150 research outputs found
The descriptive complexity approach to LOGCFL
Building upon the known generalized-quantifier-based first-order
characterization of LOGCFL, we lay the groundwork for a deeper investigation.
Specifically, we examine subclasses of LOGCFL arising from varying the arity
and nesting of groupoidal quantifiers. Our work extends the elaborate theory
relating monoidal quantifiers to NC1 and its subclasses. In the absence of the
BIT predicate, we resolve the main issues: we show in particular that no single
outermost unary groupoidal quantifier with FO can capture all the context-free
languages, and we obtain the surprising result that a variant of Greibach's
``hardest context-free language'' is LOGCFL-complete under quantifier-free
BIT-free projections. We then prove that FO with unary groupoidal quantifiers
is strictly more expressive with the BIT predicate than without. Considering a
particular groupoidal quantifier, we prove that first-order logic with majority
of pairs is strictly more expressive than first-order with majority of
individuals. As a technical tool of independent interest, we define the notion
of an aperiodic nondeterministic finite automaton and prove that FO
translations are precisely the mappings computed by single-valued aperiodic
nondeterministic finite transducers.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
Positive Versions of Polynomial Time
AbstractWe show that restricting a number of characterizations of the complexity classPto be positive (in natural ways) results in the same class of (monotone) problems, which we denote byposP. By a well-known result of Razborov,posPis a proper subclass of the class of monotone problems inP. We exhibit complete problems forposPvia weak logical reductions, as we do for other logically defined classes of problems. Our work is a continuation of research undertaken by Grigni and Sipser, and subsequently Stewart; indeed, we introduce the notion of a positive deterministic Turing machine and consequently solve a problem posed by Grigni and Sipser
Generalizing input-driven languages: theoretical and practical benefits
Regular languages (RL) are the simplest family in Chomsky's hierarchy. Thanks
to their simplicity they enjoy various nice algebraic and logic properties that
have been successfully exploited in many application fields. Practically all of
their related problems are decidable, so that they support automatic
verification algorithms. Also, they can be recognized in real-time.
Context-free languages (CFL) are another major family well-suited to
formalize programming, natural, and many other classes of languages; their
increased generative power w.r.t. RL, however, causes the loss of several
closure properties and of the decidability of important problems; furthermore
they need complex parsing algorithms. Thus, various subclasses thereof have
been defined with different goals, spanning from efficient, deterministic
parsing to closure properties, logic characterization and automatic
verification techniques.
Among CFL subclasses, so-called structured ones, i.e., those where the
typical tree-structure is visible in the sentences, exhibit many of the
algebraic and logic properties of RL, whereas deterministic CFL have been
thoroughly exploited in compiler construction and other application fields.
After surveying and comparing the main properties of those various language
families, we go back to operator precedence languages (OPL), an old family
through which R. Floyd pioneered deterministic parsing, and we show that they
offer unexpected properties in two fields so far investigated in totally
independent ways: they enable parsing parallelization in a more effective way
than traditional sequential parsers, and exhibit the same algebraic and logic
properties so far obtained only for less expressive language families
Tree-size bounded alternation
AbstractThe size of an accepting computation tree of an alternating Turing machine (ATM) is introduced as a complexity measure. We present a number of applications of tree-size to the study of more traditional complexity classes. Tree-size on ATMs is shown to closely correspond to time on nondeterministic TMs and on nondeterministic auxiliary pushdown automata. One application of the later is a useful new characterization of the class of languages log-space-reducible to context-free languages. Surprising relationships with parallel-time complexity are also demonstrated. ATM computations using at most space S(n) and tree-size Z(n) (simultaneously) can be simulated in alternating space S(n) and time S(n) · log Z(n) (simultaneously). Several well-known simulations, e.g., Savitch's theorem, are special cases of this result. It also leads to improved parallel complexity bounds for many problems in terms of both time and number of âprocessors.â As one example we show that context-free language recognition in time O(log2 n) is possible on several parallel models. Further, this bound is achievable with only a polynomial number of processors, in contrast to all previously known sub-linear time CFL recognizers
The Well Structured Problem for Presburger Counter Machines
International audienceWe introduce the well structured problem as the question of whether a model (here a counter machine) is well structured (here for the usual ordering on integers). We show that it is undecidable for most of the (Presburger-defined) counter machines except for Affine VASS of dimension one. However, the strong well structured problem is decidable for all Presburger counter machines. While Affine VASS of dimension one are not, in general, well structured, we give an algorithm that computes the set of predecessors of a configuration; as a consequence this allows to decide the well structured problem for 1-Affine VASS
First-Order and Temporal Logics for Nested Words
Nested words are a structured model of execution paths in procedural
programs, reflecting their call and return nesting structure. Finite nested
words also capture the structure of parse trees and other tree-structured data,
such as XML. We provide new temporal logics for finite and infinite nested
words, which are natural extensions of LTL, and prove that these logics are
first-order expressively-complete. One of them is based on adding a "within"
modality, evaluating a formula on a subword, to a logic CaRet previously
studied in the context of verifying properties of recursive state machines
(RSMs). The other logic, NWTL, is based on the notion of a summary path that
uses both the linear and nesting structures. For NWTL we show that
satisfiability is EXPTIME-complete, and that model-checking can be done in time
polynomial in the size of the RSM model and exponential in the size of the NWTL
formula (and is also EXPTIME-complete). Finally, we prove that first-order
logic over nested words has the three-variable property, and we present a
temporal logic for nested words which is complete for the two-variable fragment
of first-order.Comment: revised and corrected version of Mar 03, 201
Saturation-Based Model Checking of Higher-Order Recursion Schemes
Model checking of higher-order recursion schemes (HORS) has recently been studied extensively and applied to higher-order program verification. Despite recent efforts, obtaining a scalable model checker for HORS remains a big challenge. We propose a new model checking algorithm for HORS, which combines two previous, independent approaches to higher-order model checking. Like previous type-based algorithms for HORS, it directly analyzes HORS and outputs intersection types as a certificate, but like Broadbent et al.\u27s saturation algorithm for collapsible pushdown systems (CPDS), it propagates information backward, in the sense that it starts with target configurations and iteratively computes their pre-images. We have implemented the new algorithm and confirmed that the prototype often outperforms TRECS and CSHORe, the state-of-the-art model checkers for HORS
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