1,958 research outputs found
Undecidability and Finite Automata
Using a novel rewriting problem, we show that several natural decision
problems about finite automata are undecidable (i.e., recursively unsolvable).
In contrast, we also prove three related problems are decidable. We apply one
result to prove the undecidability of a related problem about k-automatic sets
of rational numbers
Decidability and Independence of Conjugacy Problems in Finitely Presented Monoids
There have been several attempts to extend the notion of conjugacy from
groups to monoids. The aim of this paper is study the decidability and
independence of conjugacy problems for three of these notions (which we will
denote by , , and ) in certain classes of finitely
presented monoids. We will show that in the class of polycyclic monoids,
-conjugacy is "almost" transitive, is strictly included in
, and the - and -conjugacy problems are decidable with linear
compexity. For other classes of monoids, the situation is more complicated. We
show that there exists a monoid defined by a finite complete presentation
such that the -conjugacy problem for is undecidable, and that for
finitely presented monoids, the -conjugacy problem and the word problem are
independent, as are the -conjugacy and -conjugacy problems.Comment: 12 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1503.0091
Some undecidability results concerning the property of preserving regularity
AbstractA finite string-rewriting system R preserves regularity if and only if it preserves Σ-regularity, where Σ is the alphabet containing exactly those letters that have occurrences in the rules of R. This proves a conjecture of Gyenizse and Vágvölgyi (1997). In addition, some undecidability results are presented that generalize results of Gilleron and Tison (1995) from term-rewriting systems to string-rewriting systems. It follows that the property of being regularity preserving is undecidable for term-rewriting systems, thus answering another question of Gyenizse and Vágvölgyi (1997). Finally, it is shown that it is undecidable in general whether a finite, lengthreducing, and confluent string-rewriting system yields a regular set of normal forms for each regular language
Termination of Rewriting with Right-Flat Rules Modulo Permutative Theories
We present decidability results for termination of classes of term rewriting
systems modulo permutative theories. Termination and innermost termination
modulo permutative theories are shown to be decidable for term rewrite systems
(TRS) whose right-hand side terms are restricted to be shallow (variables occur
at depth at most one) and linear (each variable occurs at most once). Innermost
termination modulo permutative theories is also shown to be decidable for
shallow TRS. We first show that a shallow TRS can be transformed into a flat
(only variables and constants occur at depth one) TRS while preserving
termination and innermost termination. The decidability results are then proved
by showing that (a) for right-flat right-linear (flat) TRS, non-termination
(respectively, innermost non-termination) implies non-termination starting from
flat terms, and (b) for right-flat TRS, the existence of non-terminating
derivations starting from a given term is decidable. On the negative side, we
show PSPACE-hardness of termination and innermost termination for shallow
right-linear TRS, and undecidability of termination for flat TRS.Comment: 20 page
What's Decidable About Sequences?
We present a first-order theory of sequences with integer elements,
Presburger arithmetic, and regular constraints, which can model significant
properties of data structures such as arrays and lists. We give a decision
procedure for the quantifier-free fragment, based on an encoding into the
first-order theory of concatenation; the procedure has PSPACE complexity. The
quantifier-free fragment of the theory of sequences can express properties such
as sortedness and injectivity, as well as Boolean combinations of periodic and
arithmetic facts relating the elements of the sequence and their positions
(e.g., "for all even i's, the element at position i has value i+3 or 2i"). The
resulting expressive power is orthogonal to that of the most expressive
decidable logics for arrays. Some examples demonstrate that the fragment is
also suitable to reason about sequence-manipulating programs within the
standard framework of axiomatic semantics.Comment: Fixed a few lapses in the Mergesort exampl
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