Sorting with a neural net

In this paper a three-layered perceptron is derived that exactly solves the problem of sorting n numbers. The perceptron configuration has O(n^2) nodes and can be viewed as a neural implementation of the parallel enumerative sorting algorithm developed by Preparata. Furthermore, it is shown that the problem of sorting n numbers cannot be solved exactly by a two-layered perceptron. Keywords: Sorting, Combinatorial Optimization, Neural Network, Multi-Layered Perceptron, Classification