ICPC 2014
ICPC 2014

K. Surveillance

The International Corporation for Protection and Control (ICPC) develops efficient technology for, well, protection and control. Naturally, they are keen to have their own headquarters protected and controlled. Viewed from above, the headquarters building h...

Updated May 21, 2026
Track ICPC
Year 2014
Statement Text + PDF
TeXC++Statement textStatement PDF

Problem Statement

Formatted from the contest statement text, with sample tests broken out into copyable blocks.

Time limit 4 seconds

The International Corporation for Protection and Control (ICPC) develops efficient technology for, well, protection and control. Naturally, they are keen to have their own headquarters protected and controlled. Viewed from above, the headquarters building has the shape of a convex polygon. There are several suitable places around it where cameras can be installed to monitor the building. Each camera covers a certain range of the polygon sides (building walls), depending on its position. ICPC wants to minimize the number of cameras needed to cover the whole building.

Input

The input consists of a single test case. Its first line contains two integers n and k (3 ≤ n ≤ 106 and 1 ≤ k ≤ 106 ), where n is the number of walls and k is the number of possible places for installing cameras. Each of the remaining k lines contains two integers ai and bi (1 ≤ ai , bi ≤ n). These integers specify which walls a camera at the ith place would cover. If ai ≤ bi then the camera covers each wall j such that ai ≤ j ≤ bi . If ai > bi then the camera covers each wall j such that ai ≤ j ≤ n or 1 ≤ j ≤ bi .

Output

Display the minimal number of cameras that suffice to cover each wall of the building. The ranges covered by two cameras may overlap. If the building cannot be covered, display impossible instead.

Sample Tests

Sample 1
Sample Input
 100 7
 1 50
 50 70
 70 90
 90 40
 20 60
 60 80
 80 20
Sample Output
3
Sample 2
Sample Input
 8 2
 8 3
 5 7
Sample Output
impossible
Sample 3
Sample Input
 8 2
 8 4
 5 7
Sample Output
2

Editorial

The solution write-up is rendered from the LaTeX source, with equations kept live through MathJax.

Key Observations

  • Write the structural observations that make the problem tractable.

  • State any useful invariant, monotonicity property, graph interpretation, or combinatorial reformulation.

  • If the constraints matter, explain exactly which part of the solution they enable.

Algorithm

  1. Describe the data structures and the state maintained by the algorithm.

  2. Explain the processing order and why it is sufficient.

  3. Mention corner cases explicitly if they affect the implementation.

Correctness Proof

We prove that the algorithm returns the correct answer.

Lemma 1.

State the first key claim.

Proof.

Provide a concise proof.

Lemma 2.

State the next claim if needed.

Proof.

Provide a concise proof.

Theorem.

The algorithm outputs the correct answer for every valid input.

Proof.

Combine the lemmas and finish the argument.

Complexity Analysis

State the running time and memory usage in terms of the input size.

Implementation Notes

  • Mention any non-obvious implementation detail that is easy to get wrong.

  • Mention numeric limits, indexing conventions, or tie-breaking rules if relevant.

Code

C++ solution used for this page.

C++

Clean code view with a raw-file link when you want the original source.

Raw file
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;

namespace {

void solve() {
    // Fill in the full solution logic for the problem here.
}

}  // namespace

int main() {
    ios::sync_with_stdio(false);
    cin.tie(nullptr);

    solve();
    return 0;
}

Source Files and Assets

Raw files are still available here when you want the original TeX, C++, or statement assets.

Show raw files