This contest is exclusively for hiring, and unlike Codejam, only university graduates from Asia Pacific region are eligible to participate.

As I know:

• problems are easier than normal GCJ.
• target audience are univ students.

Yes?

I'm guessing that it makes things easier if everyone from a cluster competes against each other in the same contests, rather than having to compare people based on their performances in disjoint contests.

Though if anyone is serious about applying to work at Google, I can't see why they wouldn't do all of the contests, as well as all Codeforces, TopCoder, AtCoder, Yandex, Russian Code Cup, etc. rounds in the year before applying, because they would need a lot of practice for Google's onsite interviews anyway. That's a whole day of problem-solving and coding. There would be little opportunity to get things wrong the first time. The psychology of the situation will mean you're working at 10% of your normal performance. How much preparation time is reasonable to spare? It's a competitive exercise, so it makes sense to spare at least as much as other people would.

While nothing in the official FAQ suggests you need to compete within the "preferred schedule" to get a recruitment opportunity, I have an inkling that competing outside the "preferred schedule" alone won't get you that interview call.

A little bit of history for people not in the know: APAC was traditionally held in July-December period. For Indian and Chinese students, the first 2-3 rounds are important as this is where you have the most chance of getting an interview call (This is not a rule, it's just been correlated over the years). After that the chances are minimal.

However starting with Kickstart 2017, the schedule has been expanded to throughout the year. Naively you'd think that gives some Indian and Chinese senior students a double advantage. They just competed in APAC 2017 and now they have a chance to compete in the first few rounds of Kickstart 2017 before they graduate mid-2017.

So from what I make of it, the "preferred schedule" is Google's way of telling you that you should compete anytime you want. But that recruitment opportunity will probably present itself in the "preferred schedule" window only.

NOTE: I see that they have removed any restrictions regarding students actively enrolled in University in the APAC region, from the Official FAQ for Kickstart 2017. However, if you look at the homepage for the same, you should notice two things:

• "It's time for Code Jam's Kickstart competition! Formerly known as the APAC University Test, Kickstart isn't only bringing a new name, it's bringing even more rounds of coding quizzes -- to an even bigger audience across the Asia-Pacific region." (see bold text).
• "Be sure to review the Terms and Conditions (Note: Any student enrolled in a degree-seeking program in the Asia-Pacific region is encouraged to participate)" (see bold text)

Disclaimer: I had an onsite interview with Google India after APAC 2017 Round B.

2) You can apply for intern any time online. GCJ APAC is just another way of applying.

1) I'm guessing this is because Google also takes Winter interns and they're always hiring for full-time positions.

2) I'm having difficulties understanding the sentence. You can apply for intern during the application periods as long as you're currently enrolled as a student in an academic institution.

It would depend on interviewer. I know some friends of mine who were asked other CS subjects, especially in phone screening. But for me, luckily I was only asked about algorithm and other common sense questions.

Bertrand's_ballot_theorem

Thanks. I was going to update the blog for this but you were faster :D

I think facebook hackercup had a very similar problem.

Quite similar to "Counting Lattice Squares" from The 2013 ACM-ICPC Asia Phuket Regional Contest: link to problem

efaa*bb
ef*

should be TRUE

*aaaaabbaaa*b
b*a*b*bcca*ab

should be FALSE (not 100% sure here, but I passed small+large)

I used dp, where dp[i][j] >= 1 if you can match s1[1..i] and s2[1..j]

Maybe this-

Binary search on edge length.
For the current edge length, make a cube at one of the extreme points in the space(note that there may or may not be a star here). Count all the stars that can be included in this cube.
Now consider the farthest point in space from this chosen point. For each unincluded star, shift it's position equal to the difference of the chosen point from it's corresponding farthest point. So, now the two cubes completely overlap, after shifting some stars. If all stars are inside this cube, then we can search for a smaller edge length.

as far as i know in google codejam or apac/kickstart google don't check palgiarsm check.Correct me if i am wrong.

then why they changed their variables name even ?

i think both account is being used by same user.

Not expected from you guys this thing I thought that you were the one of the best coders. But now I know that you were mere Cheaters. Feeling sad after hearing this shame on you guys. Leave Google you are even not fit for small startups :(

Thank you for your info. I will let the people in charge of the contest know about your comment.

But you are clearly wrong this time and looks like you are trying to get upvotes . Even none of among both the cheaters thedark and code_witcher had apologized and said anything yet why did they fell so low just to get higher ranks so as to get rejected in interview rather than in the first round itself .

What will I do with up votes -_-??

And secondly I deleted the post that is my way of saying sorry and 100 clap for you how you used that thing against me like a bullshit.And what you are saying me in PM why don't you tell everyone that thing I have no objection if you will post our entire conversation without editing any of your PM to me.Also mistake is done by humans only so I corrected it and only based on one mistake you can't insult or judge about anyone. And last but not the least as said by CheaterKiller I hate cheaters (I have real story about why I hate cheaters) and inspecting cheaters are kinda funny.

Some people ranked under 200 with good resume got an email from Google indicating that they are shortlisted for the interview round.

These information is usually not public.

I managed to solve it in this way - It is not hard to realize it as an unconstrained nonlinear optimization problem:

Fortunately, there are lot of solvers available to solve this problem. I used CVXPY to solve. Here is the code:

   obj = 0
   X = Variable()
   Y = Variable()
   for _ in range(n):
      tmp = map(float, raw_input().split(' '))
      a.append(tmp)
      obj = obj + (max_elemwise(abs(tmp[0] - X), abs(tmp[1] - Y)) * tmp[2])
   objective = Minimize(obj)
   prob = Problem(objective)
   prob.solve()
   print "Case #%d: %.9f" % (test + 1, prob.value)

Obviously this is not intended way of solving. But I just wanted to share my approach.

I think(after googling) you can go from given formula to manhattan distance by rotating everything by 45 degrees, then find center there and rotate it back.

I did a 2d ternary search for x and y. (It passed!)