441 research outputs found
State of B\"uchi Complementation
Complementation of B\"uchi automata has been studied for over five decades
since the formalism was introduced in 1960. Known complementation constructions
can be classified into Ramsey-based, determinization-based, rank-based, and
slice-based approaches. Regarding the performance of these approaches, there
have been several complexity analyses but very few experimental results. What
especially lacks is a comparative experiment on all of the four approaches to
see how they perform in practice. In this paper, we review the four approaches,
propose several optimization heuristics, and perform comparative
experimentation on four representative constructions that are considered the
most efficient in each approach. The experimental results show that (1) the
determinization-based Safra-Piterman construction outperforms the other three
in producing smaller complements and finishing more tasks in the allocated time
and (2) the proposed heuristics substantially improve the Safra-Piterman and
the slice-based constructions.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures, a preliminary version of this paper appeared in
the Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Implementation and
Application of Automata (CIAA
Can Nondeterminism Help Complementation?
Complementation and determinization are two fundamental notions in automata
theory. The close relationship between the two has been well observed in the
literature. In the case of nondeterministic finite automata on finite words
(NFA), complementation and determinization have the same state complexity,
namely Theta(2^n) where n is the state size. The same similarity between
determinization and complementation was found for Buchi automata, where both
operations were shown to have 2^\Theta(n lg n) state complexity. An intriguing
question is whether there exists a type of omega-automata whose determinization
is considerably harder than its complementation. In this paper, we show that
for all common types of omega-automata, the determinization problem has the
same state complexity as the corresponding complementation problem at the
granularity of 2^\Theta(.).Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2012, arXiv:1210.202
Determinising Parity Automata
Parity word automata and their determinisation play an important role in
automata and game theory. We discuss a determinisation procedure for
nondeterministic parity automata through deterministic Rabin to deterministic
parity automata. We prove that the intermediate determinisation to Rabin
automata is optimal. We show that the resulting determinisation to parity
automata is optimal up to a small constant. Moreover, the lower bound refers to
the more liberal Streett acceptance. We thus show that determinisation to
Streett would not lead to better bounds than determinisation to parity. As a
side-result, this optimality extends to the determinisation of B\"uchi
automata
Partially Ordered Two-way B\"uchi Automata
We introduce partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata and characterize
their expressive power in terms of fragments of first-order logic FO[<].
Partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata are B\"uchi automata which can
change the direction in which the input is processed with the constraint that
whenever a state is left, it is never re-entered again. Nondeterministic
partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata coincide with the first-order
fragment Sigma2. Our main contribution is that deterministic partially ordered
two-way B\"uchi automata are expressively complete for the first-order fragment
Delta2. As an intermediate step, we show that deterministic partially ordered
two-way B\"uchi automata are effectively closed under Boolean operations.
A small model property yields coNP-completeness of the emptiness problem and
the inclusion problem for deterministic partially ordered two-way B\"uchi
automata.Comment: The results of this paper were presented at CIAA 2010; University of
Stuttgart, Computer Scienc
Satisfiability Games for Branching-Time Logics
The satisfiability problem for branching-time temporal logics like CTL*, CTL
and CTL+ has important applications in program specification and verification.
Their computational complexities are known: CTL* and CTL+ are complete for
doubly exponential time, CTL is complete for single exponential time. Some
decision procedures for these logics are known; they use tree automata,
tableaux or axiom systems. In this paper we present a uniform game-theoretic
framework for the satisfiability problem of these branching-time temporal
logics. We define satisfiability games for the full branching-time temporal
logic CTL* using a high-level definition of winning condition that captures the
essence of well-foundedness of least fixpoint unfoldings. These winning
conditions form formal languages of \omega-words. We analyse which kinds of
deterministic {\omega}-automata are needed in which case in order to recognise
these languages. We then obtain a reduction to the problem of solving parity or
B\"uchi games. The worst-case complexity of the obtained algorithms matches the
known lower bounds for these logics. This approach provides a uniform, yet
complexity-theoretically optimal treatment of satisfiability for branching-time
temporal logics. It separates the use of temporal logic machinery from the use
of automata thus preserving a syntactical relationship between the input
formula and the object that represents satisfiability, i.e. a winning strategy
in a parity or B\"uchi game. The games presented here work on a Fischer-Ladner
closure of the input formula only. Last but not least, the games presented here
come with an attempt at providing tool support for the satisfiability problem
of complex branching-time logics like CTL* and CTL+
History-Register Automata
Programs with dynamic allocation are able to create and use an unbounded
number of fresh resources, such as references, objects, files, etc. We propose
History-Register Automata (HRA), a new automata-theoretic formalism for
modelling such programs. HRAs extend the expressiveness of previous approaches
and bring us to the limits of decidability for reachability checks. The
distinctive feature of our machines is their use of unbounded memory sets
(histories) where input symbols can be selectively stored and compared with
symbols to follow. In addition, stored symbols can be consumed or deleted by
reset. We show that the combination of consumption and reset capabilities
renders the automata powerful enough to imitate counter machines, and yields
closure under all regular operations apart from complementation. We moreover
examine weaker notions of HRAs which strike different balances between
expressiveness and effectiveness.Comment: LMCS (improved version of FoSSaCS
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