Open Access

The last in-tree recognition problem asks whether a given spanning tree can be derived by connecting each vertex with its rightmost left neighbor of some search ordering. In this study, we demonstrate that the last-in-tree recognition problem for Generic Search is NP-complete. We utilize this finding to strengthen a complexity result from order theory. Given a partial order π and a set of triples, the NP-complete intermezzo problem asks for a linear extension of π where each first element of a triple is not between the other two. We show that this problem remains NP-complete even when the Hasse diagram of the partial order forms a tree of bounded height. In contrast, we give an XP-algorithm for the problem when parameterized by the width of the partial order. Furthermore, we show that - under the assumption of the Exponential Time Hypothesis - the running time of this algorithm is asymptotically optimal. LIPIcs, Vol. 306, 49th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2024), pages 22:1-22:18