Formal Languages and Automata Theory
C\^{a}mpeanu and Ho (2004) determined the maximum finite state complexity of finite languages, building on work of Champarnaud and Pin (1989). They stated that it is very difficult to determine the number of maximum-complexity languages.…
In this paper, we look at good-for-games Rabin automata that recognise a Muller language (a language that is entirely characterised by the set of letters that appear infinitely often in each word). We establish that minimal such automata…
A pushdown vector addition system with states (PVASS) extends the model of vector addition systems with a pushdown store. A PVASS is said to be \emph{bidirected} if every transition (pushing/popping a symbol or modifying a counter) has an…
We consider the parameterized verification problem for distributed algorithms where the goal is to develop techniques to prove the correctness of a given algorithm regardless of the number of participating processes. Motivated by an…
We prove that the normalized edit distance proposed in [Marzal and Vidal 1993] is a metric when the cost of all the edit operations are the same. This closes a long standing gap in the literature where several authors noted that this…
In this paper, we establish a strong link between the ambiguity for finite words of a B\"uchi automaton and the ambiguity for infinite words of the same automaton. This link is based on measure theory. More precisely, we show that such an…
We find an application in quantum finite automata for the ideas and results of [JL21] and [JL22]. We reformulate quantum finite automata with multiple-time measurements using the algebraic notion of near-ring. This gives a unified…
With the emerging applications that involve complex distributed systems branching-time specifications are specifically important as they reflect dynamic and non-deterministic nature of such applications. We describe the expressive power of…
In coding and information theory, it is desirable to construct maximal codes that can be either variable length codes or error control codes of fixed length. However deciding code maximality boils down to deciding whether a given NFA is…
Let $P_b$ denote the primes expressed in base-$b$. In this note, we prove that $P_b^*$ is not regular. This strengthens a classical result that $P_b$ is not regular, due to Minsky and Papert in 1966.
We define a game on 1-safe Petri nets, where a user plays against an environment in order to reach a goal on the system. The goal is expressed through an LTL-X formula, and represents a behaviour of the system that the user needs to…
We introduce a certain restriction of weighted automata over the rationals, called image-binary automata. We show that such automata accept the regular languages, can be exponentially more succinct than corresponding NFAs, and allow for…
Preferences play a key role in determining what goals/constraints to satisfy when not all constraints can be satisfied simultaneously. In this work, we study preference-based planning in a stochastic system modeled as a Markov decision…
Given an order of the underlying alphabet we can lift it to the states of a finite deterministic automaton: to compare states we use the order of the strings reaching them. When the order on strings is the co-lexicographic one \emph{and}…
Very little is known about the structure of the intersection of two $k$-generated monoids of words, even for $k=3$. Here we investigate the case of $k$-maximal monoids, that is, monoids whose basis of cardinality $k$ cannot be non-trivially…
Let ftm = 0111010010001... be the analogue of the Thue-Morse sequence in Fibonacci representation. In this note we show how, using the Walnut theorem-prover, to obtain a measure of its complexity, previously studied by Jamet, Popoli, and…
We show an efficient algorithm for generating geodesic regular tree structures for periodic hyperbolic and Euclidean tessellations and experimentally verify its performance on tessellations.
Imagine an assembly line where a box with a lid and liquid in it enters in some unknown orientation. The box should leave the line with the open lid facing upwards with the liquid still in it. To save costs there are no complex sensors or…
We show that for any unambiguous finite automaton with $n$ states there exists an unambiguous finite automaton with $\sqrt{n+1} \cdot 2^{n/2}$ states that recognizes the complement language. This builds and improves upon a similar result by…
In 1985, Bucher, Ehrenfeucht and Haussler studied derivation relations associated with a given set of context-free rules. Their research motivated a question regarding homomorphisms from the semigroup of all words onto a finite ordered…