A permutation is an ordered arrangement of items where order matters and no item is used more than once. The number of permutations of n items taken r at a time is calculated as nPr = n!/(n-r)!. Factorial notation, written as n!, represents the product of all positive integers down to 1. For example, 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. Permutations with duplicate items use the formula n!/(p!q!r!...) where p,q,r... represent the numbers of identical items.