Separation for dot-depth two

The dot-depth hierarchy of Brzozowski and Cohen classifies the star-free languages of finite words. By a theorem of McNaughton and Papert, these are also the first-order definable languages. The dot-depth rose to prominence following the work of Thomas, who proved an exact correspondence with the quantifier alternation hierarchy of first-order logic: each level in the dot-depth hierarchy consists of all languages that can be defined with a prescribed number of quantifier blocks. One of the most famous open problems in automata theory is to settle whether the membership problem is decidable for each level: is it possible to decide whether an input regular language belongs to this level? Despite a significant research effort, membership by itself has only been solved for low levels. A recent breakthrough was achieved by replacing membership with a more general problem: separation. Given two input languages, one has to decide whether there exists a third language in the investigated level containing the first language and disjoint from the second. The motivation is that: (1) while more difficult, separation is more rewarding (2) it provides a more convenient framework (3) all recent membership algorithms are reductions to separation for lower levels. We present a separation algorithm for dot-depth two. While this is our most prominent application, our result is more general. We consider a family of hierarchies that includes the dot-depth: concatenation hierarchies. They are built via a generic construction process. One first chooses an initial class, the basis, which is the lowest level in the hierarchy. Further levels are built by applying generic operations. Our main theorem states that for any concatenation hierarchy whose basis is finite, separation is decidable for level one. In the special case of the dot-depth, this can be lifted to level two using previously known results

The Covering Problem

An important endeavor in computer science is to understand the expressive power of logical formalisms over discrete structures, such as words. Naturally, "understanding" is not a mathematical notion. This investigation requires therefore a concrete objective to capture this understanding. In the literature, the standard choice for this objective is the membership problem, whose aim is to find a procedure deciding whether an input regular language can be defined in the logic under investigation. This approach was cemented as the right one by the seminal work of Sch\"utzenberger, McNaughton and Papert on first-order logic and has been in use since then. However, membership questions are hard: for several important fragments, researchers have failed in this endeavor despite decades of investigation. In view of recent results on one of the most famous open questions, namely the quantifier alternation hierarchy of first-order logic, an explanation may be that membership is too restrictive as a setting. These new results were indeed obtained by considering more general problems than membership, taking advantage of the increased flexibility of the enriched mathematical setting. This opens a promising research avenue and efforts have been devoted at identifying and solving such problems for natural fragments. Until now however, these problems have been ad hoc, most fragments relying on a specific one. A unique new problem replacing membership as the right one is still missing. The main contribution of this paper is a suitable candidate to play this role: the Covering Problem. We motivate this problem with 3 arguments. First, it admits an elementary set theoretic formulation, similar to membership. Second, we are able to reexplain or generalize all known results with this problem. Third, we develop a mathematical framework and a methodology tailored to the investigation of this problem

Separating Regular Languages with First-Order Logic

Given two languages, a separator is a third language that contains the first one and is disjoint from the second one. We investigate the following decision problem: given two regular input languages of finite words, decide whether there exists a first-order definable separator. We prove that in order to answer this question, sufficient information can be extracted from semigroups recognizing the input languages, using a fixpoint computation. This yields an EXPTIME algorithm for checking first-order separability. Moreover, the correctness proof of this algorithm yields a stronger result, namely a description of a possible separator. Finally, we generalize this technique to answer the same question for regular languages of infinite words

The separation problem for regular languages by piecewise testable languages

Separation is a classical problem in mathematics and computer science. It asks whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by another set of a smaller class. We present and discuss the separation problem for regular languages. We then give a direct polynomial time algorithm to check whether two given regular languages are separable by a piecewise testable language, that is, whether a $B{\Sigma}1(<)$ sentence can witness that the languages are indeed disjoint. The proof is a reformulation and a refinement of an algebraic argument already given by Almeida and the second author

Recognizing pro-R closures of regular languages

Given a regular language L, we effectively construct a unary semigroup that recognizes the topological closure of L in the free unary semigroup relative to the variety of unary semigroups generated by the pseudovariety R of all finite R-trivial semigroups. In particular, we obtain a new effective solution of the separation problem of regular languages by R-languages

Conflict and social vulnerability to climate change: Lessons from Gaza

In societies marred by conflict, the propensity of populations to be harmed by climate hazards is likely to be increased by their exposure to violence and other coercive practices. Stakeholder assessments of climate vulnerability, as reported here for the Gaza Strip, can capture the qualitative experience of harm caused by conflict-related practices as these relate to, and interact with, forecasted climatic risks. The key pathways of climate vulnerability identified by stakeholders in Gaza relate above all to expected impacts on food security and water security. Exploration of these vulnerability pathways reveals conflict-structured non-climatic risks overwhelming forecasted climate risks. The prevalence in Gaza of short-term 'enforced coping' prevents the development of long-term adaptive capacity. Climate vulnerability assessments in (post)conflict environments should acknowledge the methodological and political-policy challenges caused by chronic, non-climatic sources of harm. © 2011 Taylor & Francis