520 research outputs found
Revisiting the Equivalence Problem for Finite Multitape Automata
The decidability of determining equivalence of deterministic multitape
automata (or transducers) was a longstanding open problem until it was resolved
by Harju and Karhum\"{a}ki in the early 1990s. Their proof of decidability
yields a co_NP upper bound, but apparently not much more is known about the
complexity of the problem. In this paper we give an alternative proof of
decidability, which follows the basic strategy of Harju and Karhumaki but
replaces their use of group theory with results on matrix algebras. From our
proof we obtain a simple randomised algorithm for deciding language equivalence
of deterministic multitape automata and, more generally, multiplicity
equivalence of nondeterministic multitape automata. The algorithm involves only
matrix exponentiation and runs in polynomial time for each fixed number of
tapes. If the two input automata are inequivalent then the algorithm outputs a
word on which they differ
Varieties of Cost Functions.
Regular cost functions were introduced as a quantitative generalisation of regular languages, retaining many of their equivalent characterisations and decidability properties. For instance, stabilisation monoids play the same role for cost functions as monoids do for regular languages. The purpose of this article is to further extend this algebraic approach by generalising two results on regular languages to cost functions: Eilenberg's varieties theorem and profinite equational characterisations of lattices of regular languages. This opens interesting new perspectives, but the specificities of cost functions introduce difficulties that prevent these generalisations to be straightforward. In contrast, although syntactic algebras can be defined for formal power series over a commutative ring, no such notion is known for series over semirings and in particular over the tropical semiring
Bidimensional Linear Recursive Sequences and Universality of Unambiguous Register Automata
We study the universality and inclusion problems for register automata over
equality data. We show that the universality and the inclusion problems can be
solved with 2-EXPTIME complexity when the input automata are without guessing
and unambiguous, improving on the currently best-known 2-EXPSPACE upper bound
by Mottet and Quaas. When the number of registers of both automata is fixed, we
obtain a lower EXPTIME complexity, also improving the EXPSPACE upper bound from
Mottet and Quaas for fixed number of registers. We reduce inclusion to
universality, and then we reduce universality to the problem of counting the
number of orbits of runs of the automaton. We show that the orbit-counting
function satisfies a system of bidimensional linear recursive equations with
polynomial coefficients (linrec), which generalises analogous recurrences for
the Stirling numbers of the second kind, and then we show that universality
reduces to the zeroness problem for linrec sequences. While such a counting
approach is classical and has successfully been applied to unambiguous finite
automata and grammars over finite alphabets, its application to register
automata over infinite alphabets is novel. We provide two algorithms to decide
the zeroness problem for bidimensional linear recursive sequences arising from
orbit-counting functions. Both algorithms rely on techniques from linear
non-commutative algebra. The first algorithm performs variable elimination and
has elementary complexity. The second algorithm is a refined version of the
first one and it relies on the computation of the Hermite normal form of
matrices over a skew polynomial field. The second algorithm yields an EXPTIME
decision procedure for the zeroness problem of linrec sequences, which in turn
yields the claimed bounds for the universality and inclusion problems of
register automata.Comment: full version of the homonymous paper to appear in the proceedings of
STACS'2
Equivalence Testing of Weighted Automata over Partially Commutative Monoids
Motivated by equivalence testing of k-tape automata, we study the equivalence testing of weighted automata in the more general setting, over partially commutative monoids (in short, pc monoids), and show efficient algorithms in some special cases, exploiting the structure of the underlying non-commutation graph of the monoid.
Specifically, if the edge clique cover number of the non-commutation graph of the pc monoid is a constant, we obtain a deterministic quasi-polynomial time algorithm for equivalence testing. As a corollary, we obtain the first deterministic quasi-polynomial time algorithms for equivalence testing of k-tape weighted automata and for equivalence testing of deterministic k-tape automata for constant k. Prior to this, the best complexity upper bound for these k-tape automata problems were randomized polynomial-time, shown by Worrell [James Worrell, 2013]. Finding a polynomial-time deterministic algorithm for equivalence testing of deterministic k-tape automata for constant k has been open for several years [Emily P. Friedman and Sheila A. Greibach, 1982] and our results make progress.
We also consider pc monoids for which the non-commutation graphs have an edge cover consisting of at most k cliques and star graphs for any constant k. We obtain a randomized polynomial-time algorithm for equivalence testing of weighted automata over such monoids.
Our results are obtained by designing efficient zero-testing algorithms for weighted automata over such pc monoids
Revisiting the Equivalence Problem for Finite Multitape Automata
Abstract. The decidability of determining equivalence of deterministic multitape automata was a longstanding open problem until it was resolved by Harju and Karhumäki in the early 1990s. Their proof of decidability yields a co-NP upper bound, but apparently not much more is known about the complexity of the problem. In this paper we give an alternative proof of decidability which follows the basic strategy of Harju and Karhumäki, but replaces their use of group theory with results on matrix algebras. From our proof we obtain a simple randomised algorithm for deciding equivalence of deterministic multitape automata, as well as automata with transition weights in the field of rational numbers. The algorithm involves only matrix exponentiation and runs in polynomial time for each fixed number of tapes. If the two input automata are inequivalent then the algorithm outputs a word on which they differ
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