9 research outputs found
Complexity of Problems of Commutative Grammars
We consider commutative regular and context-free grammars, or, in other
words, Parikh images of regular and context-free languages. By using linear
algebra and a branching analog of the classic Euler theorem, we show that,
under an assumption that the terminal alphabet is fixed, the membership problem
for regular grammars (given v in binary and a regular commutative grammar G,
does G generate v?) is P, and that the equivalence problem for context free
grammars (do G_1 and G_2 generate the same language?) is in
A note on first-order spectra with binary relations
The spectrum of a first-order sentence is the set of the cardinalities of its
finite models. In this paper, we consider the spectra of sentences over binary
relations that use at least three variables. We show that for every such
sentence , there is a sentence that uses the same number of
variables, but only one symmetric binary relation, such that its spectrum is
linearly proportional to the spectrum of . Moreover, the models of
are all bipartite graphs. As a corollary, we obtain that to settle
Asser's conjecture, i.e., whether the class of spectra is closed under
complement, it is sufficient to consider only sentences using only three
variables whose models are restricted to undirected bipartite graphs
Trees in Trees: Is the Incomplete Information about a Tree Consistent?
We are interested in the following problem: given a tree automaton Aut and an incomplete tree description P, does a tree T exist such that T is accepted by Aut and consistent with P? A tree description is a tree-like structure which provides incomplete information about the shape of T. We show that this problem can be solved in polynomial time as long as Aut and the set of possible arrangements that can be forced by P are fixed. We show how our result is related to an open problem in the theory of incomplete XML information
Definability of linear equation systems over groups and rings
Motivated by the quest for a logic for PTIME and recent insights that the
descriptive complexity of problems from linear algebra is a crucial aspect of
this problem, we study the solvability of linear equation systems over finite
groups and rings from the viewpoint of logical (inter-)definability. All
problems that we consider are decidable in polynomial time, but not expressible
in fixed-point logic with counting. They also provide natural candidates for a
separation of polynomial time from rank logics, which extend fixed-point logics
by operators for determining the rank of definable matrices and which are
sufficient for solvability problems over fields. Based on the structure theory
of finite rings, we establish logical reductions among various solvability
problems. Our results indicate that all solvability problems for linear
equation systems that separate fixed-point logic with counting from PTIME can
be reduced to solvability over commutative rings. Moreover, we prove closure
properties for classes of queries that reduce to solvability over rings, which
provides normal forms for logics extended with solvability operators. We
conclude by studying the extent to which fixed-point logic with counting can
express problems in linear algebra over finite commutative rings, generalising
known results on the logical definability of linear-algebraic problems over
finite fields
On the Computational Complexity of Gossip Protocols
Gossip protocols deal with a group of communicating agents, each holding a private information, and aim at arriving at a situation in which all the agents know each other secrets. Distributed epistemic gossip protocols are particularly simple distributed programs that use formulas from an epistemic logic. Recently, the implementability of these distributed protocols was established (which means that the evaluation of these formulas is decidable), and the problems of their partial correctness and termination were shown to be decidable, but their exact computational complexity was left open. We show that for any monotonic type of calls the implementability of a distributed epistemic gossip protocol is a P^{NP}_{||}-complete problem, while the problems of its partial correctness and termination are in coNP^{NP}.</jats:p