A signed n-permutation is a permutation on {1,2,…,n} in which each element is labelled by a positive or negative sign. Here we consider the problem of sorting signed permutations by fixed-length reversals. Indeed, limiting the transformations to reversals of length exactly k can be very restrictive, for example, (+1,+3,+2,+4,…,+n) can never be sorted to (+1,+2,+3,+4,…,+n) by 2-reversals. That is, for given two signed permutations it is not obvious whether they can be sorted to each other by k-reversals. Thus in 1996, Chen and Skiena gave the following open problem: what is the connectedness of signed permutations under fixed-length reversals? In this paper, we resolve this open problem when "fixed-length" is even, and give a characterization of the connectedness of signed n-permutations under 2l-reversal, for both linear and circular permutations.
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