Introduction. Consider the problem of partitioning a set N of n distinct
numbers into nonempty disjoint parts. The partition is called an open-partition if the
number of parts is not prespecified and called a p-partition if the number is specified
to be p If, furthermore a set {nl np} with P
-.=1 n n is prespecified to be the
set of sizes of the p parts, then the partition is called a shape-partition, shape referring
to the set {ni}.
Often, one encounters the problem of finding an optimal partition given a cost (of
partition) function. However, the brute force approach of comparing the costs of all
partitions is too time-consuming due to the large number of partitions. For example,
using the principle of inclusion-exclusion, the number of p-partitions can be shown to
be