Deleting digits

Abstract

We consider here the positive integers with respect to their unique decimal expansions, where each n ∈ ℕ is given by for some non-negative integer k and digit sequence αkαk-1 … α0. With slight abuse of notation, we also use n to denote αkαk-1 … α0. For such sequences of digits (as well as for the numbers represented by the corresponding expansions) we write x ⊲ y if x is a subsequence of y, which means that either x = y or x can be obtained from y by deleting some digits of y. For example, 514 ⊲ 352148. The main problem is as follows: Given a set S ⊂ ℕ, find the smallest possible set M ⊂ S such that for all s ∈ S there exists m ∈ M with m ⊲ s.