New Versions of Classical Automata and Grammars

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá zkoumáním nových verzí automatů a gramatik a je proto rozdělena do dvou částí. První část definuje a studuje čisté více zásobníkové automaty a navíc zavádí úplná uspořádání nad jejich zásobníky nebo zásobníkovými symboly. Práce dokazuje, že zavedená omezení snižují vyjadřovací sílu automatů. Ve druhé části práce jsou definovány a popsány nové derivační módy gramatik s rozptýleným kontextem, které zobecňují relaci přímé derivace. Je dokázáno, že jejich použití nesnižuje vyjadřovací sílu gramatik.This master's thesis investigates new versions of automata and grammars and is thus divided into two parts. First part defines and studies pure multi-pushdown automata and additionally introduces total orders above their pushdowns or pushdown symbols. Present work proves, defined restrictions decrease accepting power of these automata. In the second part, new modes of scattered context derivations are defined and described, which generalize the relation of direct derivation. It is proved, these modes do not decrease the generation power of scattered context grammars.

Grammars working on layered strings

We consider first an operation with strings and languages suggested by superposed windows on the computer screen (as well as by cryptographic systems of Richelieu type): we assume that the strings contain usual symbols as well as a transparent symbol. Superposing two strings (justified to left), we produce a new string consisting of the symbols observable from above. This operation is investigated as an abstract operation on strings, then it is used in building a variant of grammar systems with the component grammars working on the layers of an array of strings. Each grammar can rewrite only symbols in its layer which are observable from above. The language generated in this way consists of strings of the observable symbols, produced at the end of a derivation. The power of several variants of these generative mechanisms is investigated for the case of two layered strings. When a matrix-like control on the work of the component grammars is considered, then a characterization of recursively enumerable languages is obtained

Grammars with valuations — a discrete model for self-organization of biopolymers

AbstractWe define a new type of formal grammars where the derivation process is regulated by a certain function which evaluates the words. These grammars can be regarded as a model for the molecular replication process with selective character. We locate the associated family of languages in the Chomsky hierarchy, prove some closure properties, and solve some decision problems which are of interest in formal language theory and in biophysics

Complexity and modeling power of insertion-deletion systems

SISTEMAS DE INSERCIÓN Y BORRADO: COMPLEJIDAD Y CAPACIDAD DE MODELADO El objetivo central de la tesis es el estudio de los sistemas de inserción y borrado y su capacidad computacional. Más concretamente, estudiamos algunos modelos de generación de lenguaje que usan operaciones de reescritura de dos cadenas. También consideramos una variante distribuida de los sistemas de inserción y borrado en el sentido de que las reglas se separan entre un número finito de nodos de un grafo. Estos sistemas se denominan sistemas controlados mediante grafo, y aparecen en muchas áreas de la Informática, jugando un papel muy importante en los lenguajes formales, la lingüística y la bio-informática. Estudiamos la decidibilidad/ universalidad de nuestros modelos mediante la variación de los parámetros de tamaño del vector. Concretamente, damos respuesta a la cuestión más importante concerniente a la expresividad de la capacidad computacional: si nuestro modelo es equivalente a una máquina de Turing o no. Abordamos sistemáticamente las cuestiones sobre los tamaños mínimos de los sistemas con y sin control de grafo.COMPLEXITY AND MODELING POWER OF INSERTION-DELETION SYSTEMS The central object of the thesis are insertion-deletion systems and their computational power. More specifically, we study language generating models that use two string rewriting operations: contextual insertion and contextual deletion, and their extensions. We also consider a distributed variant of insertion-deletion systems in the sense that rules are separated among a finite number of nodes of a graph. Such systems are refereed as graph-controlled systems. These systems appear in many areas of Computer Science and they play an important role in formal languages, linguistics, and bio-informatics. We vary the parameters of the vector of size of insertion-deletion systems and we study decidability/universality of obtained models. More precisely, we answer the most important questions regarding the expressiveness of the computational model: whether our model is Turing equivalent or not. We systematically approach the questions about the minimal sizes of the insertiondeletion systems with and without the graph-control

Membrane systems with limited parallelism

Membrane computing is an emerging research field that belongs to the more general area of molecular computing, which deals with computational models inspired from bio-molecular processes. Membrane computing aims at defining models, called membrane systems or P systems, which abstract the functioning and structure of the cell. A membrane system consists of a hierarchical arrangement of membranes delimiting regions, which represent various compartments of a cell, and with each region containing bio-chemical elements of various types and having associated evolution rules, which represent bio-chemical processes taking place inside the cell. This work is a continuation of the investigations aiming to bridge membrane computing (where in a compartmental cell-like structure the chemicals to evolve are placed in compartments defined by membranes) and brane calculi (where one considers again a compartmental cell-like structure with the chemicals/proteins placed on the membranes themselves). We use objects both in compartments and on membranes (the latter are called proteins), with the objects from membranes evolving under the control of the proteins. Several possibilities are considered (objects only moved across membranes or also changed during this operation, with the proteins only assisting the move/change or also changing themselves). Somewhat expected, computational universality is obtained for several combinations of such possibilities. We also present a method for solving the NP-complete SAT problem using P systems with proteins on membranes. The SAT problem is solved in O(nm) time, where n is the number of boolean variables and m is the number of clauses for an instance written in conjunctive normal form. Thus, we can say that the solution for each given instance is obtained in linear time. We succeeded in solving SAT by a uniform construction of a deterministic P system which uses rules involving objects in regions, proteins on membranes, and membrane division. Then, we investigate the computational power of P systems with proteins on membranes in some particular cases: when only one protein is placed on a membrane, when the systems have a minimal number of rules, when the computation evolves in accepting or computing mode, etc. This dissertation introduces also another new variant of membrane systems that uses context-free rewriting rules for the evolution of objects placed inside compartments of a cell, and symport rules for communication between membranes. The strings circulate across membranes depending on their membership to regular languages given by means of regular expressions. We prove that these rewriting-symport P systems generate all recursively enumerable languages. We investigate the computational power of these newly introduced P systems for three particular forms of the regular expressions that are used by the symport rules. A characterization of ET0L languages is obtained in this context

(Re)Producing Men: Homosociality in Nineteenth-Century Latin American National Narratives

In this dissertation I dispute the long-held critical tradition that national narratives are best understood by the means in which they allegorize the nation through the heteronormative construct of family. I employ feminist, gender, and queer theories, as inflected with postcolonial studies to read Latin American national narratives’ use of allegory—particularly the ways in which the objectification of the female body symbolically aids the cementing of male bonds and rivalries. The (re)production of masculinities through male-male desire and rivalry informs the social constructs of both national embodiment and idealized male citizenship whereas the female body remains subjugated and largely homogenous in its relationship to masculinity and male desire. Eve Sedgwick’s concept of the “homosocial” provides the central critical framework through which I dispute and destabilize heteronormative assumptions at the basis of national identity formations. My focus on how masculinities are negotiated through the objectified female body enables an understanding of gender performativities’ determinative importance to the hegemonic representations of other marked categories of identity and thus, the taxonomies of bodily discourse that inform them. My literary corpus consists of select nineteenth-century texts that monumentalize national mythos and/or display radical shifts pertinent to nationalism such as Mexico’s reformation period, the abolition of slavery in Brazil, or Argentina’s struggle beneath a authoritarian regime. I also look at contemporary renditions of nineteenth-century figures to extrapolate nationalism as a form of gender discourse whose origins are intertwined with the independence movements of the nineteenth century