625 research outputs found
MSO definable string transductions and two-way finite state transducers
String transductions that are definable in monadic second-order (mso) logic
(without the use of parameters) are exactly those realized by deterministic
two-way finite state transducers. Nondeterministic mso definable string
transductions (i.e., those definable with the use of parameters) correspond to
compositions of two nondeterministic two-way finite state transducers that have
the finite visit property. Both families of mso definable string transductions
are characterized in terms of Hennie machines, i.e., two-way finite state
transducers with the finite visit property that are allowed to rewrite their
input tape.Comment: 63 pages, LaTeX2e. Extended abstract presented at 26-th ICALP, 199
On the Expressive Power of 2-Stack Visibly Pushdown Automata
Visibly pushdown automata are input-driven pushdown automata that recognize
some non-regular context-free languages while preserving the nice closure and
decidability properties of finite automata. Visibly pushdown automata with
multiple stacks have been considered recently by La Torre, Madhusudan, and
Parlato, who exploit the concept of visibility further to obtain a rich
automata class that can even express properties beyond the class of
context-free languages. At the same time, their automata are closed under
boolean operations, have a decidable emptiness and inclusion problem, and enjoy
a logical characterization in terms of a monadic second-order logic over words
with an additional nesting structure. These results require a restricted
version of visibly pushdown automata with multiple stacks whose behavior can be
split up into a fixed number of phases. In this paper, we consider 2-stack
visibly pushdown automata (i.e., visibly pushdown automata with two stacks) in
their unrestricted form. We show that they are expressively equivalent to the
existential fragment of monadic second-order logic. Furthermore, it turns out
that monadic second-order quantifier alternation forms an infinite hierarchy
wrt words with multiple nestings. Combining these results, we conclude that
2-stack visibly pushdown automata are not closed under complementation.
Finally, we discuss the expressive power of B\"{u}chi 2-stack visibly pushdown
automata running on infinite (nested) words. Extending the logic by an infinity
quantifier, we can likewise establish equivalence to existential monadic
second-order logic
Expansions of MSO by cardinality relations
We study expansions of the Weak Monadic Second Order theory of (N,<) by
cardinality relations, which are predicates R(X1,...,Xn) whose truth value
depends only on the cardinality of the sets X1, ...,Xn. We first provide a
(definable) criterion for definability of a cardinality relation in (N,<), and
use it to prove that for every cardinality relation R which is not definable in
(N,<), there exists a unary cardinality relation which is definable in (N,<,R)
and not in (N,<). These results resemble Muchnik and Michaux-Villemaire
theorems for Presburger Arithmetic. We prove then that + and x are definable in
(N,<,R) for every cardinality relation R which is not definable in (N,<). This
implies undecidability of the WMSO theory of (N,<,R). We also consider the
related satisfiability problem for the class of finite orderings, namely the
question whether an MSO sentence in the language {<,R} admits a finite model M
where < is interpreted as a linear ordering, and R as the restriction of some
(fixed) cardinality relation to the domain of M. We prove that this problem is
undecidable for every cardinality relation R which is not definable in (N,<).Comment: to appear in LMC
Weighted Automata and Monadic Second Order Logic
Let S be a commutative semiring. M. Droste and P. Gastin have introduced in
2005 weighted monadic second order logic WMSOL with weights in S. They use a
syntactic fragment RMSOL of WMSOL to characterize word functions (power series)
recognizable by weighted automata, where the semantics of quantifiers is used
both as arithmetical operations and, in the boolean case, as quantification.
Already in 2001, B. Courcelle, J.Makowsky and U. Rotics have introduced a
formalism for graph parameters definable in Monadic Second order Logic, here
called MSOLEVAL with values in a ring R. Their framework can be easily adapted
to semirings S. This formalism clearly separates the logical part from the
arithmetical part and also applies to word functions.
In this paper we give two proofs that RMSOL and MSOLEVAL with values in S
have the same expressive power over words. One proof shows directly that
MSOLEVAL captures the functions recognizable by weighted automata. The other
proof shows how to translate the formalisms from one into the other.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2013, arXiv:1307.416
Weighted Logics for Nested Words and Algebraic Formal Power Series
Nested words, a model for recursive programs proposed by Alur and Madhusudan,
have recently gained much interest. In this paper we introduce quantitative
extensions and study nested word series which assign to nested words elements
of a semiring. We show that regular nested word series coincide with series
definable in weighted logics as introduced by Droste and Gastin. For this we
establish a connection between nested words and the free bisemigroup. Applying
our result, we obtain characterizations of algebraic formal power series in
terms of weighted logics. This generalizes results of Lautemann, Schwentick and
Therien on context-free languages
An Application of the Feferman-Vaught Theorem to Automata and Logics for<br> Words over an Infinite Alphabet
We show that a special case of the Feferman-Vaught composition theorem gives
rise to a natural notion of automata for finite words over an infinite
alphabet, with good closure and decidability properties, as well as several
logical characterizations. We also consider a slight extension of the
Feferman-Vaught formalism which allows to express more relations between
component values (such as equality), and prove related decidability results.
From this result we get new classes of decidable logics for words over an
infinite alphabet.Comment: 24 page
Automata with Nested Pebbles Capture First-Order Logic with Transitive Closure
String languages recognizable in (deterministic) log-space are characterized
either by two-way (deterministic) multi-head automata, or following Immerman,
by first-order logic with (deterministic) transitive closure. Here we elaborate
this result, and match the number of heads to the arity of the transitive
closure. More precisely, first-order logic with k-ary deterministic transitive
closure has the same power as deterministic automata walking on their input
with k heads, additionally using a finite set of nested pebbles. This result is
valid for strings, ordered trees, and in general for families of graphs having
a fixed automaton that can be used to traverse the nodes of each of the graphs
in the family. Other examples of such families are grids, toruses, and
rectangular mazes. For nondeterministic automata, the logic is restricted to
positive occurrences of transitive closure.
The special case of k=1 for trees, shows that single-head deterministic
tree-walking automata with nested pebbles are characterized by first-order
logic with unary deterministic transitive closure. This refines our earlier
result that placed these automata between first-order and monadic second-order
logic on trees.Comment: Paper for Logical Methods in Computer Science, 27 pages, 1 figur
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