Invariance: a Theoretical Approach for Coding Sets of Words Modulo Literal (Anti)Morphisms

Let $A$ be a finite or countable alphabet and let $\theta$ be literal (anti)morphism onto $A^*$ (by definition, such a correspondence is determinated by a permutation of the alphabet). This paper deals with sets which are invariant under $\theta$ ($\theta$-invariant for short).We establish an extension of the famous defect theorem. Moreover, we prove that for the so-called thin $\theta$-invariant codes, maximality and completeness are two equivalent notions. We prove that a similar property holds in the framework of some special families of $\theta$-invariant codes such as prefix (bifix) codes, codes with a finite deciphering delay, uniformly synchronized codes and circular codes. For a special class of involutive antimorphisms, we prove that any regular $\theta$-invariant code may be embedded into a complete one.Comment: To appear in Acts of WORDS 201

Combinatorics on Words 10th International Conference

This volume contains the Local Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on WORDS, that took place at the Kiel University, Germany, from the 14th to the 17th September 2015. WORDS is the main conference series devoted to the mathematical theory of words, and it takes place every two years. The first conference in the series was organised in 1997 in Rouen, France, with the following editions taking place in Rouen, Palermo,Turku, Montreal, Marseille, Salerno, Prague, and Turku. The main object in the scope of the conference, words, are finite or infinite sequences of symbols over a finite alphabet. They appear as natural and basic mathematical model in many areas, theoretical or applicative. Accordingly, the WORDS conference is open to both theoretical contributions related to combinatorial, algebraic, and algorithmic aspects of words, as well as to contributions presenting application of the theory of words, for instance, in other fields of computer science, inguistics, biology and bioinformatics, or physics. For the second time in the history of WORDS, after the 2013 edition, a refereed proceedings volume was published in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. In addition, this local proceedings volume was published in the Kiel Computer Science Series of the Kiel University. Being a conference at the border between theoretical computer science and mathematics, WORDS tries to capture in its two proceedings volumes the characteristics of the conferences from both these worlds. While the Lecture Notes in Computer Science volume was dedicated to formal contributions, this local proceedings volume allows, in the spirit of mathematics conferences, the publication of several contributions informing on current research and work in progress in areas closely connected to the core topics of WORDS. All the papers, the ones published in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science proceedings volume or the ones from this volume, were refereed to high standards by the members of the Program Committee. Following the conference, a special issue of the Theoretical Computer Science journal will be edited, containing extended versions of papers from both proceedings volumes. In total, the conference hosted 18 contributed talks. The papers on which 14 of these talks were based, were published in th LNCS volume; the other 4 are published in this volume. In addition to the contributed talks, the conference program included six invited talks given by leading experts in the areas covered by the WORDS conference: Jörg Endrullis (Amsterdam), Markus Lohrey (Siegen), Jean Néraud (Rouen), Dominique Perrin (Paris), Michaël Rao (Lyon), Thomas Stoll (Nancy). WORDS 2015 was the tenth conference in the series, so we were extremely happy to welcome, as invited speaker at this anniversary edition, Jean Néraud, one of the initiators of the series and the main organiser of the first two editions of this conference. We thank all the invited speakers and all the authors of submitted papers for their contributions to the the success of the conference. We are grateful to the members of the Program Committee for their work that lead to the selection of the contributed talks, and, implicitly, of the papers published in this volume. They were assisted in their task by a series of external referees, gratefully acknowledged below. The submission and reviewing process used the Easychair system; we thank Andrej Voronkov for this system which facilitated the work of the Programme Committee and the editors considerably. We grateful thank Gheorghe Iosif for designing the logo, poster, and banner of WORDS 2015; the logo of the conference can be seen on the front cover of this book. We also thank the editors of the Kiel Computer Science Series, especially Lasse Kliemann, for their support in editing this volume. Finally, we thank the Organising Committee of WORDS 2015 for ensuring the smooth run of the conference

A Study of Pseudo-Periodic and Pseudo-Bordered Words for Functions Beyond Identity and Involution

Periodicity, primitivity and borderedness are some of the fundamental notions in combinatorics on words. Motivated by the Watson-Crick complementarity of DNA strands wherein a word (strand) over the DNA alphabet \{A, G, C, T\} and its Watson-Crick complement are informationally ``identical , these notions have been extended to consider pseudo-periodicity and pseudo-borderedness obtained by replacing the ``identity function with ``pseudo-identity functions (antimorphic involution in case of Watson-Crick complementarity). For a given alphabet $\Sigma$, an antimorphic involution $\theta$ is an antimorphism, i.e., $\theta(uv)=\theta(v) \theta(u)$ for all $u,v \in \Sigma^{*}$ and an involution, i.e., $\theta(\theta(u))=u$ for all $u \in \Sigma^{*}$. In this thesis, we continue the study of pseudo-periodic and pseudo-bordered words for pseudo-identity functions including involutions. To start with, we propose a binary word operation, $\theta$-catenation, that generates $\theta$-powers (pseudo-powers) of a word for any morphic or antimorphic involution $\theta$. We investigate various properties of this operation including closure properties of various classes of languages under it, and its connection with the previously defined notion of $\theta$-primitive words. A non-empty word $u$ is said to be $\theta$-bordered if there exists a non-empty word $v$ which is a prefix of $u$ while $\theta(v)$ is a suffix of $u$. We investigate the properties of $\theta$-bordered (pseudo-bordered) and $\theta$-unbordered (pseudo-unbordered) words for pseudo-identity functions $\theta$ with the property that $\theta$ is either a morphism or an antimorphism with $\theta^{n}=I$, for a given $n \geq 2$, or $\theta$ is a literal morphism or an antimorphism. Lastly, we initiate a new line of study by exploring the disjunctivity properties of sets of pseudo-bordered and pseudo-unbordered words and some other related languages for various pseudo-identity functions. In particular, we consider such properties for morphic involutions $\theta$ and prove that, for any $i \geq 2$, the set of all words with exactly $i$ $\theta$-borders is disjunctive (under certain conditions)

Generating Invalid Input Strings for Software Testing

Grammar-based testing has interested the academic community for decades, but little work has been done with regards to testing with invalid input strings. For our research, we generated LR parse tables from grammars. We then generated valid and invalid strings based on coverage of these tables. We evaluated the effectiveness of these strings in terms of code coverage and fault detection by inputting them to subject programs which accept input based on the grammars. For a baseline, we then compared the effectiveness of these strings to a more general approach where the tokens making up each string are chosen randomly. Analysis revealed that the LR strategy achieved higher code coverage than the randomly generated strings in most cases. Even when the LR strategy garnered less code coverage, it still covered substantial code not touched by the benchmark. The LR strategy also showed effective fault finding ability for some programs