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Lets say that you are given n sorted arrays of numbers and you need to pick one number from each array such that the minimum distance between the n chosen elements is maximized.
Example:
arrays:
[0, 500]
[100, 350]
[200]
2<=n<=10 and every array could have ~10^3-10^4 elements.
In this example the optimal solution to maximize minimum distance is pick numbers: 500, 350, 200 or 0, 200, 350 where min distance is 150 and is the maximum possible of every combination.
I am looking for an algorithm to solve this. I know that I could binary search the max min distance but I can't see how to decide is there is a solution with max min distance of at least d, in order for the binary search to work. I am thinking maybe dynamic programming could help but haven't managed to find a solution with dp.
Of course generating all combination with n elements is not efficient. I have already tried backtracking but it is slow since it tries every combination.
n ≤ 10 suggests that we can take an exponential dependence on n. Here's
an O(2n m n)-time algorithm where m is the total size of the
arrays.
The dynamic programming approach I have in mind is, for each subset of
arrays, calculate all of the pairs (maximum number, minimum distance) on
the efficient frontier, where we have to choose one number from each of
the arrays in the subset. By efficient frontier I mean that if we have
two pairs (a, b) ≠ (c, d) with a ≤ c and b ≥ d, then (c, d) is not on
the efficient frontier. We'll want to keep these frontiers sorted for
fast merges.
The base case with the empty subset is easy: there's one pair, (minimum
distance = ∞, maximum number = −∞).
For every nonempty subset of arrays in some order that extends the
inclusion order, we compute a frontier for each array in the subset,
representing the subset of solutions where that array contributes the
maximum number. Then we merge these frontiers. (Naively this costs us
another factor of log n, which maybe isn't worth the hassle to avoid
given that n ≤ 10, but we can avoid it by merging the arrays once at the
beginning to enable future merges to use bucketing.)
To construct a new frontier from a subset of arrays and another array
also involves a merge. We initialize an iterator at the start of the
frontier (i.e., least maximum number) and an iterator at the start of
the array (i.e., least number). While neither iterator is past the end,
Emit a candidate pair (min(minimum distance, array number − maximum
number), array number).
If the min was less than or equal to minimum distance, increment the
frontier iterator. If the min was less than or equal to array number
− maximum number, increment the array iterator.
Cull the candidate pairs to leave only the efficient frontier. There is
an elegant way to do this in code that is more trouble to explain.
I am going to give an algorithm that for a given distance d, will output whether it is possible to make a selection where the distance between any pair of chosen numbers is at least d. Then, you can binary-search the maximum d for which the algorithm outputs "YES", in order to find the answer to your problem.
Assume the minimum distance d be given. Here is the algorithm:
for every permutation p of size n do:
last := -infinity
ok := true
for p_i in p do:
x := take the smallest element greater than or equal to last+d in the p_i^th array (can be done efficiently with binary search).
if no such x was found; then
ok = false
break
end
last = x
done
if ok; then
return "YES"
end
done
return "NO"
So, we brute-force the order of arrays. Then, for every possible order, we use a greedy method to choose elements from each array, following the order. For example, take the example you gave:
arrays:
[0, 500]
[100, 350]
[200]
and assume d = 150. For the permutation 1 3 2, we first take 0 from the 1st array, then we find the smallest element in the 3rd array that is greater than or equal to 0+150 (it is 200), then we find the smallest element in the 2nd array which is greater than or equal to 200+150 (it is 350). Since we could find an element from every array, the algorithm outputs "YES". But for d = 200 for instance, the algorithm would output "NO" because none of the possible orderings would result in a successful selection.
The complexity for the above algorithm is O(n! * n * log(m)) where m is the maximum number of elements in an array. I believe it would be sufficient, since n is very small. (For m = 10^4, 10! * 10 * 13 ~ 5*10^8. It can be computed under a second on a modern CPU.)
Lets look at an example with optimal choices, x (horizontal arrays A, B, C, D):
A x
B b x b
C x c
D d x
Our recurrence based on range could be: let f(low, excluded) represent the maximum closest distance between two chosen elements (from arrays 1 to n) of the subset without elements in excluded, where low is the lowest chosen element. Then:
(1)
f(low, excluded) when |excluded| = n-1:
max(low)
for low in the only permitted array
(2)
f(low, excluded):
max(
min(
a - low,
f(a, excluded')
)
)
for a ≥ low, a not in excluded'
where excluded' = excluded ∪ {low's array}
We can limit a. For one thing the maximum we can achieve is
(3)
m = (highest - low) / (n - |excluded| - 1)
which means a need not go higher than low + m.
Secondly, we can store results for all f(a, excluded'), keyed by excluded' (we have 2^10 possible keys), each in a decorated binary tree ordered by a. The decoration will be the highest result achievable in the right subtree, meaning we can find the max for all f(v, excluded'), v ≥ a in logarithmic time.
The latter establishes a dominance relationship and clearly we are intetested in both a larger a and a larger f(a, excluded') so as to maximise the min function in (2). Picking an a in the middle, we can use a binary search. If we have:
a - low < max(v, excluded'), v ≥ a
where max(v, excluded') is the lookup
for a in the decorated tree
then we look to the right since max(v, excluded) indicates there's a better answer on the right, where a - low is also larger.
And if we have:
a - low ≥ max(v, excluded), v ≥ a
then we record this candidate and look to the left since to the right, the answer is fixed at max(v, excluded), given that a - low could not decrease.
In order to conduct the binary search on the range, [low, low + m] (see (3)), rather than merge and label all the arrays at the outset, we can keep them separate and compare the closest candidates to mid out of each array we are currently permitted to choose a from. (The trees have the mixed results, keyed by subset.) (The flow of this part is not completely clear to me.)
Worst case with this method, given that n = C is constant seems to be
O(C * array_length * 2^C * C * log(array_length) * log(C * array_length))
C * array_length is the iteration on low
Each low can be paired with 2^C inclusions
C * log(array_length) is the separated binary-search
And log(C * array_length) is the tree lookup
Simplifying:
= O(array_length * log^2(array_length))
although in practice, there could be many dead-end branches that exit early where a full selection wouldn't be possible.
In case, it wasn't clear, the iteration is on a fixed lowest element in the selection. In other words, we want the best f(low, excluded) for all different lows (and excludeds). For bottom-up, we would iterate from the highest value down so our results for a get stored as we iterate.
Find the only two numbers in an array where one evenly divides the other - that is, where the result of the division operation is a whole number
Input Arrays Output
5 9 2 8 8/2 = 4
9 4 7 3 9/3 = 3
3 8 6 5 6/3 = 2
The brute force approach of having nested loops has time complexity of O(n^2). Is there any better way with less time complexity?
This question is part of advent of code.
Given an array of numbers A, you can identify the denominator by multiplying all the numbers together to give E, then testing each ith element by dividing E by Ai2. If this is a whole number, you have found the denominator, as no other factors can be introduced by multiplication.
Once you have the denominator, it's a simple task to do a second, independent loop searching for the paired numerator.
This eliminates the n2 comparisons.
Why does this work? First, we have an n-2 collection of non-divisors: abcde..
To complete the array, we also have numerator x and denominator y.
However, we know that x and only x has a factor of y, so it can be expressed as yz (z being a whole remainder from the division of x by y)
When we multiply out all the numbers, we end up with xyabcde.., but as x = yz, we can also say y2zabcde..
When we loop through dividing by the squared i'th element from the array, for most of the elements we create a fraction, e.g. for a:
y2zabcde.. / a2 = y2zbcde.. / a
However, for y and y only:
y2zabcde.. / y^2 = zabcde..
Why doesn't this work? The same is true of the other numbers. There's no guarantee that a and b can't produce another common factor when multiplied. Take the example of [9, 8, 6, 4], 9 and 8 multiplied equals 72, but as they both include prime factors 2 and 3, 72 has a factor of 6, also in the array. When we multiply it all out to 1728, those combine with the original 6 so that it can divide soundly by 36.
How might this be fixed? More accurately, if y is a factor of x, then y's prime factors will uniquely be a subset of x's prime factors, so maybe things can be refined along those lines. Obtaining a prime factorization should not scale according to the size of the array, but comparing subsets would, so it's not clear to me if this is at all useful.
I think that O(n^2) is the best time complexity you can get without any assumptions on the data.
If you can't tell anything about the numbers, knowing that x and y do not divide each other tells you nothing about x and z or y and z for any x, y, z. Therefore, in the worst case you must check all pairs of numbers - equal to n Choose 2 = n*(n-1)/2 = O(n^2).
Clearly, we can get O(n * sqrt(m)), where m is the absolute value range, by listing the pairs of divisors of each element against a hash of unique values in the array. This can be more efficient than O(n^2) depending on the input.
5 9 2 8
list divisor pairs (at most sqrt m iterations per element m)
5 (1,5)
9 (1,9), (3,3)
2 (1,2)
8 (1,8), (2,4) BINGO!
If you prime factorise all the numbers in the array progressively into a tree, when we discover a completely factored number leaf while factoring another number, we know we've found the divisor.
However, given we don't know which number is the divisor, we do need to test all primes up to divisor's largest factor. The largest factor for any m-digit number is, at most, sqrt(m), while the average number of primes below any m-digit number is m / ln(m). This means we will make at most n (sqrt(m) / ln(sqrt(m)) operations with very basic factorization and no optimization.
To be a little more specific, the algorithm should keep track of four things: a common tree of explored prime factors, the original number from the array, its current partial factorization, and its position in the tree.
For each prime number, we should test all numbers in the array (repeatedly to account for repeated factors). If the number divides evenly, we a) update the partial factorization, b) add/navigate to the corresponding child to the tree, c) if the partial factorization is 1, we have found the last factor and can indicate a leaf by adding the terminating '1' child, and d) if not, we can check for other numbers having left a child '1' to indicate they are completely factored.
When we find a child '1', we can identify the other number by multiplying out the partial factorization (e.g. all the parents up the tree) and exit.
For further optimization, we can cache the factorization (both partial and full) of numbers. We can also stop checking further factors of numbers that have a unique factor, narrowing the field of candidates over time.
I have an array of 8 int, 4 positive and 4 negative.
X [10,-2,30,-4,5,-20,8,-9]
Now, let
Evaluated = a-b+c-d+e-f+g-h
where a,b..h are unique values taken from X.
I need to ensure that
Case 1. Evaluated = closest to zero.
Case 2. List out the 5 greatest possibility by solving Evaluated.
I can find the maximum value by sorting the array and assigning the max values to a,c,e and g, and the minimum values b,d,f and h. but how to find the next 4 values?
There are 8! ways of solving this equation right?
What would be the best way of determining this solution?
Ensure that negative values get positive sign and positive values get negative sign. You will be getting smallest possible value. You don't even need to sort.
One simple way of doing is this...
Loop Each Element of X
if X[i] > 0 Then X[i] = -1 * X[i]
End Loop
Add all elements of X (yes just don't think about subtracting, just add)
The result sum is the smallest possible value.
Just choose a, c, e, g as the four smallest and the rest as the largest values.
Function Small in Excel might help you.
If I understand the question correctly, you have an array of eight numbers. You want to choose four of the numbers to add, and four to subtract in order to get the smallest possible result. I would proceed as follows:
Sort the array from smallest to largest. This article describes two ways to do this. In your example, the sorted array would have [-20, -9, -4, -2, 5, 8, 10, 30].
Add The first four values in the array.
Subtract The last four values.
This will give you the smallest result possible by adding four values and subtracting the remaining values in the array of eight.
I need an algorithm for this problem:
Given a set of n natural numbers x1,x2,...,xn, a number S and k. Form the sum of k numbers picked from the set (a number can be pick many times) with sum S.
Stated differently: List every possible combination for S with Bounds: n<=256, x<=1000, k<=32
E.g.
problem instance: {1,2,5,9,11,12,14,15}, S=30, k=3
There are 4 possible combinations
S=1+14+15, 2+14+14, 5+11+15, 9+9+12.
With these bounds, it is unfeasible to use brute force but I think of dynamic programming is a good approach.
The scheme is: Table t, with t[m,v] = number of combinations of sum v formed by m numbers.
1. Initialize t[1,x(i)], for every i.
2. Then use formula t[m,v]=Sum(t[m-1,v-x(i)], every i satisfied v-x(i)>0), 2<=m<=k.
3. After obtaining t[k,S], I can trace back to find all the combinations.
The dilemma is that t[m,v] can be increase by duplicate commutative combinations e.g., t[2,16]=2 due to 16=15+1 and 1+15. Furthermore, the final result f[3,30] is large, due to 1+14+15, 1+15+14, ...,2+14+14,14+2+14,...
How to get rid of symmetric permutations? Thanks in advance.
You can get rid of permutations by imposing an ordering on the way you pick elements of x. Make your table a triple t[m, v, n] = number of combinations of sum v formed by m numbers from x1..xn. Now observe t[m, v, n] = t[m, v, n-1] + t[m-1, v-x_n, n]. This solves the permutation problem by only generating summands in reverse order from their appearance in x. So for instance it'll generate 15+14+1 and 14+14+2 but never 14+15+1.
(You probably don't need to fill out the whole table, so you should probably compute lazily; in fact, a memoized recursive function is probably what you want here.)
We've got some nonnegative numbers. We want to find the pair with maximum gcd. actually this maximum is more important than the pair!
For example if we have:
2 4 5 15
gcd(2,4)=2
gcd(2,5)=1
gcd(2,15)=1
gcd(4,5)=1
gcd(4,15)=1
gcd(5,15)=5
The answer is 5.
You can use the Euclidean Algorithm to find the GCD of two numbers.
while (b != 0)
{
int m = a % b;
a = b;
b = m;
}
return a;
If you want an alternative to the obvious algorithm, then assuming your numbers are in a bounded range, and you have plenty of memory, you can beat O(N^2) time, N being the number of values:
Create an array of a small integer type, indexes 1 to the max input. O(1)
For each value, increment the count of every element of the index which is a factor of the number (make sure you don't wraparound). O(N).
Starting at the end of the array, scan back until you find a value >= 2. O(1)
That tells you the max gcd, but doesn't tell you which pair produced it. For your example input, the computed array looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
4 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
I don't know whether this is actually any faster for the inputs you have to handle. The constant factors involved are large: the bound on your values and the time to factorise a value within that bound.
You don't have to factorise each value - you could use memoisation and/or a pregenerated list of primes. Which gives me the idea that if you are memoising the factorisation, you don't need the array:
Create an empty set of int, and a best-so-far value 1.
For each input integer:
if it's less than or equal to best-so-far, continue.
check whether it's in the set. If so, best-so-far = max(best-so-far, this-value), continue. If not:
add it to the set
repeat for all of its factors (larger than best-so-far).
Add/lookup in a set could be O(log N), although it depends what data structure you use. Each value has O(f(k)) factors, where k is the max value and I can't remember what the function f is...
The reason that you're finished with a value as soon as you encounter it in the set is that you've found a number which is a common factor of two input values. If you keep factorising, you'll only find smaller such numbers, which are not interesting.
I'm not quite sure what the best way is to repeat for the larger factors. I think in practice you might have to strike a balance: you don't want to do them quite in decreasing order because it's awkward to generate ordered factors, but you also don't want to actually find all the factors.
Even in the realms of O(N^2), you might be able to beat the use of the Euclidean algorithm:
Fully factorise each number, storing it as a sequence of exponents of primes (so for example 2 is {1}, 4 is {2}, 5 is {0, 0, 1}, 15 is {0, 1, 1}). Then you can calculate gcd(a,b) by taking the min value at each index and multiplying them back out. No idea whether this is faster than Euclid on average, but it might be. Obviously it uses a load more memory.
The optimisations I can think of is
1) start with the two biggest numbers since they are likely to have most prime factors and thus likely to have the most shared prime factors (and thus the highest GCD).
2) When calculating the GCDs of other pairs you can stop your Euclidean algorithm loop if you get below your current greatest GCD.
Off the top of my head I can't think of a way that you can work out the greatest GCD of a pair without trying to work out each pair individually (and optimise a bit as above).
Disclaimer: I've never looked at this problem before and the above is off the top of my head. There may be better ways and I may be wrong. I'm happy to discuss my thoughts in more length if anybody wants. :)
There is no O(n log n) solution to this problem in general. In fact, the worst case is O(n^2) in the number of items in the list. Consider the following set of numbers:
2^20 3^13 5^9 7^2*11^4 7^4*11^3
Only the GCD of the last two is greater than 1, but the only way to know that from looking at the GCDs is to try out every pair and notice that one of them is greater than 1.
So you're stuck with the boring brute-force try-every-pair approach, perhaps with a couple of clever optimizations to avoid doing needless work when you've already found a large GCD (while making sure that you don't miss anything).
With some constraints, e.g the numbers in the array are within a given range, say 1-1e7, it is doable in O(NlogN) / O(MAX * logMAX), where MAX is the maximum possible value in A.
Inspired from the sieve algorithm, and came across it in a Hackerrank Challenge -- there it is done for two arrays. Check their editorial.
find min(A) and max(A) - O(N)
create a binary mask, to mark which elements of A appear in the given range, for O(1) lookup; O(N) to build; O(MAX_RANGE) storage.
for every number a in the range (min(A), max(A)):
for aa = a; aa < max(A); aa += a:
if aa in A, increment a counter for aa, and compare it to current max_gcd, if counter >= 2 (i.e, you have two numbers divisible by aa);
store top two candidates for each GCD candidate.
could also ignore elements which are less than current max_gcd;
Previous answer:
Still O(N^2) -- sort the array; should eliminate some of the unnecessary comparisons;
max_gcd = 1
# assuming you want pairs of distinct elements.
sort(a) # assume in place
for ii = n - 1: -1 : 0 do
if a[ii] <= max_gcd
break
for jj = ii - 1 : -1 :0 do
if a[jj] <= max_gcd
break
current_gcd = GCD(a[ii], a[jj])
if current_gcd > max_gcd:
max_gcd = current_gcd
This should save some unnecessary computation.
There is a solution that would take O(n):
Let our numbers be a_i. First, calculate m=a_0*a_1*a_2*.... For each number a_i, calculate gcd(m/a_i, a_i). The number you are looking for is the maximum of these values.
I haven't proved that this is always true, but in your example, it works:
m=2*4*5*15=600,
max(gcd(m/2,2), gcd(m/4,4), gcd(m/5,5), gcd(m/15,15))=max(2, 2, 5, 5)=5
NOTE: This is not correct. If the number a_i has a factor p_j repeated twice, and if two other numbers also contain this factor, p_j, then you get the incorrect result p_j^2 insted of p_j. For example, for the set 3, 5, 15, 25, you get 25 as the answer instead of 5.
However, you can still use this to quickly filter out numbers. For example, in the above case, once you determine the 25, you can first do the exhaustive search for a_3=25 with gcd(a_3, a_i) to find the real maximum, 5, then filter out gcd(m/a_i, a_i), i!=3 which are less than or equal to 5 (in the example above, this filters out all others).
Added for clarification and justification:
To see why this should work, note that gcd(a_i, a_j) divides gcd(m/a_i, a_i) for all j!=i.
Let's call gcd(m/a_i, a_i) as g_i, and max(gcd(a_i, a_j),j=1..n, j!=i) as r_i. What I say above is g_i=x_i*r_i, and x_i is an integer. It is obvious that r_i <= g_i, so in n gcd operations, we get an upper bound for r_i for all i.
The above claim is not very obvious. Let's examine it a bit deeper to see why it is true: the gcd of a_i and a_j is the product of all prime factors that appear in both a_i and a_j (by definition). Now, multiply a_j with another number, b. The gcd of a_i and b*a_j is either equal to gcd(a_i, a_j), or is a multiple of it, because b*a_j contains all prime factors of a_j, and some more prime factors contributed by b, which may also be included in the factorization of a_i. In fact, gcd(a_i, b*a_j)=gcd(a_i/gcd(a_i, a_j), b)*gcd(a_i, a_j), I think. But I can't see a way to make use of this. :)
Anyhow, in our construction, m/a_i is simply a shortcut to calculate the product of all a_j, where j=1..1, j!=i. As a result, gcd(m/a_i, a_i) contains all gcd(a_i, a_j) as a factor. So, obviously, the maximum of these individual gcd results will divide g_i.
Now, the largest g_i is of particular interest to us: it is either the maximum gcd itself (if x_i is 1), or a good candidate for being one. To do that, we do another n-1 gcd operations, and calculate r_i explicitly. Then, we drop all g_j less than or equal to r_i as candidates. If we don't have any other candidate left, we are done. If not, we pick up the next largest g_k, and calculate r_k. If r_k <= r_i, we drop g_k, and repeat with another g_k'. If r_k > r_i, we filter out remaining g_j <= r_k, and repeat.
I think it is possible to construct a number set that will make this algorithm run in O(n^2) (if we fail to filter out anything), but on random number sets, I think it will quickly get rid of large chunks of candidates.
pseudocode
function getGcdMax(array[])
arrayUB=upperbound(array)
if (arrayUB<1)
error
pointerA=0
pointerB=1
gcdMax=0
do
gcdMax=MAX(gcdMax,gcd(array[pointera],array[pointerb]))
pointerB++
if (pointerB>arrayUB)
pointerA++
pointerB=pointerA+1
until (pointerB>arrayUB)
return gcdMax