Volume 8 (2021): Edition 15 (November 2021)

Bishop Independence concerns determining the maximum number of bishops that can be placed on a board such that no bishop can attack any other bishop. This paper presents the solution to the bishop independence problem, determining the bishop independence number, for all sizes of boards on the surface of a square prism.

We define the queens (resp., rooks) diameter-separation number to be the minimum number of pawns for which some placement of those pawns on an n × n board produces a board with a queens graph (resp., rooks graph) with a desired diameter d. We determine these numbers for some small values of d.

In this paper we consider a scenario where there are several algorithms for solving a given problem. Each algorithm is associated with a probability of success and a cost, and there is also a penalty for failing to solve the problem. The user may run one algorithm at a time for the specified cost, or give up and pay the penalty. The probability of success may be implied by randomization in the algorithm, or by assuming a probability distribution on the input space, which lead to different variants of the problem. The goal is to minimize the expected cost of the process under the assumption that the algorithms are independent. We study several variants of this problem, and present possible solution strategies and a hardness result.

We discuss a generalization of logic puzzles in which truth-tellers and liars are allowed to deviate from their pattern in case of one particular question: “Are you guilty?”