Prefix Reversals on Binary and Ternary Strings

Cor Hurkens*, Leo Van Iersel, Judith Keijsper, Steven Kelk, Leen Stougie, John Tromp

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Given a permutation pi, the application of prefix reversal f((i)) to pi reverses the order of the first i elements of pi. The problem of sorting by prefix reversals (also known as pancake flipping), made famous by Gates and Papadimitriou (Discrete Math., 27 (1979), pp. 47-57), asks for the minimum number of prefix reversals required to sort the elements of a given permutation. In this paper we study a variant of this problem where the prefix reversals act not on permutations but on strings over a fixed size alphabet. We determine the minimum number of prefix reversals required to sort binary and ternary strings, with polynomial-time algorithms for these sorting problems as a result; demonstrate that computing the minimum prefix reversal distance between two binary strings is NP-hard; give an exact expression for the prefix reversal diameter of binary strings; and give bounds on the prefix reversal diameter of ternary strings. We also consider a weaker form of sorting called grouping (of identical symbols) and give polynomial-time algorithms for optimally grouping binary and ternary strings. A number of intriguing open problems are also discussed.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)592-611
JournalSiam Journal on Discrete Mathematics
Volume21
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2007
Externally publishedYes

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