4,220 research outputs found
A Characterization for Decidable Separability by Piecewise Testable Languages
The separability problem for word languages of a class by
languages of a class asks, for two given languages and
from , whether there exists a language from that
includes and excludes , that is, and . In this work, we assume some mild closure properties for
and study for which such classes separability by a piecewise
testable language (PTL) is decidable. We characterize these classes in terms of
decidability of (two variants of) an unboundedness problem. From this, we
deduce that separability by PTL is decidable for a number of language classes,
such as the context-free languages and languages of labeled vector addition
systems. Furthermore, it follows that separability by PTL is decidable if and
only if one can compute for any language of the class its downward closure wrt.
the scattered substring ordering (i.e., if the set of scattered substrings of
any language of the class is effectively regular).
The obtained decidability results contrast some undecidability results. In
fact, for all (non-regular) language classes that we present as examples with
decidable separability, it is undecidable whether a given language is a PTL
itself.
Our characterization involves a result of independent interest, which states
that for any kind of languages and , non-separability by PTL is
equivalent to the existence of common patterns in and
Deterministic Automata for Unordered Trees
Automata for unordered unranked trees are relevant for defining schemas and
queries for data trees in Json or Xml format. While the existing notions are
well-investigated concerning expressiveness, they all lack a proper notion of
determinism, which makes it difficult to distinguish subclasses of automata for
which problems such as inclusion, equivalence, and minimization can be solved
efficiently. In this paper, we propose and investigate different notions of
"horizontal determinism", starting from automata for unranked trees in which
the horizontal evaluation is performed by finite state automata. We show that a
restriction to confluent horizontal evaluation leads to polynomial-time
emptiness and universality, but still suffers from coNP-completeness of the
emptiness of binary intersections. Finally, efficient algorithms can be
obtained by imposing an order of horizontal evaluation globally for all
automata in the class. Depending on the choice of the order, we obtain
different classes of automata, each of which has the same expressiveness as
CMso.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2014, arXiv:1408.556
Towards Parameterized Regular Type Inference Using Set Constraints
We propose a method for inferring \emph{parameterized regular types} for
logic programs as solutions for systems of constraints over sets of finite
ground Herbrand terms (set constraint systems). Such parameterized regular
types generalize \emph{parametric} regular types by extending the scope of the
parameters in the type definitions so that such parameters can relate the types
of different predicates. We propose a number of enhancements to the procedure
for solving the constraint systems that improve the precision of the type
descriptions inferred. The resulting algorithm, together with a procedure to
establish a set constraint system from a logic program, yields a program
analysis that infers tighter safe approximations of the success types of the
program than previous comparable work, offering a new and useful efficiency vs.
precision trade-off. This is supported by experimental results, which show the
feasibility of our analysis
Covariance and Controvariance: a fresh look at an old issue (a primer in advanced type systems for learning functional programmers)
Twenty years ago, in an article titled "Covariance and contravariance:
conflict without a cause", I argued that covariant and contravariant
specialization of method parameters in object-oriented programming had
different purposes and deduced that, not only they could, but actually they
should both coexist in the same language.
In this work I reexamine the result of that article in the light of recent
advances in (sub-)typing theory and programming languages, taking a fresh look
at this old issue.
Actually, the revamping of this problem is just an excuse for writing an
essay that aims at explaining sophisticated type-theoretic concepts, in simple
terms and by examples, to undergraduate computer science students and/or
willing functional programmers.
Finally, I took advantage of this opportunity to describe some undocumented
advanced techniques of type-systems implementation that are known only to few
insiders that dug in the code of some compilers: therefore, even expert
language designers and implementers may find this work worth of reading
Timed pushdown automata revisited
This paper contains two results on timed extensions of pushdown automata
(PDA). As our first result we prove that the model of dense-timed PDA of
Abdulla et al. collapses: it is expressively equivalent to dense-timed PDA with
timeless stack. Motivated by this result, we advocate the framework of
first-order definable PDA, a specialization of PDA in sets with atoms, as the
right setting to define and investigate timed extensions of PDA. The general
model obtained in this way is Turing complete. As our second result we prove
NEXPTIME upper complexity bound for the non-emptiness problem for an expressive
subclass. As a byproduct, we obtain a tight EXPTIME complexity bound for a more
restrictive subclass of PDA with timeless stack, thus subsuming the complexity
bound known for dense-timed PDA.Comment: full technical report of LICS'15 pape
Ambiguity, Weakness, and Regularity in Probabilistic B\"uchi Automata
Probabilistic B\"uchi automata are a natural generalization of PFA to
infinite words, but have been studied in-depth only rather recently and many
interesting questions are still open. PBA are known to accept, in general, a
class of languages that goes beyond the regular languages. In this work we
extend the known classes of restricted PBA which are still regular, strongly
relying on notions concerning ambiguity in classical omega-automata.
Furthermore, we investigate the expressivity of the not yet considered but
natural class of weak PBA, and we also show that the regularity problem for
weak PBA is undecidable
Dynamic Set Intersection
Consider the problem of maintaining a family of dynamic sets subject to
insertions, deletions, and set-intersection reporting queries: given , report every member of in any order. We show that in the word
RAM model, where is the word size, given a cap on the maximum size of
any set, we can support set intersection queries in
expected time, and updates in expected time. Using this algorithm
we can list all triangles of a graph in
expected time, where and
is the arboricity of . This improves a 30-year old triangle enumeration
algorithm of Chiba and Nishizeki running in time.
We provide an incremental data structure on that supports intersection
{\em witness} queries, where we only need to find {\em one} .
Both queries and insertions take O\paren{\sqrt \frac{N}{w/\log^2 w}} expected
time, where . Finally, we provide time/space tradeoffs for
the fully dynamic set intersection reporting problem. Using words of space,
each update costs expected time, each reporting query
costs expected time where
is the size of the output, and each witness query costs expected time.Comment: Accepted to WADS 201
Quantum finite automata and linear context-free languages: a decidable problem
We consider the so-called measure once finite quantum automata model introduced by Moore and Crutchfield in 2000. We show that given a language recognized by such a device and a linear context-free language, it is recursively decidable whether or not they have a nonempty intersection. This extends a result of Blondel et al. which can be interpreted as solving the problem with the free monoid in place of the family of linear context-free languages. © 2013 Springer-Verlag
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