Decidability and Expressiveness of Finitely Representable Recognizable Graph Languages

Recognizable graph languages are a generalization of regular (word) languages to graphs (as well as arbitrary categories). Recently automaton functors were proposed as acceptors of recognizable graph languages. They promise to be a useful tool for the verification of dynamic systems, for example for invariant checking. Since automaton functors may contain an infinite number of finite state sets, one must restrict to finitely representable ones for implementation reasons. In this paper we take into account two such finite representations: primitive recursive automaton functors - in which the automaton functor can be constructed on-the-fly by a primitive recursive function -, and bounded automaton functors - in which the interface size of the graphs (cf. path width) is bounded, so that the automaton functor can be explicitly represented. We show that the language classes of both kinds of automaton functor are closed under boolean operations, and compare the expressiveness of the two paradigms with hyperedge replacement grammars. In addition we show that the emptiness and equivalence problem are decidable for bounded automaton functors, but undecidable for primitive recursive automaton functors

Concatenation and other Closure Properties of Recognizable Languages in Adhesive Categories

We consider recognizable languages of cospans in adhesive categories, ofwhich recognizable graph languages are a special case. We show that such languages are closed under concatenation, i.e. under cospan composition, by providing a con-crete construction that creates a concatenation automaton from two given automata.The construction is considerably more complex than the corresponding construction for finite automata. We conclude by showing negative closure properties for Kleene star and substitution

Specifying Graph Languages with Type Graphs

We investigate three formalisms to specify graph languages, i.e. sets of graphs, based on type graphs. First, we are interested in (pure) type graphs, where the corresponding language consists of all graphs that can be mapped homomorphically to a given type graph. In this context, we also study languages specified by restriction graphs and their relation to type graphs. Second, we extend this basic approach to a type graph logic and, third, to type graphs with annotations. We present decidability results and closure properties for each of the formalisms.Comment: (v2): -Fixed some typos -Added more reference

Recognizable Graph Languages for Checking Invariants

We generalize the order-theoretic variant of the Myhill-Nerode theorem to graph languages, and characterize the recognizable graph languages as the class of languages for which the Myhill-Nerode quasi order is a well quasi order. In the second part of the paper we restrict our attention to graphs of bounded interface size, and use Myhill-Nerode quasi orders to verify that, for such bounded graphs, a recognizable graph property is an invariant of a graph transformation system. A recognizable graph property is a recognizable graph language, given as an automaton functor. Finally, we present an algorithm to approximate the Myhill-Nerode ordering

Towards Alternating Automata for Graph Languages

In this paper we introduce alternating automata for languages of arrows of an arbitrary category, and as an instantiation thereof alternating automata for graph languages. We study some of their closure properties and compare them, with respect to expressiveness, to other methods for describing graph languages. We show, by providing several examples, that many graph properties (of graphs of bounded path width) can be naturally expressed as alternating automata

Treewidth, Pathwidth and Cospan Decompositions

We will revisit the categorical notion of cospan decompositions of graphs and compare it to the well-known notions of path decomposition and tree decomposition from graph theory. More specifically, we will define several types of cospan decompositions with appropriate width measures and show that these width measures coincide with pathwidth and treewidth. Such graph decompositions of small width are used to efficiently decide graph properties, for instance via graph automata

Efficient Implementation of Automaton Functors for the Verification of Graph Transformation Systems

In this paper we show new applications for recognizable graph languages to invariant checking. Furthermore we present details about techniques we used for an implementation of a tool suite for (finite) automaton functors which generalize finite automata to the setting of recognizable (graph) languages. In order to develop an efficient implementation we take advantage of Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs)

A Logic on Subobjects and Recognizability

Abstract. We introduce a simple logic that allows to quantify over the subobjects of a categorical object. We subsequently show that, for the category of graphs, this logic is equally expressive as second-order monadic graph logic (msogl). Furthermore we show that for the more general setting of hereditary pushout categories, a class of categories closely related to adhesive categories, we can recover Courcelle's result that every msogl-expressible property is recognizable. This is done by giving an inductive translation of formulas of our logic into so-called automaton functors which accept recognizable languages of cospans

Inverse monoids of higher-dimensional strings

International audienceHalfway between graph transformation theory and inverse semigroup theory, we define higher dimensional strings as bi-deterministic graphs with distinguished sets of input roots and output roots. We show that these generalized strings can be equipped with an associative product so that the resulting algebraic structure is an inverse semigroup. Its natural order is shown to capture existence of root preserving graph mor-phism. A simple set of generators is characterized. As a subsemigroup example, we show how all finite grids are finitely generated. Last, simple additional restrictions on products lead to the definition of subclasses with decidable Monadic Second Order (MSO) language theory