The number of inversions of an integer composition.
This is the number of pairs $(i,j)$ such that $i < j$ and $c_i > c_j$.

The Foata bijection for compositions.
The Foata bijection $\phi$ is a bijection on the set of words whose letters are positive integers. It can be defined by induction on the size of the word:
Given a word $w_1 w_2 ... w_n$, compute the image inductively by starting with $\phi(w_1) = w_1$.
At the $i$-th step, if $\phi(w_1 w_2 ... w_i) = v_1 v_2 ... v_i$, define $\phi(w_1 w_2 ... w_i w_{i+1})$ by placing $w_{i+1}$ on the end of the word $v_1 v_2 ... v_i$ and breaking the word up into blocks as follows.

• If $w_{i+1} \geq v_i$, place a vertical line to the right of each $v_k$ for which $w_{i+1} \geq v_k$.
• If $w_{i+1} < v_i$, place a vertical line to the right of each $v_k$ for which $w_{i+1} < v_k$.

In either case, place a vertical line at the start of the word as well. Now, within each block between vertical lines, cyclically shift the entries one place to the right.
To compute $\phi([1,4,2,5,3])$, the sequence of words is

• $1$
• $|1|4 \to 14$
• $|14|2 \to 412$
• $|4|1|2|5 \to 4125$
• $|4|125|3 \to 45123.$

In total, this gives $\phi([1,4,2,5,3]) = [4,5,1,2,3]$.
This bijection sends the major index St000769The major index of a composition regarded as a word. to the number of inversions St000766The number of inversions of an integer composition..