I used to see a generalized version of 1658D2 - 388535 (усложненная версия) which unfortunately I can't solve in an old Petrozavodsk contest. That is to say, given two arrays $$$a_1, \dots, a_n$$$ and $$$b_1, \dots, b_n$$$, find the least $$$x$$$ where the multiset $$${a_1 \oplus x, \dots, a_n \oplus x}$$$ and $$${b_1, \dots, b_n}$$$ are identical.

The constraint may be $$$n \leq 10^5$$$ and $$$a_i, b_i < 2^{30}$$$.

As the task somehow reappears, I think it's the best time I can ask for help.

I also appreciate who provides the exact source of the mentioned task. Thanks in advance.

I finally solved problem G of GP of Dolgoprudny (also problem 83 in New Year Contest 2018). Though there are discussions on Codeforces, they all look very abstract to me. Hence, I decided to write down a full editorial.

First, we need some definitions. For given string $$$s$$$, we write $$$\mathrm{occ}_s(p) = {i : s[i - |p| + 1: i] = p}$$$. We write $$$x \equiv y$$$ if $$$\mathrm{occ}_s(x) = \mathrm{occ}_s(y)$$$. The "$$$\equiv$$$" relation groups all non-empty substrings of $$$s$$$ into equivalence classes. We write the equivalence class where $$$x$$$ is in as $$$[x]^R$$$. We also write $$$\overleftarrow{x}$$$ for the unique longest string in $$$[x]^R$$$.

The number of states in the automaton of $$$s$$$ equals to the number of equivalence classes plus $$$1$$$. We will then compute the number of equivalence classes. By the linearity of expectation, we can compute for each string $$$p$$$, the number of strings $$$s$$$ which contains an equivalence class $$$[x]^R$$$ where $$$\overleftarrow{x} = p$$$.

For $$$\overleftarrow{x} = p$$$ to hold, two conditions should be satisfied:

1. $$$p$$$ occurs as a substring in $$$s$$$;
2. $$$[ap]^R \neq [p]^R$$$ for any character $$$a$$$.

We first compute the number of strings $$$s$$$ satisfying condition 1 solely. Then we subtract the number of strings $$$s$$$ where $$$[ap]^R = [p]^R$$$ for all $$$a$$$.

Condition 1

$$$p$$$ may end in string $$$s$$$ in positions $$$P = {|p|, |p|+1, \dots, n}$$$. Using the principle of Inclusion and Exclusion (i.e., PIE), we can alternatively compute the sum

where $$$\mathrm{count}(p, A)$$$ the number of strings $$$s$$$ where $$$p$$$ ends in positions $$$A$$$.

If we know the string $$$p$$$ in advance, this can be done by a $$$O(n^2)$$$ DP. But how if the number of possible strings $$$p$$$ can be large?

Let's introduce another notation $$$\mathrm{per}(s) = {k : s[1 : |s| - k + 1] = s[k + 1 : |s|]}$$$ for a string $$$s$$$. We notice that the above sum is determined only by the set $$$\mathrm{per}(p)$$$, not the string $$$p$$$ itself. The number of different $$$\mathrm{per}(p)$$$ is around 1 thousand when $$$|p|=40$$$. Thus, we can instead enumerate different $$$\mathrm{per}(p)$$$ and compute the desired sum.

Condition 2

For given string $$$s$$$ and pattern $$$ap$$$, we subtract from the result $$$\mathrm{occ}_s(ap) \neq \emptyset$$$ and $$$\mathrm{occ}_s(ap) = \mathrm{occ}_s(p)$$$. By PIE, the second condition boils down to the sum

Noticing that $$$\mathrm{occ}(ap) \subseteq \mathrm{occ}(p)$$$, we can sum over $$$U = X \cup Y$$$. The sum equals to

Both parts can be computed using similar DP mentioned in the previous section. The only thing to notice is that we need not the set $$$\mathrm{per}(p)$$$, but the pair $$$(\mathrm{per}(p), \mathrm{per}(ap))$$$.

I find it is unable to create new statement while editing the old one remains available.

Can somebody help?

http://main.edu.pl/en/archive/pa/2011/naj

problem: find length of shortest period after removing exactly one character from the given string.

the period of string s is the shortest string t which s is a prefix of t^k for sufficiently large k, where t^k denotes t + t + ... + t (k times).

i have already got some idea of the algorithm, is there any algorithm running in O(N) time?

thanks in advance.

The problems are all interesting and HARD!