The sorting index of a signed permutation. A signed permutation $\sigma = [\sigma(1),\ldots,\sigma(n)]$ can be sorted $[1,\ldots,n]$ by signed transpositions in the following way: First move $\pm n$ to its position and swap the sign if needed, then $\pm (n-1), \pm (n-2)$ and so on. For example for $[2,-4,5,-1,-3]$ we have the swaps $$ [2,-4,5,-1,-3] \rightarrow [2,-4,-3,-1,5] \rightarrow [2,1,-3,4,5] \rightarrow [2,1,3,4,5] \rightarrow [1,2,3,4,5] $$ given by the signed transpositions $(3,5), (-2,4), (-3,3), (1,2)$. If $(i_1,j_1),\ldots,(i_n,j_n)$ is the decomposition of $\sigma$ obtained this way (including trivial transpositions) then the sorting index of $\sigma$ is defined as $$ \operatorname{sor}_B(\sigma) = \sum_{k=1}^{n-1} j_k - i_k - \chi(i_k < 0), $$ where $\chi(i_k < 0)$ is 1 if $i_k$ is negative and 0 otherwise. For $\sigma = [2,-4,5,-1,-3]$ we have $$ \operatorname{sor}_B(\sigma) = (5-3) + (4-(-2)-1) + (3-(-3)-1) + (2-1) = 13. $$