Categorical Code Constructions

Abstract We study categories of codes and precodes. The objects in these categories capture the encoding and decoding process of error control codes, source codes, or cryptographic codes. We show that these categories are complete and cocomplete. This gives a wealth of new code constructions

Integer Vector Addition Systems with States

This paper studies reachability, coverability and inclusion problems for Integer Vector Addition Systems with States (ZVASS) and extensions and restrictions thereof. A ZVASS comprises a finite-state controller with a finite number of counters ranging over the integers. Although it is folklore that reachability in ZVASS is NP-complete, it turns out that despite their naturalness, from a complexity point of view this class has received little attention in the literature. We fill this gap by providing an in-depth analysis of the computational complexity of the aforementioned decision problems. Most interestingly, it turns out that while the addition of reset operations to ordinary VASS leads to undecidability and Ackermann-hardness of reachability and coverability, respectively, they can be added to ZVASS while retaining NP-completness of both coverability and reachability.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

North-Holland SMALL SOLUTIONS OF LINEAR DIOPHANTINE EQUATIONS

Let Ax = B be a system of m x n linear equations with integer coefficients. Assume the rows of A are linearly independent and denote by X (respectively Y) the maximum of the absolute values of the m x m minors of the matrix A (the augmented matrix (A, B)). If the system has a solution in nonnegative integers, it is proved that the system has a solution X = (xi) in nonnegative integers with xi < ~ X for n- m variables and xi ~< (n- m + 1)Y for m variables. This improves previous results of the authors and others. 1