Piecewise Testable Languages and Nondeterministic Automata

A regular language is $k$-piecewise testable if it is a finite boolean combination of languages of the form $\Sigma^* a_1 \Sigma^* \cdots \Sigma^* a_n \Sigma^*$, where $a_i\in\Sigma$ and $0\le n \le k$. Given a DFA $A$ and $k\ge 0$, it is an NL-complete problem to decide whether the language $L(A)$ is piecewise testable and, for $k\ge 4$, it is coNP-complete to decide whether the language $L(A)$ is $k$-piecewise testable. It is known that the depth of the minimal DFA serves as an upper bound on $k$. Namely, if $L(A)$ is piecewise testable, then it is $k$-piecewise testable for $k$ equal to the depth of $A$. In this paper, we show that some form of nondeterminism does not violate this upper bound result. Specifically, we define a class of NFAs, called ptNFAs, that recognize piecewise testable languages and show that the depth of a ptNFA provides an (up to exponentially better) upper bound on $k$ than the minimal DFA. We provide an application of our result, discuss the relationship between $k$-piecewise testability and the depth of NFAs, and study the complexity of $k$-piecewise testability for ptNFAs.Comment: Corrections in section 4.

Complexity of Deciding Detectability in Discrete Event Systems

Detectability of discrete event systems (DESs) is a question whether the current and subsequent states can be determined based on observations. Shu and Lin designed a polynomial-time algorithm to check strong (periodic) detectability and an exponential-time (polynomial-space) algorithm to check weak (periodic) detectability. Zhang showed that checking weak (periodic) detectability is PSpace-complete. This intractable complexity opens a question whether there are structurally simpler DESs for which the problem is tractable. In this paper, we show that it is not the case by considering DESs represented as deterministic finite automata without non-trivial cycles, which are structurally the simplest deadlock-free DESs. We show that even for such very simple DESs, checking weak (periodic) detectability remains intractable. On the contrary, we show that strong (periodic) detectability of DESs can be efficiently verified on a parallel computer

A Note on Limited Pushdown Alphabets in Stateless Deterministic Pushdown Automata

Recently, an infinite hierarchy of languages accepted by stateless deterministic pushdown automata has been established based on the number of pushdown symbols. However, the witness language for the n-th level of the hierarchy is over an input alphabet with 2(n-1) elements. In this paper, we improve this result by showing that a binary alphabet is sufficient to establish this hierarchy. As a consequence of our construction, we solve the open problem formulated by Meduna et al. Then we extend these results to m-state realtime deterministic pushdown automata, for all m at least 1. The existence of such a hierarchy for m-state deterministic pushdown automata is left open

Complexity of Infimal Observable Superlanguages

The infimal prefix-closed, controllable and observable superlanguage plays an essential role in the relationship between controllability, observability and co-observability -- the central notions of supervisory control theory. Existing algorithms for its computation are exponential and it is not known whether a polynomial algorithm exists. In this paper, we study the state complexity of this language. State complexity of a language is the number of states of the minimal DFA for the language. For a language of state complexity $n$, we show that the upper-bound state complexity on the infimal prefix-closed and observable superlanguage is $2^n + 1$ and that this bound is asymptotically tight. It proves that there is no algorithm computing a DFA of the infimal prefix-closed and observable superlanguage in polynomial time. Our construction further shows that such a DFA can be computed in time $O(2^n)$. The construction involves NFAs and a computation of the supremal prefix-closed sublanguage. We study the computation of the supremal prefix-closed sublanguage and show that there is no polynomial-time algorithm that computes an NFA of the supremal prefix-closed sublanguage of a language given as an NFA even if the language is unary

Comparison of Two Context-Free Rewriting Systems with Simple Context-Checking Mechanisms

This paper solves an open problem concerning the generative power of nonerasing context-free rewriting systems using a simple mechanism for checking for context dependencies, in the literature known as semi-conditional grammars of degree (1,1). In these grammars, two nonterminal symbols are attached to each context-free production, and such a production is applicable if one of the two attached symbols occurs in the current sentential form, while the other does not. Specifically, this paper demonstrates that the family of languages generated by semi-conditional grammars of degree (1,1) coincides with the family of random context languages. In addition, it shows that the normal form proved by Mayer for random context grammars with erasing productions holds for random context grammars without erasing productions, too. It also discusses two possible definitions of the relation of the direct derivation step used in the literature.Comment: Unpublished as a stronger result is under consideration

Complexity of Verifying Nonblockingness in Modular Supervisory Control

Complexity analysis becomes a common task in supervisory control. However, many results of interest are spread across different topics. The aim of this paper is to bring several interesting results from complexity theory and to illustrate their relevance to supervisory control by proving new nontrivial results concerning nonblockingness in modular supervisory control of discrete event systems modeled by finite automata

A Note on Undecidability of Observation Consistency for Non-Regular Languages

One of the most interesting questions concerning hierarchical control of discrete-event systems with partial observations is a condition under which the language observability is preserved between the original and the abstracted plant. Recently, we have characterized two such sufficient conditions---observation consistency and local observation consistency. In this paper, we prove that the condition of observation consistency is undecidable for non-regular (linear, deterministic context-free) languages. The question whether the condition is decidable for regular languages is open

Separability by Piecewise Testable Languages is PTime-Complete

Piecewise testable languages form the first level of the Straubing-Th\'erien hierarchy. The membership problem for this level is decidable and testing if the language of a DFA is piecewise testable is NL-complete. The question has not yet been addressed for NFAs. We fill in this gap by showing that it is PSpace-complete. The main result is then the lower-bound complexity of separability of regular languages by piecewise testable languages. Two regular languages are separable by a piecewise testable language if the piecewise testable language includes one of them and is disjoint from the other. For languages represented by NFAs, separability by piecewise testable languages is known to be decidable in PTime. We show that it is PTime-hard and that it remains PTime-hard even for minimal DFAs.Comment: Revised version of related results separated from arXiv:1409.394

On the State Complexity of the Reverse of R- and J-trivial Regular Languages

The tight upper bound on the state complexity of the reverse of R-trivial and J-trivial regular languages of the state complexity n is 2^{n-1}. The witness is ternary for R-trivial regular languages and (n-1)-ary for J-trivial regular languages. In this paper, we prove that the bound can be met neither by a binary R-trivial regular language nor by a J-trivial regular language over an (n-2)-element alphabet. We provide a characterization of tight bounds for R-trivial regular languages depending on the state complexity of the language and the size of its alphabet. We show the tight bound for J-trivial regular languages over an (n-2)-element alphabet and a few tight bounds for binary J-trivial regular languages. The case of J-trivial regular languages over an (n-k)-element alphabet, for 2 <= k <= n-3, is open.Comment: Full version of the paper accepted for DCFS 201

On Verification of D-Detectability for Discrete Event Systems

Detectability has been introduced as a generalization of state-estimation properties of discrete event systems studied in the literature. It asks whether the current and subsequent states of a system can be determined based on observations. Since, in some applications, to exactly determine the current and subsequent states may be too strict, a relaxed notion of D-detectability has been introduced, distinguishing only certain pairs of states rather than all states. Four variants of D-detectability have been defined: strong (periodic) D-detectability and weak (periodic) D-detectability. Deciding weak (periodic) D-detectability is PSpace-complete, while deciding strong (periodic) detectability or strong D-detectability is polynomial (and we show that it is actually NL-complete). However, to the best of our knowledge, it is an open problem whether there exists a polynomial-time algorithm deciding strong periodic D-detectability. We solve this problem by showing that deciding strong periodic D-detectability is a PSpace-complete problem, and hence there is no polynomial-time algorithm unless PSpace = P. We further show that there is no polynomial-time algorithm deciding strong periodic D-detectability even for systems with a single observable event, unless P = NP. Finally, we propose a class of systems for which the problem is tractable.Comment: Extended version of a paper accepted for WODES 202