tibinyte's blog

By tibinyte, 6 months ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces! new round dropping soon btw

There are ways to modify Li Chao Tree to support more powerful types of operations, some of which are already described here. This tutorial will focus on extending the aforementioned data structure to solve the following problem:

  • Operation 1: Add a new line
  • Operation 2: For a given point, find the line that yields the $$$k$$$-th minimum value at that point

We will assume, without loss of generality, that $$$k$$$ does not change during the queries. Our goal is to perform those operations in $$$O(k \cdot log C)$$$ each. Note that a simple Li Chao Tree solves our problem for $$$k=1$$$.


The Idea

Since a normal Li Chao Tree stores the best line in each node, it is natural to think that all we need to do is to keep the best $$$k$$$ lines. ( where the best line is defined as the line that gives the minimum value when evaluated at the midpoint of the segment ).

This insight, however, proves to be only halfway right, because when popping the worst line from the set we can't really tell where to push it next because it might be useful in both halves. The fix is surprisingly simple: keep $$$2 \cdot k - 1$$$ lines instead.

Why does this work?

It turns out that the worst line will always be above any of the other $$$2 \cdot k - 1$$$ lines in either half.

Visualization

Suppose it will be above $$$a$$$ lines in the first half and $$$b$$$ in the second. By the claim above, it follows that $$$a + b = 2 \cdot k - 1$$$. Thus, $$$max(a,b) \ge \lceil \frac{2 \cdot k - 1}{2} \rceil = k$$$. This essentially means that in one of the halves it can't be among the $$$k$$$ best lines since there are already $$$k$$$ lines better than it. Now, we can traverse only $$$O(logC)$$$ nodes every update.


Implementation

The overall code slightly differs from the one of a normal Li Chao Tree. To avoid an extra log factor, one could use partial sorting methods, such as nth_element in C++, which works linearly on average.

Code (C++)

Last but not least, thanks to AlexLuchianov for helping development of this trick.

UPD: here is another discussion about this problem.

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By tibinyte, history, 17 months ago, In English

Unlike other blogs, I don't have any recent event to be proud of. But still... Ask me anything!

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By tibinyte, 20 months ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces! Or, as we like to say in Romania: Sus Sus Sus, ca la Strehaia tată!

I am glad to finally invite you to participate in Codeforces Round 875 (Div. 1) and Codeforces Round 875 (Div. 2), which will start on 28.05.2023 17:35 (Московское время). In both divisions, you will be given 6 problems and 2 hours and 30 minutes to solve them.

The problems were authored and prepared by Andrei_ierdnA, Doru, Gheal, IacobTudor, LucaLucaM, RedstoneGamer22, SlavicG, Sochu, alecs, andrei_boaca, anpaio, lucaperju, valeriu and me ( tibinyte ).

I would like to thank:

  • irkstepanov for further help with logistics of organization.
  • freak93 for no morning refreshment.

Scoring Distribution

  • div 2: $$$500-750-1250-1750-2500-3000$$$

  • div 1: $$$500-1000-1750-2250-3000-3500$$$

The editorial has been published here!

And here are our winners!

# Div 1 Div 2
1 Ormlis kotrin
2 1a2b3c4 CLOCKS_PER_SEC
3 dorijanlendvaj IHatePaiu
4 tourist Lihwy
5 Radewoosh VietCek

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By tibinyte, 19 months ago, In English

To all law authorities, this is an admission of guilt.

Today I competed in Codeforces Round 870 (Div. 2) and I made the unethical move of copying the solution of problem B from some telegram channel. I was foolish to do such a dick move and would like to publicly apologise for my actions.

I would request to be disqualified ( or receive a negative rating change ) because I definitely don't deserve my +11 delta. There are lots of people who worked hard in this contest, but still got a negative rating change.

Cordially,

tibinyte

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By tibinyte, 22 months ago, In English

The Cartesian Tree is a useful concept for solving some problems which revolve mainly about thinking of the range of maximality of elements. It also provides a sort of "persistance" to the algorithm of monotonic stack, if you will. In this blog, we will learn what a Cartesian Tree is, how to construct one and solve some related problems to strengthen our understanding. Let's begin!


What is a Cartesian Tree?

Let's consider an array $$$a$$$ where all values are distinct. The Cartesian Tree for the array $$$a$$$ is a binary labeled tree build recursively from the function $$$get(l,r)$$$ which constructs our desired tree from the subarray $$$l...r$$$.

Now let's define $$$get(l,r)$$$

  • First root the tree at index $$$i$$$ such that $$$a_i = min(a_l,a_{l+1},...,a_r)$$$. Note that because all values are distinct, $$$i$$$ will always be unique.

  • The aforementioned index will become the root of the Cartesian Tree. It's left and right subtrees will be recursively generated by $$$get(l,i-1)$$$ and $$$get(i+1,r)$$$ respectively. If $$$i=r$$$ we will ignore the right subtree, if $$$i=l$$$ we will ignore the left subtree.

As an example, consider $$$a=[9,3,7,1,8,12,10,20,15,18,5]$$$. After calling $$$get(1,11)$$$, we get the following tree:

picture from here

By construction, the Cartesian Tree for an array $$$a$$$ where all values are distinct is always unique. Usually, when there can be repeating values, we will construct the Cartesian Tree in the same manner as before, but we will build it from the pairs {$$$a_i, i$$$}.

The above process can be easily simulated for building a Cartesian Tree in $$$O(nlogn)$$$ using a range minimum query.


Properties of the Cartesian Tree

  • Heap: It has a min/max heap structure
  • Corollary: Let $$$S_i$$$ be a set where $$$x \in S_i$$$ if and only if there exists $$$1 \le l \le i \le r \le n$$$ such that $$$min(l...r)=x$$$. If we traverse the path from node $$$i$$$ to the root, we will get all values in $$$S$$$ in decreasing order.
  • Inorder Completeness: Each subtree represents a range in the original array
  • Equivalence to RMQ: Consider $$$2$$$ nodes $$$(i,j)$$$. Let $$$x$$$ be their lca in the Cartesian Tree. We can show that $$$x = min(i...j)$$$.
Why?

Note that by using the last claim we can easily support range minimum query operations on the Cartesian Tree.

Also note that the second claim allows us to build a cartesian tree in $$$O(n)$$$, we can find the parent of each index using monotonic stacks.


Yet Another Array Counting Problem

Let's start with a problem authored by my friend Gheal.

This problem asks us, given an array $$$a$$$, to count the number of arrays $$$b$$$ such that for any subarray, the position of the maximum value is the same in both arrays, given that if there are multiple maximums, we take leftmost. We can easily note that this is equivalent to counting arrays $$$b$$$ for which their Cartesian Tree has the same structure as the Cartesian Tree for $$$a$$$.

And here goes the solution, let $$$dp_{i,j}$$$ hold the number of arrays $$$b$$$ that yield the same Cartesian Tree as the subtree of node $$$i$$$ and the attributed value for the node $$$i$$$ is at most $$$j$$$. We can note that our answer is $$$dp_{root,m}$$$. To calculate we either chose the value of our current node to be $$$j$$$ or rely on $$$dp_{i,j-1}$$$. Thus we can get quick tranisitons:

$$$dp_{i,j} = dp_{l,j-1} \cdot dp_{r,j} + dp_{i,j-1}$$$

An implementation of this idea can be viewed here.


Comfortably Numb

Let's build the max Cartesian Tree of the input array. Let's see what the task changes to when switching the array to its Cartesian Tree. It turns out we need, for each root to find $$$max(a_{node} \oplus x \oplus y)$$$ where $$$x$$$ is the prefix xor of some node from the left subtree and $$$y$$$ is the prefix xor of some node in the right subtree ( including the current root ). We can precompute prefix xors and iterate over the smaller subtree and the task becomes finding maximum xor pair which can be done with a trie. Since we merged smallest into largest the complexity is $$$O(n \cdot logn \cdot logM)$$$ where $$$M$$$ is the maximum value in the input.

An implementation of this idea can be viewed here


A harder problem, Vaporeon

Since the statement is only available in romanian, I will translate it for you.

Consider an array with $$$a$$$ with only distinct values ( the problem allows repeted elements, but figuring all the details about making the following solution work on repeating values is left as an exercise to the reader ).

We call $$$f(x)$$$ the depth in the Cartesian Tree of index $$$x$$$. We need to tolerate the following $$$2$$$ operations:

  • Update: $$$swap(a_i,a_{i+1})$$$

  • Query: range sum on $$$f$$$

Let's reformulate the problem a little. For each index $$$a_i$$$ we will find the largest range where $$$a_i$$$ is maximum. The depth of the Cartesian Tree of some index is now just the number of intervals that pass through this index. Let's see how we can update those intervals when tolerating a swap update.

We will keep $$$2$$$ arrays of treaps $$$l$$$ and $$$r$$$ where the treap at index $$$l_i$$$ holds all the segments that end at $$$i$$$ ( as left endpoint ) and $$$r_i$$$ keeps all segments ending at $$$i$$$ ( as right endpoint ). WLOG assume we are doing $$$swap(a_i, a_{i+1})$$$ and $$$a_i > a_{i+1}$$$. Now we will analyze how $$$l_{i+1},l_{i+2},r_i,r_{i-1}$$$ change after an update:

  • $$$l_{i+1} = \varnothing$$$

  • $$$l_{i+2} = l_{i+1} \cup l_{i+2}$$$

  • $$$r_{i-1} = r_{i-1} \cap [1,2,3,...,a_{i+1}]$$$

  • $$$r_i = r_{i-1} \setminus [1,2,3,...,a_{i+1}]$$$

With a bit of extra analyzing we can note that all these operations are doable because $$$l$$$ and $$$r$$$ are kept as treaps and we always merge smaller values with larger values. After performing all these operations, all we are left to do is update the range of $$$a_{i+1}$$$ which we can do via binary searching on a segment tree in $$$O(logn)$$$ and inserting the new range in the corresponding treaps.

Since every update we do a split and a merge on the aforementioned treaps and update a single range, the complexity will be $$$O(logn)$$$. And at the same time there are $$$O(1)$$$ modifications in $$$f$$$ so we can update our range sum data structure fast.

An implementation of this idea can be viewed here.


Constellation 3 ( JOISC 2020 )

We are given a binary matrix. It is known that each column of the binary matrix is white for $$$a_i$$$ cells and then it's just black. We are also given some points with coefficients and are asked to activate a subset of points with maximal cost such that no $$$2$$$ points can see eachother. We consider $$$2$$$ points being able to spot each other iff there exists a black reactangle containing both.

Let's say we took a star on the same Y-coordinate as "smallest" black column ("tallest" building). We can notice that this would imply a restriction of the type "from now on we are only allowed to take stars that are at most $$$a_i$$$ units tall". This is because we will always be able to see that star otherwise.

It turns out this observation is enough for a polynomial solution based on tree DP. This way, we build the min Cartesian Tree and let $$$dp_{i,j}$$$ be the maximum cost of a subset consisting only of nodes from the subtree of $$$i$$$ and my restriction forces me to only take stars at most $$$j$$$ units tall. Transitions are very easy, we can just decide weather we take a star on current column or not. As a detail, if we don't take any star, at least one of the children needs to go at most $$$a_i$$$ units tall restriction, because we would see the 2 stars because they would both pass through $$$i$$$. For a better understanding of this solution, I recommend reading my code.

To achieve a faster solution we must exploit the Cartesian Tree and reduce the problem to something else. The magic reduction uses the corollary of the heap property. Thus we can find that each star's visibility can be expressed as a path from its columns node to the root in the Cartesian Tree. What's more exciting is using the fourth propriety, one can note that $$$2$$$ stars intersect iff their paths intersect, because they can both see the minimum in their range, meaning they can see everything else.

Thus our problem is reduced to chosing some disjoint chains in a tree such their coefficient sum is maximum. Fun fact, this new problem appeared on infoarena before and can be viewed here.

To solve it we just keep in $$$dp_i$$$ the maximum coefficient sum such that all used chains are fully included in the subtree of $$$i$$$. To calculate it we consider each chain that ends in node $$$i$$$ and try to include it in our solution. We need to add all $$$dp$$$ values that are directly attatched to the used chain, which can be done using a bit or any data structure that can support sum on chains with point updates.

For finding the chains we can just use binary lifting, thus our final time complexity is $$$O(nlogn)$$$.

An implementation of this idea can be viewed here.


And last but not least, thanks to Gheal, valeriu, SlavicG for reviewing this blog.

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By tibinyte, history, 2 years ago, In English

I started coding after discovering about Leafeon.'s history in cp, so, to honor him, I made a drawing of him. Thank you Leafeon. for inspiring me to begin learning such an incredible subject.

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By tibinyte, history, 2 years ago, In English

Hello, codeforces!

In my last round, that is CodeTON Round 3, I set a problem no one could solve in the competition. It somehow displays as $$$2100$$$, which I think is not accurate? Can someone review this, please ( MikeMirzayanov ) ?

It's strange as $$$G$$$ is rated as $$$3300$$$.

UPD: fixed

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By tibinyte, history, 2 years ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces! Or, as we like to say in Romania: Nu îmi amintesc să fi adresat întrebări, Codeforces!

I am glad to finally invite you to participate in CodeTON Round 3 (Div. 1 + Div. 2, Rated, Prizes!), which will start on Nov/06/2022 17:35 (Moscow time). You will be given 8 problems and 2 hours and 30 minutes to solve them. It is greatly recommended to read all the problems, statements are short and straight to the point.

I would like to thank:

Scoring Distribution: 500-750-1250-1750-2250-2500-3250-3500

The editorial has been published here!

And here are our winners!

And here is the information from our title sponsor:

Hello, Codeforces!

We, the TON Foundation team, are pleased to support CodeTON Round 3.

The Open Network (TON) is a fully decentralized layer-1 blockchain designed to onboard billions of users to Web3.

Since July, we have been supporting Codeforces as a title sponsor. This round is another way for us to contribute to the development of the community.

The winners of CodeTON Round 3 will receive valuable prizes.

The first 1,023 participants will receive prizes in TON cryptocurrency:

  • 1st place: 1,024 TON
  • 2–3 places: 512 TON each
  • 4–7 places: 256 TON each
  • 8–15 places: 128 TON each
  • 512–1,023 places: 2 TON each

We wish you good luck at CodeTON Round 3 and hope you enjoy the contest!

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By tibinyte, 2 years ago, In English

Since goals are very important in any individual's life, I decided to set a goal for myself. The target is to set 100 problems until I quit cp.

Current progress: 40

# Date
Problem
Contest
Difficulty
Comments Feedback
1 July 2021
Mordor Trip
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Round 1
1400*
First problem I ever set. It asks you to find the number of bubble sort iterations to sort a given array Good

Bad
2 July 2021
GCD
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Round 1
1700*
This problem is a very standard problem which asks to find sum of gcds across all subarrays Good

Bad
3 July 2021
Magic Digits
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Round 1
2000*
This is a quite ok digit dp problem which asks finding the number of numbers s.t. the maximum frequency of some digit — minimum frequency of some digit = $$$k$$$, where $$$k$$$ is given Good

Bad
4 July 2021
Anagrame
N/A
1300*
Very standard problem that asks to find how many subsets of $$$a$$$ are anagrams of $$$b$$$ Good

Bad
5 July 2021
Caesar Queries
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Training round
1800*
Very standard problem about stirling numbers of the second kind Good

Bad
6 July 2021
Array GCD
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Training round
1700*
Very standard problem asking for sum of gcds across all arrays of length $$$n$$$ and values in range $$$[1,m]$$$ Good

Bad
7 August 2021
Medians
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Round 2
2000*
Problem asking for number of subarrays with given median Good

Bad
8 August 2021
Caesar Legions
Infoleague
Summer 2021
Round 2
2100*
Problem asking for number of subarrays such that if it contains a color, it must contain every color of that kind Good

Bad
9 November 2021
Charity
Infoleague
Autumn 2021
Round 2
Div 2
1600*
A simple greedy problem Good

Bad
10 November 2021
Birthday Nim
Infoleague
Autumn 2021
Round 2
Div 1
1900*
I am only a coauthor in this task. The initial problem idea was by Gheal. A quite standard problem on PIE Good

Bad
11 December 2021
Find set
Infoleague
Autumn 2021
Training round
1500*
This problem is a math problem that turned into a troll problem with partial scoring. I don't take credit for its idea, only for making it appear in a contest :clown: Good

Bad
12 December 2021
àPaPdnarG
Infoleague
Autumn 2021
Training round
2100*
Educational problem on d&c dp optimization Good

Bad
13 January 2022
The revange of GrandPaPa
Infoleague
Winter 2022
Round 1
Div 1
2300*
A nice problem, but my sqrt optimizations were just overkill since very simple solutions were using just PIE. I felt bad after finding out all my work optimizing the dp calculations was useless :( Good

Bad
14 February 2022
Mex Pairs
CodeChef
CookOff
Medium-Hard
You set the cancer dp I couldn't solve.
First and hardest problem I set on codechef
Good

Bad
15 March 2022
Sussy Rooks
CodeChef
Lunchtime
Medium
A quite simple problem about both FFT and PIE. Since I didn't know FFT when I submited this problem on codechef, I'd like to mention Um_nik for improving my initial solution Good

Bad
16 March 2022
Xor or Floor?
Infoleague
Spring 2022
Round 1
Div 1
2300*
It's a quite simple dp problem with an optimization Good

Bad
17 March 2022
Floor or xor?
Infoleague
Spring 2022
Round 1
Div 2
1900*
Quite straightforward couting problem with sieve optimization Good

Bad
18 March 2022
The Hatchet
Infoleague
Spring 2022
Round 1
Div 2
1800*
Quite straightforward problem on monotonic stack Good

Bad
19 April 2022
K0KALARU47 and CP task
CodeChef
Starters
35
Medium
Very cancer dp...
It's good to make your enemies hate you more tho...
Good

Bad
20 April 2022
Lulimpiada
CodeChef
Starters
34
Easy-Medium
I think it's one of my best easy problems Good

Bad
21 July 2022
Median Pairs
CodeChef
Lunchtime
Medium
Very similar statement to the one in Mex Pairs. Here we write an obvious dp and optimize it in a very interesting way Good

Bad
22 July 2022
Three Days Grace
Codeforces
Round #804
2600
First problem I set on codeforces. My initial solution was $$$O(vmax \cdot log^2)$$$, but thanks to valeriu, it was reduced to $$$O(vmax \cdot log)$$$. I think it's one of my best problems Good

Bad
23 November 2022
Maximum Substring
CodeTON
Round 3
800
In my opinion, it's a very good D2B problem, solution combines a simple observation with a not so trivial optimization to keep the balance Good

Bad
24 November 2022
Complementary XOR
CodeTON
Round 3
1400
I don't know why this problem was hated in the rate problem section, I think it's a good task that requires both some thinking and implementation Good

Bad
25 November 2022
Prefix GCD
CodeTON
Round 3
1800
This task was added one day before the competition. It looked a good difficulty jump from C, but the distance to E was a bit too large. I apologize for this Good

Bad
26 November 2022
Bracket cost
CodeTON
Round 3
2400
After realizing how to compute the cost in a smart and flexible way, you can easily use a BIT to solve it Good

Bad
27 November 2022
Majority
CodeTON
Round 3
2700
I think it's one of the best tasks in the contest, there are lots of solutions to it, mostly all at the same difficulty level. There also exists a $$$O(nlog^2n)$$$ solution, which I have implemented, but we used the $$$O(n^2)$$$ version to fit for $$$F$$$ position Good

Bad
28 November 2022
Doping
CodeTON
Round 3
3300
It has a hidden refference, but leaving that behind, I think it's a quite nice counting task, and the solution is very unexpected Good

Bad
29 November 2022
BinaryStringForces
CodeTON
Round 3
3500
First problem I set on codeforces that didn't have any solves during the official contest. It is supossed to be a hard problem with a quite long implementation, but looking at upsolving submissions, implementation can actually be quite short :) Good

Bad
30 March 2023
Sussy Perms
Starters 79
Medium
Finally setting on codechef again :) Yet another counting problem that almost went unsolved ( which is very surprising ). Am I too evil to ask variable mod FFT? Do people template variable mod FFT? I don't know. Orz jeroenodb first and only solve to this problem xD Good

Bad
31 May 2023
Array Merging
Codeforces Round #875
1000
A problem I created because we desperately needed a problem for D2B position. I don't think it's great but not bad either. Good

Bad
32 May 2023
The Third Grace
Codeforces Round #875
3200
A problem that was intended to be in CodeTON Round 3, but we didn't need it there so we used it here. I came up with this problem while I was in car xD Good

Bad
33 August 2023
Omida mincinoasa
Junior challenge 2023
2100*
Best statement of 2023. Find sum of $$$choose(n,i) \cdot i^k$$$, $$$n \le 10^9, k \le 5000$$$ Good

Bad
34 August 2023
Salutare Jupane
Junior challenge 2023
2300*
This problem was intended to be in CodeTON round 3 as D, but was removed few days before the competition. This version is however buffed. Good

Bad
35 October 2023
Doping2
RCPCamp 2023 Iasi day
D1C probably
This shares a similar statement to Doping, but is much easier. Good

Bad
36 December 2023
Largest Subsequence
Codeforces Round 915 (Div. 2)
1400
Initial name was Adam Lying Face :( Good

Bad
37 December 2023
Cyclic Mex
Codeforces Round 915 (Div. 2)
2000
I was expecting this to be as hard as E Good

Bad
38 December 2023
One-X
Codeforces Round 915 (Div. 2)
2400
Used to have some funny refference and a nice drawing but some magician removed both of them. Good

Bad
39 December 2023
Field Should Not Be Empty
Codeforces Round 915 (Div. 2)
2600
Was intended to be D1B in round #875. We ended up removing it because it was too hard. Good

Bad
40 December 2023
Swap N' Mex
Stelele informaticii 2023 Probably D1B~C A rejected proposal from round 875. Good

Bad

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By tibinyte, 2 years ago, In English

A — Indirect Sort

Authors: mejiamejia, Ecrade_

Solution
Code (Ecrade_)
Rate Problem

B — Maximum Substring

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

C — Complementary XOR

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

D — Count GCD

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

E — Bracket Cost

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

F — Majority

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

Challenge: Solve the problem in $$$O(nlog^2)$$$ or $$$O(nlog)$$$ ( modulo is prime )

Solution

G — Doping

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Solution 2
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

H — BinaryStringForces

Author: tibinyte

Solution
Code (tibinyte)
Rate Problem

#LeafTON

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