561 research outputs found
Small NFAs from Regular Expressions: Some Experimental Results
Regular expressions (res), because of their succinctness and clear syntax,
are the common choice to represent regular languages. However, efficient
pattern matching or word recognition depend on the size of the equivalent
nondeterministic finite automata (NFA). We present the implementation of
several algorithms for constructing small epsilon-free NFAss from res within
the FAdo system, and a comparison of regular expression measures and NFA sizes
based on experimental results obtained from uniform random generated res. For
this analysis, nonredundant res and reduced res in star normal form were
considered.Comment: Proceedings of 6th Conference on Computability in Europe (CIE 2010),
pages 194-203, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal, June/July 201
Syntactic Monoids in a Category
The syntactic monoid of a language is generalized to the level of a symmetric
monoidal closed category D. This allows for a uniform treatment of several
notions of syntactic algebras known in the literature, including the syntactic
monoids of Rabin and Scott (D = sets), the syntactic semirings of Polak (D =
semilattices), and the syntactic associative algebras of Reutenauer (D = vector
spaces). Assuming that D is an entropic variety of algebras, we prove that the
syntactic D-monoid of a language L can be constructed as a quotient of a free
D-monoid modulo the syntactic congruence of L, and that it is isomorphic to the
transition D-monoid of the minimal automaton for L in D. Furthermore, in case
the variety D is locally finite, we characterize the regular languages as
precisely the languages with finite syntactic D-monoids
A General Framework for the Derivation of Regular Expressions
The aim of this paper is to design a theoretical framework that allows us to
perform the computation of regular expression derivatives through a space of
generic structures. Thanks to this formalism, the main properties of regular
expression derivation, such as the finiteness of the set of derivatives, need
only be stated and proved one time, at the top level. Moreover, it is shown how
to construct an alternating automaton associated with the derivation of a
regular expression in this general framework. Finally, Brzozowski's derivation
and Antimirov's derivation turn out to be a particular case of this general
scheme and it is shown how to construct a DFA, a NFA and an AFA for both of
these derivations.Comment: 22 page
From Finite Automata to Regular Expressions and Back--A Summary on Descriptional Complexity
The equivalence of finite automata and regular expressions dates back to the
seminal paper of Kleene on events in nerve nets and finite automata from 1956.
In the present paper we tour a fragment of the literature and summarize results
on upper and lower bounds on the conversion of finite automata to regular
expressions and vice versa. We also briefly recall the known bounds for the
removal of spontaneous transitions (epsilon-transitions) on non-epsilon-free
nondeterministic devices. Moreover, we report on recent results on the average
case descriptional complexity bounds for the conversion of regular expressions
to finite automata and brand new developments on the state elimination
algorithm that converts finite automata to regular expressions.Comment: In Proceedings AFL 2014, arXiv:1405.527
Testing the Equivalence of Regular Languages
The minimal deterministic finite automaton is generally used to determine
regular languages equality. Antimirov and Mosses proposed a rewrite system for
deciding regular expressions equivalence of which Almeida et al. presented an
improved variant. Hopcroft and Karp proposed an almost linear algorithm for
testing the equivalence of two deterministic finite automata that avoids
minimisation. In this paper we improve the best-case running time, present an
extension of this algorithm to non-deterministic finite automata, and establish
a relationship between this algorithm and the one proposed in Almeida et al. We
also present some experimental comparative results. All these algorithms are
closely related with the recent coalgebraic approach to automata proposed by
Rutten
Regular Expressions and Transducers over Alphabet-invariant and User-defined Labels
We are interested in regular expressions and transducers that represent word
relations in an alphabet-invariant way---for example, the set of all word pairs
u,v where v is a prefix of u independently of what the alphabet is. Current
software systems of formal language objects do not have a mechanism to define
such objects. We define transducers in which transition labels involve what we
call set specifications, some of which are alphabet invariant. In fact, we give
a more broad definition of automata-type objects, called labelled graphs, where
each transition label can be any string, as long as that string represents a
subset of a certain monoid. Then, the behaviour of the labelled graph is a
subset of that monoid. We do the same for regular expressions. We obtain
extensions of a few classic algorithmic constructions on ordinary regular
expressions and transducers at the broad level of labelled graphs and in such a
way that the computational efficiency of the extended constructions is not
sacrificed. For regular expressions with set specs we obtain the corresponding
partial derivative automata. For transducers with set specs we obtain further
algorithms that can be applied to questions about independent regular
languages, in particular the witness version of the independent property
satisfaction question
The Bottom-Up Position Tree Automaton, the Father Automaton and their Compact Versions
The conversion of a given regular tree expression into a tree automaton has
been widely studied. However, classical interpretations are based upon a
Top-Down interpretation of tree automata. In this paper, we propose new
constructions based on the Gluskov's one and on the one of Ilie and Yu one
using a Bottom-Up interpretation. One of the main goals of this technique is to
consider as a next step the links with deterministic recognizers, consideration
that cannot be performed with classical Top-Down approaches. Furthermore, we
exhibit a method to factorize transitions of tree automata and show that this
technique is particularly interesting for these constructions, by considering
natural factorizations due to the structure of regular expression.Comment: extended version of a paper accepted at CIAA 201
Polynomial tuning of multiparametric combinatorial samplers
Boltzmann samplers and the recursive method are prominent algorithmic
frameworks for the approximate-size and exact-size random generation of large
combinatorial structures, such as maps, tilings, RNA sequences or various
tree-like structures. In their multiparametric variants, these samplers allow
to control the profile of expected values corresponding to multiple
combinatorial parameters. One can control, for instance, the number of leaves,
profile of node degrees in trees or the number of certain subpatterns in
strings. However, such a flexible control requires an additional non-trivial
tuning procedure. In this paper, we propose an efficient polynomial-time, with
respect to the number of tuned parameters, tuning algorithm based on convex
optimisation techniques. Finally, we illustrate the efficiency of our approach
using several applications of rational, algebraic and P\'olya structures
including polyomino tilings with prescribed tile frequencies, planar trees with
a given specific node degree distribution, and weighted partitions.Comment: Extended abstract, accepted to ANALCO2018. 20 pages, 6 figures,
colours. Implementation and examples are available at [1]
https://github.com/maciej-bendkowski/boltzmann-brain [2]
https://github.com/maciej-bendkowski/multiparametric-combinatorial-sampler
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