1,169 research outputs found
Complexity of Left-Ideal, Suffix-Closed and Suffix-Free Regular Languages
A language over an alphabet is suffix-convex if, for any words
, whenever and are in , then so is .
Suffix-convex languages include three special cases: left-ideal, suffix-closed,
and suffix-free languages. We examine complexity properties of these three
special classes of suffix-convex regular languages. In particular, we study the
quotient/state complexity of boolean operations, product (concatenation), star,
and reversal on these languages, as well as the size of their syntactic
semigroups, and the quotient complexity of their atoms.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1605.0669
Large Aperiodic Semigroups
The syntactic complexity of a regular language is the size of its syntactic
semigroup. This semigroup is isomorphic to the transition semigroup of the
minimal deterministic finite automaton accepting the language, that is, to the
semigroup generated by transformations induced by non-empty words on the set of
states of the automaton. In this paper we search for the largest syntactic
semigroup of a star-free language having left quotients; equivalently, we
look for the largest transition semigroup of an aperiodic finite automaton with
states.
We introduce two new aperiodic transition semigroups. The first is generated
by transformations that change only one state; we call such transformations and
resulting semigroups unitary. In particular, we study complete unitary
semigroups which have a special structure, and we show that each maximal
unitary semigroup is complete. For there exists a complete unitary
semigroup that is larger than any aperiodic semigroup known to date.
We then present even larger aperiodic semigroups, generated by
transformations that map a non-empty subset of states to a single state; we
call such transformations and semigroups semiconstant. In particular, we
examine semiconstant tree semigroups which have a structure based on full
binary trees. The semiconstant tree semigroups are at present the best
candidates for largest aperiodic semigroups.
We also prove that is an upper bound on the state complexity of
reversal of star-free languages, and resolve an open problem about a special
case of state complexity of concatenation of star-free languages.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure, 2 table
Most Complex Non-Returning Regular Languages
A regular language is non-returning if in the minimal deterministic
finite automaton accepting it there are no transitions into the initial state.
Eom, Han and Jir\'askov\'a derived upper bounds on the state complexity of
boolean operations and Kleene star, and proved that these bounds are tight
using two different binary witnesses. They derived upper bounds for
concatenation and reversal using three different ternary witnesses. These five
witnesses use a total of six different transformations. We show that for each
there exists a ternary witness of state complexity that meets the
bound for reversal and that at least three letters are needed to meet this
bound. Moreover, the restrictions of this witness to binary alphabets meet the
bounds for product, star, and boolean operations. We also derive tight upper
bounds on the state complexity of binary operations that take arguments with
different alphabets. We prove that the maximal syntactic semigroup of a
non-returning language has elements and requires at least
generators. We find the maximal state complexities of atoms of
non-returning languages. Finally, we show that there exists a most complex
non-returning language that meets the bounds for all these complexity measures.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Symmetric Groups and Quotient Complexity of Boolean Operations
The quotient complexity of a regular language L is the number of left
quotients of L, which is the same as the state complexity of L. Suppose that L
and L' are binary regular languages with quotient complexities m and n, and
that the transition semigroups of the minimal deterministic automata accepting
L and L' are the symmetric groups S_m and S_n of degrees m and n, respectively.
Denote by o any binary boolean operation that is not a constant and not a
function of one argument only. For m,n >= 2 with (m,n) not in
{(2,2),(3,4),(4,3),(4,4)} we prove that the quotient complexity of LoL' is mn
if and only either (a) m is not equal to n or (b) m=n and the bases (ordered
pairs of generators) of S_m and S_n are not conjugate. For (m,n)\in
{(2,2),(3,4),(4,3),(4,4)} we give examples to show that this need not hold. In
proving these results we generalize the notion of uniform minimality to direct
products of automata. We also establish a non-trivial connection between
complexity of boolean operations and group theory
Checking Whether an Automaton Is Monotonic Is NP-complete
An automaton is monotonic if its states can be arranged in a linear order
that is preserved by the action of every letter. We prove that the problem of
deciding whether a given automaton is monotonic is NP-complete. The same result
is obtained for oriented automata, whose states can be arranged in a cyclic
order. Moreover, both problems remain hard under the restriction to binary
input alphabets.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures. CIAA 2015. The final publication is available at
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-22360-5_2
Firms’ Proactiveness During the Crisis: Evidence from European Data
none3This paper contributes to the literature on the entrepreneurial behavior of firms during the economic crisis by investigating the determinants of proactive behavior on a large sample of European companies during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We explore various dimensions of proactive behavior, including: investments in innovation, expanding product offer, undergoing quality certification, investing in tangible assets and avoiding layoff. Our findings show a surprising heterogeneity of determinants in the case of different proactivity measures, especially when considering the impact of public policies which support entrepreneurship. We also provide some evidence supporting the organizational learning hypothesis with regard to proactiveness, as we show that the previous crisis experience matters in the case of the adoption of proactive or reactive strategy by a firm.openJan Brzozowski; Marco Cucculelli; Valentina PeruzziBrzozowski, Jan Pawel; Cucculelli, Marco; Peruzzi, Valentin
Testing the Equivalence of Regular Languages
The minimal deterministic finite automaton is generally used to determine
regular languages equality. Antimirov and Mosses proposed a rewrite system for
deciding regular expressions equivalence of which Almeida et al. presented an
improved variant. Hopcroft and Karp proposed an almost linear algorithm for
testing the equivalence of two deterministic finite automata that avoids
minimisation. In this paper we improve the best-case running time, present an
extension of this algorithm to non-deterministic finite automata, and establish
a relationship between this algorithm and the one proposed in Almeida et al. We
also present some experimental comparative results. All these algorithms are
closely related with the recent coalgebraic approach to automata proposed by
Rutten
A Computational Interpretation of Context-Free Expressions
We phrase parsing with context-free expressions as a type inhabitation
problem where values are parse trees and types are context-free expressions. We
first show how containment among context-free and regular expressions can be
reduced to a reachability problem by using a canonical representation of
states. The proofs-as-programs principle yields a computational interpretation
of the reachability problem in terms of a coercion that transforms the parse
tree for a context-free expression into a parse tree for a regular expression.
It also yields a partial coercion from regular parse trees to context-free
ones. The partial coercion from the trivial language of all words to a
context-free expression corresponds to a predictive parser for the expression
The crystal structure of superoxide dismutase from Plasmodium falciparum
Background: Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are important enzymes in defence against oxidative stress. In Plasmodium falciparum, they may be expected to have special significance since part of the parasite life cycle is spent in red blood cells where the formation of reactive oxygen species is likely to be promoted by the products of haemoglobin breakdown. Thus, inhibitors of P. falciparum SODs have potential as anti-malarial compounds. As a step towards their development we have determined the crystal structure of the parasite's cytosolic iron superoxide dismutase. Results: The cytosolic iron superoxide dismutase from P. falciparum (PfFeSOD) has been overexpressed in E. coli in a catalytically active form. Its crystal structure has been solved by molecular replacement and refined against data extending to 2.5 angstrom resolution. The structure reveals a two-domain organisation and an iron centre in which the metal is coordinated by three histidines, an aspartate and a solvent molecule. Consistent with ultracentrifugation analysis the enzyme is a dimer in which a hydrogen bonding lattice links the two active centres. Conclusion: The tertiary structure of PfFeSOD is very similar to those of a number of other iron-and manganese-dependent superoxide dismutases, moreover the active site residues are conserved suggesting a common mechanism of action. Comparison of the dimer interfaces of PfFeSOD with the human manganese-dependent superoxide dismutase reveals a number of differences, which may underpin the design of parasite-selective superoxide dismutase inhibitors
Quotient Complexity of Regular Languages
The past research on the state complexity of operations on regular languages
is examined, and a new approach based on an old method (derivatives of regular
expressions) is presented. Since state complexity is a property of a language,
it is appropriate to define it in formal-language terms as the number of
distinct quotients of the language, and to call it "quotient complexity". The
problem of finding the quotient complexity of a language f(K,L) is considered,
where K and L are regular languages and f is a regular operation, for example,
union or concatenation. Since quotients can be represented by derivatives, one
can find a formula for the typical quotient of f(K,L) in terms of the quotients
of K and L. To obtain an upper bound on the number of quotients of f(K,L) all
one has to do is count how many such quotients are possible, and this makes
automaton constructions unnecessary. The advantages of this point of view are
illustrated by many examples. Moreover, new general observations are presented
to help in the estimation of the upper bounds on quotient complexity of regular
operations
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