Commutative Data Automata

Formalisms over infinite alphabets have recently received much focus in the community of the-oretical computer science. Data automata is a formal model for words over infinite alphabets proposed by Bojanczyk, Muscholl, Schwentick et. al. in 2006. A data automaton consists of two parts, a nondeterministic letter-to-letter transducer, and a class condition specified by a finite automaton over the output alphabet of the transducer, which acts as a condition on the subsequence of the outputs of the transducer in every class, namely, in every maximal set of po-sitions with the same data value. It is open whether the nonemptiness of data automata can be decided with elementary complexity. Very recently, a restriction of data automata with element-ary complexity, called weak data automata, was proposed by Kara, Schwentick and Tan and its nonemptiness problem was shown to be in 2-NEXPTIME. In weak data automata, the class condi-tions are specified by some simple constraints on the number of occurrences of labels occurring in every class. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the commutativity of class conditions is the genuine reason accounting for the elementary complexity of weak data automata. For this purpose, we define and investigate commutative data automata, which are data automata with class conditions restricted to commutative regular languages. We show that while the express-ive power of commutative data automata is strictly stronger than that of weak data automata, the nonemptiness problem of this model can still be decided with elementary complexity, more precisely, in 3-NEXPTIME. In addition, we extend the results to data ω-words and prove that the nonemptiness of commutative Büchi data automata can be decided in 4-NEXPTIME. We also provide logical characterizations for commutative (Büchi) data automata, similar to those for weak (Büchi) data automata

Cellular Automata as a Model of Physical Systems

Cellular Automata (CA), as they are presented in the literature, are abstract mathematical models of computation. In this pa- per we present an alternate approach: using the CA as a model or theory of physical systems and devices. While this approach abstracts away all details of the underlying physical system, it remains faithful to the fact that there is an underlying physical reality which it describes. This imposes certain restrictions on the types of computations a CA can physically carry out, and the resources it needs to do so. In this paper we explore these and other consequences of our reformalization.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of AUTOMATA 200

COMPUTER SIMULATION AND COMPUTABILITY OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

The ability to simulate a biological organism by employing a computer is related to the ability of the computer to calculate the behavior of such a dynamical system, or the "computability" of the system.* However, the two questions of computability and simulation are not equivalent. Since the question of computability can be given a precise answer in terms of recursive functions, automata theory and dynamical systems, it will be appropriate to consider it first. The more elusive question of adequate simulation of biological systems by a computer will be then addressed and a possible connection between the two answers given will be considered. A conjecture is formulated that suggests the possibility of employing an algebraic-topological, "quantum" computer (Baianu, 1971b) for analogous and symbolic simulations of biological systems that may include chaotic processes that are not, in genral, either recursively or digitally computable. Depending on the biological network being modelled, such as the Human Genome/Cell Interactome or a trillion-cell Cognitive Neural Network system, the appropriate logical structure for such simulations might be either the Quantum MV-Logic (QMV) discussed in recent publications (Chiara, 2004, and references cited therein)or Lukasiewicz Logic Algebras that were shown to be isomorphic to MV-logic algebras (Georgescu et al, 2001)

Tightening the Complexity of Equivalence Problems for Commutative Grammars

We show that the language equivalence problem for regular and context-free commutative grammars is coNEXP-complete. In addition, our lower bound immediately yields further coNEXP-completeness results for equivalence problems for communication-free Petri nets and reversal-bounded counter automata. Moreover, we improve both lower and upper bounds for language equivalence for exponent-sensitive commutative grammars.Comment: 21 page