Abstract
The known bitonic and odd-even merging networks are reinvestigated. For both networks the following results are obtained: The input vectors sorted by the network are characterized. Those vectors are recursively balanced for some definition of balance. The set of those vectors is much larger than the set of vectors known to be sorted by the network. The output vectors obtainable by applying the network to an arbitrary input vector are also characterized. Those vectors satisfy recursive dominance for some definition of dominance.