27,082 research outputs found
Deciding regular grammar logics with converse through first-order logic
We provide a simple translation of the satisfiability problem for regular
grammar logics with converse into GF2, which is the intersection of the guarded
fragment and the 2-variable fragment of first-order logic. This translation is
theoretically interesting because it translates modal logics with certain frame
conditions into first-order logic, without explicitly expressing the frame
conditions.
A consequence of the translation is that the general satisfiability problem
for regular grammar logics with converse is in EXPTIME. This extends a previous
result of the first author for grammar logics without converse. Using the same
method, we show how some other modal logics can be naturally translated into
GF2, including nominal tense logics and intuitionistic logic.
In our view, the results in this paper show that the natural first-order
fragment corresponding to regular grammar logics is simply GF2 without extra
machinery such as fixed point-operators.Comment: 34 page
Parametrized Stochastic Grammars for RNA Secondary Structure Prediction
We propose a two-level stochastic context-free grammar (SCFG) architecture
for parametrized stochastic modeling of a family of RNA sequences, including
their secondary structure. A stochastic model of this type can be used for
maximum a posteriori estimation of the secondary structure of any new sequence
in the family. The proposed SCFG architecture models RNA subsequences
comprising paired bases as stochastically weighted Dyck-language words, i.e.,
as weighted balanced-parenthesis expressions. The length of each run of
unpaired bases, forming a loop or a bulge, is taken to have a phase-type
distribution: that of the hitting time in a finite-state Markov chain. Without
loss of generality, each such Markov chain can be taken to have a bounded
complexity. The scheme yields an overall family SCFG with a manageable number
of parameters.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to the 2007 Information Theory and Applications
Workshop (ITA 2007
On the Expressive Power of 2-Stack Visibly Pushdown Automata
Visibly pushdown automata are input-driven pushdown automata that recognize
some non-regular context-free languages while preserving the nice closure and
decidability properties of finite automata. Visibly pushdown automata with
multiple stacks have been considered recently by La Torre, Madhusudan, and
Parlato, who exploit the concept of visibility further to obtain a rich
automata class that can even express properties beyond the class of
context-free languages. At the same time, their automata are closed under
boolean operations, have a decidable emptiness and inclusion problem, and enjoy
a logical characterization in terms of a monadic second-order logic over words
with an additional nesting structure. These results require a restricted
version of visibly pushdown automata with multiple stacks whose behavior can be
split up into a fixed number of phases. In this paper, we consider 2-stack
visibly pushdown automata (i.e., visibly pushdown automata with two stacks) in
their unrestricted form. We show that they are expressively equivalent to the
existential fragment of monadic second-order logic. Furthermore, it turns out
that monadic second-order quantifier alternation forms an infinite hierarchy
wrt words with multiple nestings. Combining these results, we conclude that
2-stack visibly pushdown automata are not closed under complementation.
Finally, we discuss the expressive power of B\"{u}chi 2-stack visibly pushdown
automata running on infinite (nested) words. Extending the logic by an infinity
quantifier, we can likewise establish equivalence to existential monadic
second-order logic
Regularity Preserving but not Reflecting Encodings
Encodings, that is, injective functions from words to words, have been
studied extensively in several settings. In computability theory the notion of
encoding is crucial for defining computability on arbitrary domains, as well as
for comparing the power of models of computation. In language theory much
attention has been devoted to regularity preserving functions.
A natural question arising in these contexts is: Is there a bijective
encoding such that its image function preserves regularity of languages, but
its pre-image function does not? Our main result answers this question in the
affirmative: For every countable class C of languages there exists a bijective
encoding f such that for every language L in C its image f[L] is regular.
Our construction of such encodings has several noteworthy consequences.
Firstly, anomalies arise when models of computation are compared with respect
to a known concept of implementation that is based on encodings which are not
required to be computable: Every countable decision model can be implemented,
in this sense, by finite-state automata, even via bijective encodings. Hence
deterministic finite-state automata would be equally powerful as Turing machine
deciders.
A second consequence concerns the recognizability of sets of natural numbers
via number representations and finite automata. A set of numbers is said to be
recognizable with respect to a representation if an automaton accepts the
language of representations. Our result entails that there is one number
representation with respect to which every recursive set is recognizable
Complexity of Two-Dimensional Patterns
In dynamical systems such as cellular automata and iterated maps, it is often
useful to look at a language or set of symbol sequences produced by the system.
There are well-established classification schemes, such as the Chomsky
hierarchy, with which we can measure the complexity of these sets of sequences,
and thus the complexity of the systems which produce them.
In this paper, we look at the first few levels of a hierarchy of complexity
for two-or-more-dimensional patterns. We show that several definitions of
``regular language'' or ``local rule'' that are equivalent in d=1 lead to
distinct classes in d >= 2. We explore the closure properties and computational
complexity of these classes, including undecidability and L-, NL- and
NP-completeness results.
We apply these classes to cellular automata, in particular to their sets of
fixed and periodic points, finite-time images, and limit sets. We show that it
is undecidable whether a CA in d >= 2 has a periodic point of a given period,
and that certain ``local lattice languages'' are not finite-time images or
limit sets of any CA. We also show that the entropy of a d-dimensional CA's
finite-time image cannot decrease faster than t^{-d} unless it maps every
initial condition to a single homogeneous state.Comment: To appear in J. Stat. Phy
In the Maze of Data Languages
In data languages the positions of strings and trees carry a label from a
finite alphabet and a data value from an infinite alphabet. Extensions of
automata and logics over finite alphabets have been defined to recognize data
languages, both in the string and tree cases. In this paper we describe and
compare the complexity and expressiveness of such models to understand which
ones are better candidates as regular models
The Determinacy of Context-Free Games
We prove that the determinacy of Gale-Stewart games whose winning sets are
accepted by real-time 1-counter B\"uchi automata is equivalent to the
determinacy of (effective) analytic Gale-Stewart games which is known to be a
large cardinal assumption. We show also that the determinacy of Wadge games
between two players in charge of omega-languages accepted by 1-counter B\"uchi
automata is equivalent to the (effective) analytic Wadge determinacy. Using
some results of set theory we prove that one can effectively construct a
1-counter B\"uchi automaton A and a B\"uchi automaton B such that: (1) There
exists a model of ZFC in which Player 2 has a winning strategy in the Wadge
game W(L(A), L(B)); (2) There exists a model of ZFC in which the Wadge game
W(L(A), L(B)) is not determined. Moreover these are the only two possibilities,
i.e. there are no models of ZFC in which Player 1 has a winning strategy in the
Wadge game W(L(A), L(B)).Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 29 th International Symposium on
Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science, STACS 201
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