This is an abstract of a survey talk on the theoretical and empirical studies that have been done over the past four decades on the Shellsort algorithm and its variants. The discussion includes: upper bounds, including linkages to number-theoretic properties of the algorithm; lower bounds on Shellsort and Shellsort-based networks; average-case results; proposed probabilistic sorting networks based on the algorithm; and a list of open problems. 1 Shellsort The basic Shellsort algorithm is among the earliest sorting methods to be discovered (by D. L. Shell in 1959 [36]) and is among the easiest to implement, as exhibited by the following C code for sorting an array a[l],..., a[r]: shellsort(itemType a[], int l, int r) { int i, j, h; itemType v;

Abstract. The classical Frobenius problem over N is to compute the largest integer g not representable as a non-negative integer linear combination of non-negative integers x1, x2,..., xk, where gcd(x1, x2,..., xk) = 1. In this paper we consider novel generalizations of the Frobenius problem to the noncommutative setting of a free monoid. Unlike the commutative case, where the bound on g is quadratic, we are able to show exponential or subexponential behavior for several analogues of g, with the precise bound depending on the particular measure chosen. 1.