Assume that your computer has special hardware that finds the minimum of k (or fewer) elements in one comparison step. Your answers to this question should have n and k as parameters.

(a) Design an efficient algorithm based on Merge Sort to sort n elements using this special hardware. (This is an upper bound.)

(b) Analyze your algorithm. Get the high order term exactly. (c) Use decision trees to find a lower bound for sorting when using this special hardware.

(d) Compare your upper and lower bounds.