buGMaster's blog

By buGMaster, 12 years ago, In English

I've read this problem in the USACO Training Pages. Here's the problem description...

"**You have just won a contest where the prize is a free vacation in Canada. You must travel via air, and the cities are ordered from east to west. In addition, according to the rules, you must start at the further city west, travel only east until you reach the furthest city east, and then fly only west until you reach your starting location. In addition, you may visit no city more than once (except the starting city, of course).** Given the order of the cities, with the flights that can be done (you can only fly between certain cities, and just because you can fly from city A to city B does not mean you can fly the other direction), calculate the maximum number of cities you can visit."

USACO, itself suggests this solution to solve it:

"**However, if, instead of trying to find the path as described, it is found a different manner, then the number of states greatly decreases. Imagine having two travelers who start in the western most city. The travelers take turns traveling east, where the next traveler to move is always the western-most, but the travelers may never be at the same city, unless it is either the first or the last city. However, one of the traveler is only allowed to make "reverse flights," where he can travel from city A to city B if and only if there is a flight from city B to city A.** It's not too difficult to see that the paths of the two travelers can be combined to create a round-trip, by taking the normal traveler's path to the eastern-most city, and then taking the reverse of the other traveler's path back to the western-most city. Also, when traveler x is moved, you know that the traveler y has not yet visited any city east of traveler x except the city traveler y is current at, as otherwise traveler y must have moved once while x was west of y. Thus, the two traveler's paths are disjoint. Why this algorithm might yield the maximum number of cities is left as an exercise."

But I didn't get it!
Please describe this solution, or suggest another solution to solve.
I'm waiting for your answer. Thanks for your help!

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12 years ago, # |
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Is it full original problem description ? Constraints?

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    12 years ago, # ^ |
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    I don't think so! It is just a description mentioned in the usaco training page! I couldn't find the original one...