giving my a direction. I'm inclined to think that the only way is dynamic programming but I can't seem to figure out how to do it.
OK, here is a conceptual description for the algorithm that I came up with:
Form an array of the (x,y) board map from -7 to 7 in both dimensions and place the opponents pieces on it.
Starting with the first row (lowest Y value, -N):
enumerate all possible combinations of the 2nd player's pieces on the row, eliminating only those that conflict with the opponents pieces.
for each combination on this row:
--group connected pieces into separate networks and number these
networks starting with 1, ascending
--encode the row as a vector using:
= 0 for any unoccupied or opponent position
= (1-8) for the network group that that piece/position is in.
--give each such grouping a COUNT of 1, and add it to a dictionary/hashset using the encoded vector as its key
Now, for each succeeding row, in ascending order {y=y+1}:
For every entry in the previous row's dictionary:
--If the entry has exactly 1 group, add it's COUNT to TOTAL
--enumerate all possible combinations of the 2nd player's pieces
on the current row, eliminating only those that conflict with the
opponents pieces. (change:) you should skip the initial combination
(where all entries are zero) for this step, as the step above actually
covers it. For each such combination on the current row:
+ produce a grouping vector as described above
+ compare the current row's group-vector to the previous row's
group-vector from the dictionary:
++ if there are any group-*numbers* from the previous row's
vector that are not adjacent to any gorups in the current
row's vector, *for at least one value of X*, then skip
to the next combination.
++ any groups for the current row that are adjacent to any
groups of the previous row, acquire the lowest such group
number
++ any groups for the current row that are not adjacent to
any groups of the previous row, are assigned an unused
group number
+ Re-Normalize the group-number assignments for the current-row's
combination (**) and encode the vector, giving it a COUNT equal
to the previous row-vector's COUNT
+ Add the current-row's vector to the dictionary for the current
Row, using its encoded vector as the key. If it already exists,
then add it's COUNT to the COUNT for the pre-exising entry
Finally, for every entry in the dictionary for the last row:
If the entry has exactly one group, then add it's COUNT to TOTAL
**: Re-Normalizing simply means to re-assign the group numbers so as to eliminate any permutations in the grouping pattern. Specifically, this means that new group numbers should be assigned in increasing order, from left-to-right, starting from one. So for example, if your grouping vector looked like this after grouping ot to the previous row:
2 0 5 5 0 3 0 5 0 7 ...
it should be re-mapped to this normal form:
1 0 2 2 0 3 0 2 0 4 ...
Note that as in this example, after the first row, the groupings can be discontiguous. This relationship must be preserved, so the two groups of "5"s are re-mapped to the same number ("2") in the re-normalization.
OK, a couple of notes:
A. I think that this approach is correct , but I I am really not certain, so it will definitely need some vetting, etc.
B. Although it is long, it's still pretty sketchy. Each individual step is non-trivial in itself.
C. Although there are plenty of individual optimization opportunities, the overall algorithm is still pretty complicated. It is a lot better than brute-force, but even so, my back-of-the-napkin estimate is still around (2.5 to 10)*10^11 operations for N=7.
So it's probably tractable, but still a long way off from doing 74 cases in 3 seconds. I haven't read all of the detail for Peter de Revaz's answer, but his idea of rotating the "diamond" might be workable for my algorithm. Although it would increase the complexity of the inner loop, it may drop the size of the dictionaries (and thus, the number of grouping-vectors to compare against) by as much as a 100x, though it's really hard to tell without actually trying it.
Note also that there isn't any dynamic programming here. I couldn't come up with an easy way to leverage it, so that might still be an avenue for improvement.
OK, I enumerated all possible valid grouping-vectors to get a better estimate of (C) above, which lowered it to O(3.5*10^9) for N=7. That's much better, but still about an order of magnitude over what you probably need to finish 74 tests in 3 seconds. That does depend on the tests though, if most of them are smaller than N=7, it might be able to make it.
Here is a rough sketch of an approach for this problem.
First note that the lattice points need |x|+|y| < N, which results in a diamond shape going from coordinates 0,6 to 6,0 i.e. with 7 points on each side.
If you imagine rotating this diamond by 45 degrees, you will end up with a 7*7 square lattice which may be easier to think about. (Although note that there are also intermediate 6 high columns.)
For example, for N=3 the original lattice points are:
..A..
.BCD.
EFGHI
.JKL.
..M..
Which rotate to
A D I
C H
B G L
F K
E J M
On the (possibly rotated) lattice I would attempt to solve by dynamic programming the problem of counting the number of ways of placing armies in the first x columns such that the last column is a certain string (plus a boolean flag to say whether some points have been placed yet).
The string contains a digit for each lattice point.
0 represents an empty location
1 represents an isolated point
2 represents the first of a new connected group
3 represents an intermediate in a connected group
4 represents the last in an connected group
During the algorithm the strings can represent shapes containing multiple connected groups, but we reject any transformations that leave an orphaned connected group.
When you have placed all columns you need to only count strings which have at most one connected group.
For example, the string for the first 5 columns of the shape below is:
....+ = 2
..+++ = 3
..+.. = 0
..+.+ = 1
..+.. = 0
..+++ = 3
..+++ = 4
The middle + is currently unconnected, but may become connected by a later column so still needs to be tracked. (In this diagram I am also assuming a up/down/left/right 4-connectivity. The rotated lattice should really use a diagonal connectivity but I find that a bit harder to visualise and I am not entirely sure it is still a valid approach with this connectivity.)
I appreciate that this answer is not complete (and could do with lots more pictures/explanation), but perhaps it will prompt someone else to provide a more complete solution.
I have a 2D array that holds unique integers - this represents a physical container with rows/columns - in each position there is a vial.
I know the integers that should be in the array and where they should be located.
My array however is shuffled with potentially many/all unique integers in the wrong positions.
I now need to sort the array - however this maps to a physical process and therefore I really want to reduce the number of sort steps involved due to potential human error.
Is this just a plain sort? or is there a more specific name for this scenario? Is there well known solutions?
My colleague has suggested just creating a list of swap [1][1] with [2][1] type instructions, which seems reasonable however I can't quite get my head around if the order of swaps is important.
All assistance grateful.
If you really can tell, just by looking at the vial, where it belongs, the shortest way is to take the first vial that is in the wrong place out, then put it where it belongs, take whatever was there, put it to its proper place, etc., until you happen to get the vial that belongs where you originally made a "hole". Then repeat.
Since you take out each vial at most once, and only if it is in the wrong place, I think that this is optimal with respect to physical motion.
Sorting algorithms are analysed by the number of comparisons and the number of swaps required. Since for a human operator the cost of a swap is much higher than the cost of a comparison, you want a 2D sort that minimizes the number of swaps required.
"I can't quite get my head around if the order of swaps is important."
I general yes, it is. For a simple example consider the starting list of 3 elements, X Y Z.
The result of "swap 1 with 2, then 2 with 3" is Y Z X.
The result of "swap 2 with 3, then 1 with 2" is Z X Y.
The list of swaps you come up with will probably be (at most) 1 for each element that is out of place, and will swap that element with whatever is in its correct place. So for example you might swap [0][0] with wherever it belongs. Unless the place where it belongs happens to contain the element that belongs in [0][0], then your next swap could be, again [0][0] with wherever that belongs. So certainly the order of swaps is important - this second swap is only correct because the first swap has already happened, and moved some particular element into [0][0].
If two consecutive swaps are disjoint, though, then you can reverse their order: (1 2)(3 4) is equivalent to (3 4)(1 2), where (x y) is a mathematical notation for "swap x with y".
It's a theorem that any permutation can be written as a set of disjoint cycles. This decomposition into cycles is unique apart from which element in your cycle you choose to list first, and the order the cycles are listed, both of which are irrelevant to the result. The notation (1 2 3) means "move 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 3 to 1", and is a 3-cycle. It's exactly the same as (2 3 1), but different from (1 3 2).
Depending how your human operative works, it might well be more efficient for them to carry out an n-cycle rather than an equivalent n swaps. So once you know how to sort your array (that is, you know what permutation must be performed on it to get it into order), it may be that the best thing to do is to generate that decomposition.
This is a followup to my earlier question about deciding if a hand is ready.
Knowledge of mahjong rules would be excellent, but a poker- or romme-based background is also sufficient to understand this question.
In Mahjong 14 tiles (tiles are like
cards in Poker) are arranged to 4 sets
and a pair. A straight ("123") always
uses exactly 3 tiles, not more and not
less. A set of the same kind ("111")
consists of exactly 3 tiles, too. This
leads to a sum of 3 * 4 + 2 = 14
tiles.
There are various exceptions like Kan
or Thirteen Orphans that are not
relevant here. Colors and value ranges
(1-9) are also not important for the
algorithm.
A hand consists of 13 tiles, every time it's our turn we get to pick a new tile and have to discard any tile so we stay on 13 tiles - except if we can win using the newly picked tile.
A hand that can be arranged to form 4 sets and a pair is "ready". A hand that requires only 1 tile to be exchanged is said to be "tenpai", or "1 from ready". Any other hand has a shanten-number which expresses how many tiles need to be exchanged to be in tenpai. So a hand with a shanten number of 1 needs 1 tile to be tenpai (and 2 tiles to be ready, accordingly). A hand with a shanten number of 5 needs 5 tiles to be tenpai and so on.
I'm trying to calculate the shanten number of a hand. After googling around for hours and reading multiple articles and papers on this topic, this seems to be an unsolved problem (except for the brute force approach). The closest algorithm I could find relied on chance, i.e. it was not able to detect the correct shanten number 100% of the time.
Rules
I'll explain a bit on the actual rules (simplified) and then my idea how to tackle this task. In mahjong, there are 4 colors, 3 normal ones like in card games (ace, heart, ...) that are called "man", "pin" and "sou". These colors run from 1 to 9 each and can be used to form straights as well as groups of the same kind. The forth color is called "honors" and can be used for groups of the same kind only, but not for straights. The seven honors will be called "E, S, W, N, R, G, B".
Let's look at an example of a tenpai hand: 2p, 3p, 3p, 3p, 3p, 4p, 5m, 5m, 5m, W, W, W, E. Next we pick an E. This is a complete mahjong hand (ready) and consists of a 2-4 pin street (remember, pins can be used for straights), a 3 pin triple, a 5 man triple, a W triple and an E pair.
Changing our original hand slightly to 2p, 2p, 3p, 3p, 3p, 4p, 5m, 5m, 5m, W, W, W, E, we got a hand in 1-shanten, i.e. it requires an additional tile to be tenpai. In this case, exchanging a 2p for an 3p brings us back to tenpai so by drawing a 3p and an E we win.
1p, 1p, 5p, 5p, 9p, 9p, E, E, E, S, S, W, W is a hand in 2-shanten. There is 1 completed triplet and 5 pairs. We need one pair in the end, so once we pick one of 1p, 5p, 9p, S or W we need to discard one of the other pairs. Example: We pick a 1 pin and discard an W. The hand is in 1-shanten now and looks like this: 1p, 1p, 1p, 5p, 5p, 9p, 9p, E, E, E, S, S, W. Next, we wait for either an 5p, 9p or S. Assuming we pick a 5p and discard the leftover W, we get this: 1p, 1p, 1p, 5p, 5p, 5p, 9p, 9p, E, E, E, S, S. This hand is in tenpai in can complete on either a 9 pin or an S.
To avoid drawing this text in length even more, you can read up on more example at wikipedia or using one of the various search results at google. All of them are a bit more technical though, so I hope the above description suffices.
Algorithm
As stated, I'd like to calculate the shanten number of a hand. My idea was to split the tiles into 4 groups according to their color. Next, all tiles are sorted into sets within their respective groups to we end up with either triplets, pairs or single tiles in the honor group or, additionally, streights in the 3 normal groups. Completed sets are ignored. Pairs are counted, the final number is decremented (we need 1 pair in the end). Single tiles are added to this number. Finally, we divide the number by 2 (since every time we pick a good tile that brings us closer to tenpai, we can get rid of another unwanted tile).
However, I can not prove that this algorithm is correct, and I also have trouble incorporating straights for difficult groups that contain many tiles in a close range. Every kind of idea is appreciated. I'm developing in .NET, but pseudo code or any readable language is welcome, too.
I've thought about this problem a bit more. To see the final results, skip over to the last section.
First idea: Brute Force Approach
First of all, I wrote a brute force approach. It was able to identify 3-shanten within a minute, but it was not very reliable (sometimes too a lot longer, and enumerating the whole space is impossible even for just 3-shanten).
Improvement of Brute Force Approach
One thing that came to mind was to add some intelligence to the brute force approach. The naive way is to add any of the remaining tiles, see if it produced Mahjong, and if not try the next recursively until it was found. Assuming there are about 30 different tiles left and the maximum depth is 6 (I'm not sure if a 7+-shanten hand is even possible [Edit: according to the formula developed later, the maximum possible shanten number is (13-1)*2/3 = 8]), we get (13*30)^6 possibilities, which is large (10^15 range).
However, there is no need to put every leftover tile in every position in your hand. Since every color has to be complete in itself, we can add tiles to the respective color groups and note down if the group is complete in itself. Details like having exactly 1 pair overall are not difficult to add. This way, there are max around (13*9)^6 possibilities, that is around 10^12 and more feasible.
A better solution: Modification of the existing Mahjong Checker
My next idea was to use the code I wrote early to test for Mahjong and modify it in two ways:
don't stop when an invalid hand is found but note down a missing tile
if there are multiple possible ways to use a tile, try out all of them
This should be the optimal idea, and with some heuristic added it should be the optimal algorithm. However, I found it quite difficult to implement - it is definitely possible though. I'd prefer an easier to write and maintain solution first.
An advanced approach using domain knowledge
Talking to a more experienced player, it appears there are some laws that can be used. For instance, a set of 3 tiles does never need to be broken up, as that would never decrease the shanten number. It may, however, be used in different ways (say, either for a 111 or a 123 combination).
Enumerate all possible 3-set and create a new simulation for each of them. Remove the 3-set. Now create all 2-set in the resulting hand and simulate for every tile that improves them to a 3-set. At the same time, simulate for any of the 1-sets being removed. Keep doing this until all 3- and 2-sets are gone. There should be a 1-set (that is, a single tile) be left in the end.
Learnings from implementation and final algorithm
I implemented the above algorithm. For easier understanding I wrote it down in pseudocode:
Remove completed 3-sets
If removed, return (i.e. do not simulate NOT taking the 3-set later)
Remove 2-set by looping through discarding any other tile (this creates a number of branches in the simulation)
If removed, return (same as earlier)
Use the number of left-over single tiles to calculate the shanten number
By the way, this is actually very similar to the approach I take when calculating the number myself, and obviously never to yields too high a number.
This works very well for almost all cases. However, I found that sometimes the earlier assumption ("removing already completed 3-sets is NEVER a bad idea") is wrong. Counter-example: 23566M 25667P 159S. The important part is the 25667. By removing a 567 3-set we end up with a left-over 6 tile, leading to 5-shanten. It would be better to use two of the single tiles to form 56x and 67x, leading to 4-shanten overall.
To fix, we simple have to remove the wrong optimization, leading to this code:
Remove completed 3-sets
Remove 2-set by looping through discarding any other tile
Use the number of left-over single tiles to calculate the shanten number
I believe this always accurately finds the smallest shanten number, but I don't know how to prove that. The time taken is in a "reasonable" range (on my machine 10 seconds max, usually 0 seconds).
The final point is calculating the shanten out of the number of left-over single tiles. First of all, it is obvious that the number is in the form 3*n+1 (because we started out with 14 tiles and always subtracted 3 tiles).
If there is 1 tile left, we're shanten already (we're just waiting for the final pair). With 4 tiles left, we have to discard 2 of them to form a 3-set, leaving us with a single tile again. This leads to 2 additional discards. With 7 tiles, we have 2 times 2 discards, adding 4. And so on.
This leads to the simple formula shanten_added = (number_of_singles - 1) * (2/3).
The described algorithm works well and passed all my tests, so I'm assuming it is correct. As stated, I can't prove it though.
Since the algorithm removes the most likely tiles combinations first, it kind of has a built-in optimization. Adding a simple check if (current_depth > best_shanten) then return; it does very well even for high shanten numbers.
My best guess would be an A* inspired approach. You need to find some heuristic which never overestimates the shanten number and use it to search the brute-force tree only in the regions where it is possible to get into a ready state quickly enough.
Correct algorithm sample: syanten.cpp
Recursive cut forms from hand in order: sets, pairs, incomplete forms, - and count it. In all variations. And result is minimal Shanten value of all variants:
Shanten = Min(Shanten, 8 - * 2 - - )
C# sample (rewrited from c++) can be found here (in Russian).
I've done a little bit of thinking and came up with a slightly different formula than mafu's. First of all, consider a hand (a very terrible hand):
1s 4s 6s 1m 5m 8m 9m 9m 7p 8p West East North
By using mafu's algorithm all we can do is cast out a pair (9m,9m). Then we are left with 11 singles. Now if we apply mafu's formula we get (11-1)*2/3 which is not an integer and therefore cannot be a shanten number. This is where I came up with this:
N = ( (S + 1) / 3 ) - 1
N stands for shanten number and S for score sum.
What is score? It's a number of tiles you need to make an incomplete set complete. For example, if you have (4,5) in your hand you need either 3 or 6 to make it a complete 3-set, that is, only one tile. So this incomplete pair gets score 1. Accordingly, (1,1) needs only 1 to become a 3-set. Any single tile obviously needs 2 tiles to become a 3-set and gets score 2. Any complete set of course get score 0. Note that we ignore the possibility of singles becoming pairs. Now if we try to find all of the incomplete sets in the above hand we get:
(4s,6s) (8m,9m) (7p,8p) 1s 1m 5m 9m West East North
Then we count the sum of its scores = 1*3+2*7 = 17.
Now if we apply this number to the formula above we get (17+1)/3 - 1 = 5 which means this hand is 5-shanten. It's somewhat more complicated than Alexey's and I don't have a proof but so far it seems to work for me. Note that such a hand could be parsed in the other way. For example:
(4s,6s) (9m,9m) (7p,8p) 1s 1m 5m 8m West East North
However, it still gets score sum 17 and 5-shanten according to formula. I also can't proof this and this is a little bit more complicated than Alexey's formula but also introduces scores that could be applied(?) to something else.
Take a look here: ShantenNumberCalculator. Calculate shanten really fast. And some related stuff (in japanese, but with code examples) http://cmj3.web.fc2.com
The essence of the algorithm: cut out all pairs, sets and unfinished forms in ALL possible ways, and thereby find the minimum value of the number of shanten.
The maximum value of the shanten for an ordinary hand: 8.
That is, as it were, we have the beginnings for 4 sets and one pair, but only one tile from each (total 13 - 5 = 8).
Accordingly, a pair will reduce the number of shantens by one, two (isolated from the rest) neighboring tiles (preset) will decrease the number of shantens by one,
a complete set (3 identical or 3 consecutive tiles) will reduce the number of shantens by 2, since two suitable tiles came to an isolated tile.
Shanten = 8 - Sets * 2 - Pairs - Presets
Determining whether your hand is already in tenpai sounds like a multi-knapsack problem. Greedy algorithms won't work - as Dialecticus pointed out, you'll need to consider the entire problem space.