Constructions of words rich in palindromes and pseudopalindromes

A narrow connection between infinite binary words rich in classical palindromes and infinite binary words rich simultaneously in palindromes and pseudopalindromes (the so-called $H$-rich words) is demonstrated. The correspondence between rich and $H$-rich words is based on the operation $S$ acting over words over the alphabet $\{0,1\}$ and defined by $S(u_0u_1u_2\ldots) = v_1v_2v_3\ldots$, where $v_i= u_{i-1} + u_i \mod 2$. The operation $S$ enables us to construct a new class of rich words and a new class of $H$-rich words. Finally, the operation $S$ is considered on the multiliteral alphabet $\mathbb{Z}_m$ as well and applied to the generalized Thue--Morse words. As a byproduct, new binary rich and $H$-rich words are obtained by application of $S$ on the generalized Thue--Morse words over the alphabet $\mathbb{Z}_4$.Comment: 26 page

A Characterization for Decidable Separability by Piecewise Testable Languages

The separability problem for word languages of a class $\mathcal{C}$ by languages of a class $\mathcal{S}$ asks, for two given languages $I$ and $E$ from $\mathcal{C}$, whether there exists a language $S$ from $\mathcal{S}$ that includes $I$ and excludes $E$, that is, $I \subseteq S$ and $S\cap E = \emptyset$. In this work, we assume some mild closure properties for $\mathcal{C}$ and study for which such classes separability by a piecewise testable language (PTL) is decidable. We characterize these classes in terms of decidability of (two variants of) an unboundedness problem. From this, we deduce that separability by PTL is decidable for a number of language classes, such as the context-free languages and languages of labeled vector addition systems. Furthermore, it follows that separability by PTL is decidable if and only if one can compute for any language of the class its downward closure wrt. the scattered substring ordering (i.e., if the set of scattered substrings of any language of the class is effectively regular). The obtained decidability results contrast some undecidability results. In fact, for all (non-regular) language classes that we present as examples with decidable separability, it is undecidable whether a given language is a PTL itself. Our characterization involves a result of independent interest, which states that for any kind of languages $I$ and $E$, non-separability by PTL is equivalent to the existence of common patterns in $I$ and $E$

The Complexity of Downward Closure Comparisons

The downward closure of a language is the set of all (not necessarily contiguous) subwords of its members. It is well-known that the downward closure of every language is regular. Moreover, recent results show that downward closures are computable for quite powerful system models. One advantage of abstracting a language by its downward closure is that then equivalence and inclusion become decidable. In this work, we study the complexity of these two problems. More precisely, we consider the following decision problems: Given languages K and L from classes C and D, respectively, does the downward closure of K include (equal) that of L? These problems are investigated for finite automata, one-counter automata, context-free grammars, and reversal-bounded counter automata. For each combination, we prove a completeness result either for fixed or for arbitrary alphabets. Moreover, for Petri net languages, we show that both problems are Ackermann-hard and for higher-order pushdown automata of order k, we prove hardness for complements of nondeterministic k-fold exponential time

Reachability analysis of first-order definable pushdown systems

We study pushdown systems where control states, stack alphabet, and transition relation, instead of being finite, are first-order definable in a fixed countably-infinite structure. We show that the reachability analysis can be addressed with the well-known saturation technique for the wide class of oligomorphic structures. Moreover, for the more restrictive homogeneous structures, we are able to give concrete complexity upper bounds. We show ample applicability of our technique by presenting several concrete examples of homogeneous structures, subsuming, with optimal complexity, known results from the literature. We show that infinitely many such examples of homogeneous structures can be obtained with the classical wreath product construction.Comment: to appear in CSL'1

Controlled Bidirectional Grammars

We investigate context-free grammars the rules of which can be used in a productive and in a reductive fashion, while the application of these rules is controlled by a regular language. We distinguish several modes of derivation for this kind of grammar. The resulting language families (properly) extend the family of context-free languages. We establish some closure properties of these language families and some grammatical transformations which yield a few normal forms for this type of grammar. Finally, we consider some special cases (viz. the context-free grammar is linear or left-linear), and generalizations, in particular, the use of arbitrary rather than regular control languages