UVa 10874 - Segments

Summary
This is a very simple Dynamic Programming problem.

Explanation
Use the following recurrence relation

$$best(d, i) = \min((best(d+1, 0)+|value[d][0]-value[d-1][i]|+dist(d)), (best(d+1, 1)+|value[d][1]-value[d-1][i]|+dist(d)))+1$$

$$dist(d) = (value[d][1]-value[d][0])$$

Base Case:

$$best(n, i) = n-value[d-1][i]-1$$

Here we came from the ith point in depth d and now we have two choices for going to depth d+1. So, we'll pick the minimum path among them. Cost calculation of each step is a simple math.

Also, need Memoization of size N x 2.

Input
5 4 4 3 5 1 1 2 3 2 2 9 6 6 2 7 4 8 3 4 5 8 3 5 6 7 1 2 5 6 10 2 8 3 7 5 8 2 6 5 7 6 9 5 10 4 4 7 8 2 7 0

Output
18 56 66