A split-based incremental deterministic automata minimization algorithm

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00224-014-9588-y. La fecha de publicación corresponde a la versión First OnlineWe here study previous results due to Hopcroft and Almeida et al. to propose an incremental split-based deterministic automata minimization algorithm whose average running-time does not depend on the size of the alphabet. The experimentation carried out shows that our proposal outperforms the algorithms studied whenever the automata have more than a (quite small) number of states and symbols.García Gómez, P.; Vázquez-De-Parga Andrade, M.; Velasco, JA.; López Rodríguez, D. (2014). A split-based incremental deterministic automata minimization algorithm. Theory of Computing Systems. 1-18. doi:10.1007/s00224-014-9588-y118Hopcroft, J.E., Ullman, J.D.: Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company (1979)Watson, B.W., Daciuk, J.: An efficient incremental DFA minimization algorithm. Nat. Lang. Eng. 9(1), 49–64 (2003)Almeida, M., Moreira, N., Reis, R.: Incremental DFA minimisation. In: Domaratzki, M., Salomaa, K. (eds.) CIAA, of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 6482, pp 39–48. Springer (2010)Hopcroft, J.E.: An n ⋅ log n $n\cdot \log n$ algorithm for minimizing states in a finite automaton. Technical report, Stanford, University, Stanford (1971)Moore, E.F.: Gedanken experiments on sequential machines. In: Shannon, C.E., Mc-Carthy, J. (eds.) Automata Studies. Princeton Universty Press, Princeton (1956)Berstel, J., Boasson, L., Carton, O., Fagnot, I.: Automata: from Mathematics to Applications, chapter Minimization of automata. European Mathematical Society. (arXiv: 1010.5318v3. ) To appear.David, J.: Average complexity of Moore’s and Hopcroft’s algorithms. Theor. Comput. Sci. 417, 50–65 (2012)Almeida, M., Moreira, N., Reis, R.: Aspects of enumeration and generation with a string automata representation. In: Leung, H., Pighizzini, G. (eds.) DCFS, pp 58–69. New Mexico State University, Las Cruces (2006)Gries, D.: Describing an algorithm by Hopcroft. Acta Informatica 2, 97–109 (1973)Aho, A., Hopcroft, J.E., Ullman, J.D.: The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company (1974)Blum, N.: A O ( n log n ) $\mathcal {O}(n\log n)$ implementation of the standard method for minimizing n-state finite automata. Inf. Process. Lett. 57, 65–69 (1996)Knuutila, T.: Re-describing an algorithm by Hopcroft. Theor. Comput. Sci. 250, 333–363 (2001)Veanes, M.: Minimization of symbolic automata. Technical report, Microsoft Research, MSR-TR-2013-48 (2013)Lothaire, M.: Applied Combinatorics on Words chap. 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2005

On minimizing deterministic tree automata

We present two algorithms for minimizing deterministic frontier-to-root tree automata (dfrtas) and compare them with their string counterparts. The presentation is incremental, starting out from definitions of minimality of automata and state equivalence, in the style of earlier algorithm taxonomies by the authors. The first algorithm is the classical one, initially presented by Brainerd in the 1960s and presented (sometimes imprecisely) in standard texts on tree language theory ever since. The second algorithm is completely new. This algorithm, essentially representing the generalization to ranked trees of the string algorithm presented by Watson and Daciuk, incrementally minimizes a dfrta. As a result, intermediate results of the algorithm can be used to reduce the initial automaton’s size. This makes the algorithm useful in situations where running time is restricted (for example, in real-time applications). We also briefly sketch how a concurrent specification of the algorithm in CSP can be obtained from an existing specification for the dfa case

On minimizing deterministic tree automata

We present two algorithms for minimizing deterministic frontier-to-root tree automata (dfrtas) and compare them with their string counterparts. The presentation is incremental, starting out from definitions of minimality of automata and state equivalence, in the style of earlier algorithm taxonomies by the authors. The first algorithm is the classical one, initially presented by Brainerd in the 1960s and presented (sometimes imprecisely) in standard texts on tree language theory ever since. The second algorithm is completely new. This algorithm, essentially representing the generalization to ranked trees of the string algorithm presented by Watson and Daciuk, incrementally minimizes a dfrta. As a result, intermediate results of the algorithm can be used to reduce the initial automaton’s size. This makes the algorithm useful in situations where running time is restricted (for example, in real-time applications). We also briefly sketch how a concurrent specification of the algorithm in CSP can be obtained from an existing specification for the dfa case

CAIR: Using Formal Languages to Study Routing, Leaking, and Interception in BGP

The Internet routing protocol BGP expresses topological reachability and policy-based decisions simultaneously in path vectors. A complete view on the Internet backbone routing is given by the collection of all valid routes, which is infeasible to obtain due to information hiding of BGP, the lack of omnipresent collection points, and data complexity. Commonly, graph-based data models are used to represent the Internet topology from a given set of BGP routing tables but fall short of explaining policy contexts. As a consequence, routing anomalies such as route leaks and interception attacks cannot be explained with graphs. In this paper, we use formal languages to represent the global routing system in a rigorous model. Our CAIR framework translates BGP announcements into a finite route language that allows for the incremental construction of minimal route automata. CAIR preserves route diversity, is highly efficient, and well-suited to monitor BGP path changes in real-time. We formally derive implementable search patterns for route leaks and interception attacks. In contrast to the state-of-the-art, we can detect these incidents. In practical experiments, we analyze public BGP data over the last seven years

Building Efficient and Compact Data Structures for Simplicial Complexes

The Simplex Tree (ST) is a recently introduced data structure that can represent abstract simplicial complexes of any dimension and allows efficient implementation of a large range of basic operations on simplicial complexes. In this paper, we show how to optimally compress the Simplex Tree while retaining its functionalities. In addition, we propose two new data structures called the Maximal Simplex Tree (MxST) and the Simplex Array List (SAL). We analyze the compressed Simplex Tree, the Maximal Simplex Tree, and the Simplex Array List under various settings.Comment: An extended abstract appeared in the proceedings of SoCG 201

Regular Languages meet Prefix Sorting

Indexing strings via prefix (or suffix) sorting is, arguably, one of the most successful algorithmic techniques developed in the last decades. Can indexing be extended to languages? The main contribution of this paper is to initiate the study of the sub-class of regular languages accepted by an automaton whose states can be prefix-sorted. Starting from the recent notion of Wheeler graph [Gagie et al., TCS 2017]-which extends naturally the concept of prefix sorting to labeled graphs-we investigate the properties of Wheeler languages, that is, regular languages admitting an accepting Wheeler finite automaton. Interestingly, we characterize this family as the natural extension of regular languages endowed with the co-lexicographic ordering: when sorted, the strings belonging to a Wheeler language are partitioned into a finite number of co-lexicographic intervals, each formed by elements from a single Myhill-Nerode equivalence class. Moreover: (i) We show that every Wheeler NFA (WNFA) with $n$ states admits an equivalent Wheeler DFA (WDFA) with at most $2n-1-|\Sigma|$ states that can be computed in $O(n^3)$ time. This is in sharp contrast with general NFAs. (ii) We describe a quadratic algorithm to prefix-sort a proper superset of the WDFAs, a $O(n\log n)$-time online algorithm to sort acyclic WDFAs, and an optimal linear-time offline algorithm to sort general WDFAs. By contribution (i), our algorithms can also be used to index any WNFA at the moderate price of doubling the automaton's size. (iii) We provide a minimization theorem that characterizes the smallest WDFA recognizing the same language of any input WDFA. The corresponding constructive algorithm runs in optimal linear time in the acyclic case, and in $O(n\log n)$ time in the general case. (iv) We show how to compute the smallest WDFA equivalent to any acyclic DFA in nearly-optimal time.Comment: added minimization theorems; uploaded submitted version; New version with new results (W-MH theorem, linear determinization), added author: Giovanna D'Agostin