CSNB 143 Discrete Mathematical Structures

Chapter 3 Sequence and String

Revised on 2011

OBJECTIVES Students should be able to differentiate few characteristics of sequence. Students should be able to use sequence and strings. Students should be able to concatenate string and know how to use them.

What, which, where, when

Knowledge about sequence Finite Infinite Recursive Explicit Increasing Decreasing (Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear )

 String Concatenation Subsequence

(Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear ) (Clear / Not Clear )

Sequence
A list of objects in its order. That is, taking order as an

important thing. A list in which the first one should be in front, followed by the second element, third element and so on. List might be ended after n, n N and it is named as Finite Sequence. We called n as an index for that sequence. List might have no ending value, and this is called as Infinite Sequence. Elements might be redundancy.

Ex 1:

S = 2, 4, 6, , 2n S = S1, S2, S3, Sn S1=2, S2= 4, S3=6, Sn = 2n

where

Ex 2: T = a, a, b, a, b where T1=a, T2=a, T3=b, T4=a, T5=b

 If the sequence is depending on the previous value, it is called

Recursive Sequence.

If the sequence is not depending on the previous value, in

which the value can be directly retrieved, it is called Explicit Sequence.

Ex 3: An = An-1 + 5;

A1 = 1,

n < , this is a recursive sequence

where: A2 = A1 + 5 A 3 = A2 + 5 Ex 4: An = n2 + 1; 1 n < , this is an explicit sequence where: A1 = 1 + 1 = 2 A2 = 4 + 1 = 5 A3 = 9 + 1 = 10 That is, we can get the value directly, without any dependency to previous value.

 Both recursive and explicit formula can have both finite and

infinite sequence. Ex 5: Consider all the sequences below, and identify which sequence is recursive/explicit and finite/infinite.

C1 = 5, Cn = 2Cn-1, b) D1 = 3, Dn = Dn-1 + 4 c) Sn = (-4)n, d) Tn = 92 5n,

a)

2 n 6
1 n 1 n 5

 Both sequences also can have an Increasing or Decreasing

sequence. A sequence is said to be increased if for each Sn, the value is less than Sn + 1 for all n, Sn Sn + 1 ; all n
A sequence is said to be decreased if for each Sn the value is

bigger than Sn + 1 for all n, Sn Sn + 1 ; all n

Ex 6: Determine either this sequence in increasing or decreasing.

Sn = 2(n + 1),

n 1 Xn = ()n, n 1 S = 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 13

String
Sequences or letters or other symbols that is written without

commas are also referred as strings.

An infinite string such as abababa may be regarded as

infinite sequence of a,b,a,b,a,b,a

The set corresponding to sequence is simply the set of

all distinct elements in the sequence.

E.g 1: 1,4,8,9,2 is {1,4,8,9,2}

E.g 2 : a,b,a,b,a,b,a is simply {a, b}

 A string over A set is a finite sequence of elements from A. Let A = {a, b, c}. If we let

A1 = b, A2 = a, A3 = a, A4 = c Then we obtain a string over A. The string is written baac. Since a string is a sequence, order is taken into account. For example the string baac is different from acab. Repetition in a string can be specified by superscript. For example the string bbaaac may be written b2a3c.

 The string with no element is call the null string and is

denoted as . We let set A* denote the set of all strings over A, including the null string. Ex 10: Let say A = {a, b, c, , z} Then A* = {aaaa, computer, denda, pqr, sysrq, } Or let X = {a, b }. Some elements of X* are:
a, b, baba, , b2a29ba

 That is, all finite sequence that can be build from A, contains

all words either it has any meaning or not, regardless its length.
The number of elements in any string A is called Elements

Length, denoted as |A|. Ex 11: If A = abcdez, then |A| = 26.

Concatenation
If W1 and W2 are two strings, the string consisting of W1

followed by W2 written W1. W2 is called concatenation of W1 and W2 : W1.W2 =A1A2A3AnB1B2B3Bm where W1.W2

And it is known that W1. = W1

and

.W1 = W1

Ex 12: Let say R = aabc, So, R.S = aabcdacb R. = aabc

S = dacb S.R = dacbaabc .R = aabc

Subsequence
It is quite different from what we have learn in subset A new sequence can be build from original sequence, but the

order of elements must remains. Ex 13: T = a, a, b, c, q where T1=a, T2=a, T 3=b, T4=c, T5=q

but

S = b, c is a subsequence of T R = c, b is not a subsequence of T

*Take note that the order in which b and c appears must be the

same with the original sequence.

Exercise 1. List all string on X = {0, 1}, with length 2. 2. With your own words, explain the meaning of sequence. What is the basic difference between sequence and set?