131 research outputs found
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
Most Complex Regular Right-Ideal Languages
A right ideal is a language L over an alphabet A that satisfies L = LA*. We
show that there exists a stream (sequence) (R_n : n \ge 3) of regular right
ideal languages, where R_n has n left quotients and is most complex under the
following measures of complexity: the state complexities of the left quotients,
the number of atoms (intersections of complemented and uncomplemented left
quotients), the state complexities of the atoms, the size of the syntactic
semigroup, the state complexities of the operations of reversal, star, and
product, and the state complexities of all binary boolean operations. In that
sense, this stream of right ideals is a universal witness.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Algorithms for testing equivalence of finite automata, with a grading tool for JFLAP
A wide variety of algorithms can be used to determine the equivalence of two Deterministic Finite Automata (DFAs) and/or Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFAs). This project focuses on three key areas: 1. A detailed discussion of several algorithms that can be used to prove the equivalence of two DFAs (and/or NFAs, since every NFA has an equivalent DFA), with an analysis of the time complexity involved in each case. 2. Modifications to a few of these algorithms to produce a \u27witness\u27 string if the two automata are not equivalent. This string is accepted by one of the automata, but not by the other, so it serves as a clear demonstration of why the two automata are inequivalent. 3. A Java implementation of a couple of efficient algorithms to prove equivalence. The code is designed specially to work with JFLAP, the Java Formal Language and Automata Package. JFLAP is a popular program from Duke University which can be used to demonstrate and manipulate models such as finite automata. JFLAP software allows students to enter finite automata via an easy-to-use GUI, and this project incorporates functionality so that instructors can grade homework assignments and/or allow students to receive detailed feedback in the form of a witnes
Most Complex Non-Returning Regular Languages
A regular language is non-returning if in the minimal deterministic
finite automaton accepting it there are no transitions into the initial state.
Eom, Han and Jir\'askov\'a derived upper bounds on the state complexity of
boolean operations and Kleene star, and proved that these bounds are tight
using two different binary witnesses. They derived upper bounds for
concatenation and reversal using three different ternary witnesses. These five
witnesses use a total of six different transformations. We show that for each
there exists a ternary witness of state complexity that meets the
bound for reversal and that at least three letters are needed to meet this
bound. Moreover, the restrictions of this witness to binary alphabets meet the
bounds for product, star, and boolean operations. We also derive tight upper
bounds on the state complexity of binary operations that take arguments with
different alphabets. We prove that the maximal syntactic semigroup of a
non-returning language has elements and requires at least
generators. We find the maximal state complexities of atoms of
non-returning languages. Finally, we show that there exists a most complex
non-returning language that meets the bounds for all these complexity measures.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Irreducible compositions of degree two polynomials over finite fields have regular structure
Let be an odd prime power and be the set of monic irreducible
polynomials in which can be written as a composition of monic
degree two polynomials. In this paper we prove that has a natural regular
structure by showing that there exists a finite automaton having as
accepted language. Our method is constructive.Comment: To appear in The Quarterly Journal of Mathematic
On two-way communication in cellular automata with a fixed number of cells
The effect of adding two-way communication to k cells one-way cellular automata (kC-OCAs) on their size of description is studied. kC-OCAs are a parallel model for the regular languages that consists of an array of k identical deterministic finite automata (DFAs), called cells, operating in parallel. Each cell gets information from its right neighbor only. In this paper, two models with different amounts of two-way communication are investigated. Both models always achieve quadratic savings when compared to DFAs. When compared to a one-way cellular model, the result is that minimum two-way communication can achieve at most quadratic savings whereas maximum two-way communication may provide savings bounded by a polynomial of degree k
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