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The computational complexity of the local postage stamp problem

Jeffrey Shallit
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Abstract

The well-studied local postage stamp problem (LPSP) is the following: given a positive integer k, a set of postive integers 1 = a1 < a2 < ... < ak and an integer h >= 1, what is the smallest positive integer which cannot be represented as a linear combination x1 a1 + ... + xk ak where x1 + ... + xk <= h and each xi is a non-negative integer? In this note we prove that LPSP is NP-hard under Turing reductions, but can be solved in polynomial time if k is fixed.

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Jeffrey Shallit. 2001-12-22. The computational complexity of the local postage stamp problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0112257

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