Linearly bounded infinite graphs

Linearly bounded Turing machines have been mainly studied as acceptors for context-sensitive languages. We define a natural class of infinite automata representing their observable computational behavior, called linearly bounded graphs. These automata naturally accept the same languages as the linearly bounded machines defining them. We present some of their structural properties as well as alternative characterizations in terms of rewriting systems and context-sensitive transductions. Finally, we compare these graphs to rational graphs, which are another class of automata accepting the context-sensitive languages, and prove that in the bounded-degree case, rational graphs are a strict sub-class of linearly bounded graphs

The synchronized graphs trace the context-sensitive languages

International audienceMorvan and Stirling have proved that the context-sensitive languages are exactly the traces of graphs de ned by transducers with labelled nal states. We prove that this result is still true if we restrict to the traces of graphs de ned by synchronized transducers with labelled nal states. From their construction, we deduce that the context-sensitive languages are the languages of path labels leading from and to rational vertex sets of letter-to-letter rational graphs

Covering of ordinals

The paper focuses on the structure of fundamental sequences of ordinals smaller than $\epsilon_0$. A first result is the construction of a monadic second-order formula identifying a given structure, whereas such a formula cannot exist for ordinals themselves. The structures are precisely classified in the pushdown hierarchy. Ordinals are also located in the hierarchy, and a direct presentation is given.Comment: Accepted at FSTTCS'0

The equational theory of the natural join and inner union is decidable

The natural join and the inner union operations combine relations of a database. Tropashko and Spight [24] realized that these two operations are the meet and join operations in a class of lattices, known by now as the relational lattices. They proposed then lattice theory as an algebraic approach to the theory of databases, alternative to the relational algebra. Previous works [17, 22] proved that the quasiequational theory of these lattices-that is, the set of definite Horn sentences valid in all the relational lattices-is undecidable, even when the signature is restricted to the pure lattice signature. We prove here that the equational theory of relational lattices is decidable. That, is we provide an algorithm to decide if two lattice theoretic terms t, s are made equal under all intepretations in some relational lattice. We achieve this goal by showing that if an inclusion t $\le$ s fails in any of these lattices, then it fails in a relational lattice whose size is bound by a triple exponential function of the sizes of t and s.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1607.0298

Model Checking Synchronized Products of Infinite Transition Systems

Formal verification using the model checking paradigm has to deal with two aspects: The system models are structured, often as products of components, and the specification logic has to be expressive enough to allow the formalization of reachability properties. The present paper is a study on what can be achieved for infinite transition systems under these premises. As models we consider products of infinite transition systems with different synchronization constraints. We introduce finitely synchronized transition systems, i.e. product systems which contain only finitely many (parameterized) synchronized transitions, and show that the decidability of FO(R), first-order logic extended by reachability predicates, of the product system can be reduced to the decidability of FO(R) of the components. This result is optimal in the following sense: (1) If we allow semifinite synchronization, i.e. just in one component infinitely many transitions are synchronized, the FO(R)-theory of the product system is in general undecidable. (2) We cannot extend the expressive power of the logic under consideration. Already a weak extension of first-order logic with transitive closure, where we restrict the transitive closure operators to arity one and nesting depth two, is undecidable for an asynchronous (and hence finitely synchronized) product, namely for the infinite grid.Comment: 18 page

Synchronous Subsequentiality and Approximations to Undecidable Problems

We introduce the class of synchronous subsequential relations, a subclass of the synchronous relations which embodies some properties of subsequential relations. If we take relations of this class as forming the possible transitions of an infinite automaton, then most decision problems (apart from membership) still remain undecidable (as they are for synchronous and subsequential rational relations), but on the positive side, they can be approximated in a meaningful way we make precise in this paper. This might make the class useful for some applications, and might serve to establish an intermediate position in the trade-off between issues of expressivity and (un)decidability.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2015, arXiv:1509.0685

Boolean Algebras from Trace Automata

We consider trace automata. Their vertices are Mazurkiewicz traces and they accept finite words. Considering the length of a trace as the length of its Foata normal form, we define the operations of level-length synchronization and of superposition of trace automata. We show that if a family F of trace automata is closed under these operations, then for any deterministic automaton H in F, the word languages accepted by the deterministic automata of F that are length-reducible to H form a Boolean algebra. We show that the family of trace suffix automata with level-regular contexts and the subfamily of vector addition systems satisfy these closure properties. In particular, this yields various Boolean algebras of word languages accepted by deterministic vector addition systems

Concurrency Makes Simple Theories Hard

A standard way of building concurrent systems is by composing several individual processes by product operators. We show that even the simplest notion of product operators (i.e. asynchronous products) suffices to increase the complexity of model checking simple logics like Hennessy-Milner (HM) logic and its extension with the reachability operator (EF-logic) from PSPACE to nonelementary. In particular, this nonelementary jump happens for EF-logic when we consider individual processes represented by pushdown systems (indeed, even with only one control state). Using this result, we prove nonelementary lower bounds on the size of formula decompositions provided by Feferman-Vaught (de)compositional methods for HM and EF logics, which reduce theories of asynchronous products to theories of the components. Finally, we show that the same nonelementary lower bounds also hold when we consider the relativization of such compositional methods to finite systems

Cuts for circular proofs: semantics and cut-elimination

One of the authors introduced in [Santocanale, FoSSaCS, 2002] a calculus of circular proofs for studying the computability arising from the following categorical operations: finite products, finite coproducts, initial algebras, final coalgebras. The calculus presented [Santocanale, FoSSaCS, 2002] is cut-free; even if sound and complete for provability, it lacked an important property for the semantics of proofs, namely fullness w.r.t. the class of intended categorical models (called mu-bicomplete categories in [Santocanale, ITA, 2002]). In this paper we fix this problem by adding the cut rule to the calculus and by modifying accordingly the syntactical constraint ensuring soundness of proofs. The enhanced proof system fully represents arrows of the canonical model (a free mu-bicomplete category). We also describe a cut-elimination procedure as a a model of computation arising from the above mentioned categorical operations. The procedure constructs a cut-free proof-tree with possibly infinite branches out of a finite circular proof with cuts