Syntactic Minimization Of Nondeterministic Finite Automata

Nondeterministic automata may be viewed as succinct programs implementing deterministic automata, i.e. complete specifications. Converting a given deterministic automaton into a small nondeterministic one is known to be computationally very hard; in fact, the ensuing decision problem is PSPACE-complete. This paper stands in stark contrast to the status quo. We restrict attention to subatomic nondeterministic automata, whose individual states accept unions of syntactic congruence classes. They are general enough to cover almost all structural results concerning nondeterministic state-minimality. We prove that converting a monoid recognizing a regular language into a small subatomic acceptor corresponds to an NP-complete problem. The NP certificates are solutions of simple equations involving relations over the syntactic monoid. We also consider the subclass of atomic nondeterministic automata introduced by Brzozowski and Tamm. Given a deterministic automaton and another one for the reversed language, computing small atomic acceptors is shown to be NP-complete with analogous certificates. Our complexity results emerge from an algebraic characterization of (sub)atomic acceptors in terms of deterministic automata with semilattice structure, combined with an equivalence of categories leading to succinct representations

Identification of biRFSA languages

International audienceThe task of identifying a language from a set of its words is not an easy one. For instance, it is not feasible to identify regular languages in the general case. Therefore, looking for subclasses of regular languages that can be identi?ed in this framework is an interesting problem. One of the most classical identi?able classes is the class of reversible languages, introduced by D. Angluin, also called bideterministic languages as they can be represented by deterministic automata (DFA) whose reverse is also deterministic. Residual Finite State Automata (RFSA) on the other hand is a class of non deterministic automata that shares some properties with DFA. In particular, DFA are RFSA and RFSA can be much smaller. We study here learnability of the class of languages that can be represented by biRFSA: RFSA whose reverse are RFSA. We prove that this class is not identi?able in general but we present two subclasses that are learnable, the second one being identi?able in polynomial time

Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computational Structures, FOSSACS 2021, which was held during March 27 until April 1, 2021, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2021. The conference was planned to take place in Luxembourg and changed to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 28 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 88 submissions. They deal with research on theories and methods to support the analysis, integration, synthesis, transformation, and verification of programs and software systems

Minimal NFA and biRFSA Languages

International audienceIn this paper, we define the notion of biRFSA which is a residual finate state automaton (RFSA) whose the reverse is also an RFSA. The languages recognized by such automata are called biRFSA languages. We prove that the canonical RFSA of a biRFSA language is a minimal NFA for this language and that each minimal NFA for this language is a sub-automaton of the canonical RFSA. This leads to a characterization of the family of biRFSA languages. In the second part of this paper, we define the family of biseparable automata. We prove that every biseparable NFA is uniquely minimal among all NFAs recognizing a same language, improving the result of H. Tamm and E. Ukkonen for bideterministic automata

Birfsa languages and minimal nfas

Dans ce papier, nous introduisons la notion de bi-AFER qui sont les automates finis à états résiduels (AFER) dont le miroir est aussi un AFER. Nous appelons les langages reconnus par de tels automates les langages bi-AFER. Nous prouvons que l’AFER canonique d’un langage bi-AFER est un automate minimal (non déterministe) pour ce langage et que tout automate minimal reconnaissant un langage bi-AFER est un sous-automate de son AFER canonique. Cela nous permet de donner une caractérisation de la famille des langages bi-AFER. Dans la seconde partie de ce papier, nous définissons la famille des automates bi-séparables et nous prouvons que tout automate bi-séparable est l’unique automate minimal (non déterministe) parmi tous les automates reconnaissant un même langage. Ce résultat améliore celui de H. Tamm and E. Ukkonen dans le cas des automates bi-déterministes. In this paper, we define the notion of biRFSA which is a residual finite state automaton (RFSA) whose the reverse is also an RFSA. The languages recognized by such automata are called biRFSA languages. We prove that the canonical RFSA of a biRFSA language is a minimal NFA for this language and that each minimal NFA for this language is a sub-automaton of the canonical RFSA. This leads to a characterization of the family of biRFSA languages. In the second part of this paper, we define the family of biseparable automata. We prove that every biseparable NFA is uniquely minimal among all NFAs recognizing a same language, improving the result of H. Tamm and E. Ukkonen for bideterministic automata. GRAPPA-020