Unanswered Questions
7,722 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
40
votes
0answers
2k views
Is there a regular tree language in which the average height of a tree of size $n$ is neither $\Theta(n)$ nor $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$?
We define a regular tree language as in the book TATA: It is the set of trees accepted by a non-deterministic finite tree automaton (Chapter 1) or, equivalently, the set of trees generated by a ...
36
votes
1answer
2k views
Is it NP-hard to fill up bins with minimum moves?
There are $n$ bins and $m$ type of balls.
The $i$th bin has labels $a_{i,j}$ for $1\leq j\leq m$, it is the expected number of balls of type $j$.
You start with $b_j$ balls of type $j$. Each ball of ...
35
votes
0answers
501 views
Finding an $st$-path in a planar graph which is adjacent to the fewest number of faces
I am curious whether the following problems has been studied before, but wasn't able to find any papers about it:
Given a planar graph $G$, and two vertices $s$ and $t$, find an
$s$-$t$ path $P$ ...
28
votes
1answer
2k views
Longest Repeated (Scattered) Subsequence in a String
Informal Problem Statement:
Given a string, e.g. $ACCABBAB$, we want to colour some letters red and some letters blue (and some not at all), such that reading only the red letters from left to right ...
24
votes
0answers
593 views
Largest set of cocircular points
Given $n$ points with integer coordinates in the plane, determine the maximum number of points that lie on the same circle (on its circumference, not its interior).
This can be done in $O(n^3)$ ...
22
votes
0answers
695 views
Can a calculus have incremental copying and closed scopes?
A few days ago, I proposed the Abstract Calculus, a minimal untyped language that is very similar to the Lambda Calculus, except for the main difference that substitutions are ...
22
votes
1answer
902 views
Compression of domain names
I am curious as to how one might very compactly compress the domain of an arbitrary IDN hostname (as defined by RFC5890) and suspect this could become an interesting challenge. A Unicode host or ...
22
votes
0answers
486 views
Approximate minimum-weighted tree decomposition on complete graphs
Say I have a weighted undirected complete graph $G = (V, E)$. Each edge $e = (u, v, w)$ is assigned with a positive weight $w$. I want to calculate the minimum-weighted $(d, h)$-tree-decomposition. By ...
22
votes
2answers
399 views
Machines for context-free languages which gain no extra power from nondeterminism
When considering machine models of computation, the Chomsky hierarchy is normally characterised by (in order), finite automata, push-down automata, linear bound automata and Turing Machines.
For the ...
21
votes
4answers
1k views
Algorithm to test whether a language is context-free
Is there an algorithm/systematic procedure to test whether a language is context-free?
In other words, given a language specified in algebraic form (think of something like $L=\{a^n b^n a^n : n \in \...
19
votes
0answers
558 views
Complexity of deciding whether there is a winning strategy in the following game
The sum divider game for $n$ starts with the set $M_0 = \{1,\dots,n\}$. Player A chooses a number $m_1$ from $M_0 \setminus \{1\}$ and B has to choose a divider $m_2$ of $m_1$ from $M_1 = M_0 \...
19
votes
1answer
822 views
Why hasn't functional programming researched dynamic trees?
Dynamic trees play an important role in solving problems such as network flows, dynamic graphs, combinatorial problems ("Dynamic Trees in Practice" by Tarjan and Werneck) and recently merging ...
19
votes
1answer
1k views
Could min cut be easier than network flow?
Thanks to the max-flow min-cut theorem, we know that we can use any algorithm to compute a maximum flow in a network graph to compute a $(s,t)$-min-cut. Therefore, the complexity of computing a ...
18
votes
0answers
378 views
Is finding a weight-balanced tree NP-hard?
In the following, we consider binary trees where only the leaves have weights.
Let $T$ be a binary tree and $W(T)$ be the sum of the weights of its leaves.
Let $T.l$ and $T.r$ be the left child and ...
15
votes
0answers
238 views
Is the two-color leapfrog problem in P?
My question is whether a specific decision problem is in P or not. It's straightforwardly in NP. The decision problem is a specific case of the general $k$-color leapfrog problem.
I can already show ...
