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Any class of languages $\mathbf{L}$ accepted in time $\mathbf{T}$ has a counterpart $\mathbf{NL}$ accepted in nondeterministic time $\mathbf{NT}$. It follows from the definition of nondeterministic languages that $\mathbf{L} \subseteq…
Although current large language models are complex, the most basic specifications of the underlying language generation problem itself are simple to state: given a finite set of training samples from an unknown language, produce valid new…
String matching is the problem of deciding whether a given $n$-bit string contains a given $k$-bit pattern. We study the complexity of this problem in three settings. Communication complexity. For small $k$, we provide near-optimal upper…
Separation is a classical problem asking whether, given two sets belonging to some class, it is possible to separate them by a set from a smaller class. We discuss the separation problem for regular languages. We give a Ptime algorithm to…
Two languages are "finitely different" if their symmetric difference is finite. We consider the DFAs of finitely different regular languages and find major structural similarities. We proceed to consider the smallest DFAs that recognize a…
Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) interpreted on finite traces is a robust specification framework popular in formal verification. However, despite the high interest in the logic in recent years, the topic of their quantitative extensions is not…
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…
We consider the length of the longest word definable in FO and MSO via a formula of size n. For both logics we obtain as an upper bound for this number an exponential tower of height linear in n. We prove this by counting types with respect…
We systematically investigate the complexity of model checking the existential positive fragment of first-order logic. In particular, for a set of existential positive sentences, we consider model checking where the sentence is restricted…
We study the structure of the language of binary cube-free words. Namely, we are interested in the cube-free words that cannot be infinitely extended preserving cube-freeness. We show the existence of such words with arbitrarily long finite…
Given a linear equation $\mathcal{L}$, a set $A$ of integers is $\mathcal{L}$-free if $A$ does not contain any `non-trivial' solutions to $\mathcal{L}$. This notion incorporates many central topics in combinatorial number theory such as…
We consider a range of simply stated dynamic data structure problems on strings. An update changes one symbol in the input and a query asks us to compute some function of the pattern of length $m$ and a substring of a longer text. We give…
The problem of \emph{regular separability} asks, given two languages $K$ and $L$, whether there exists a regular language $S$ with $K\subseteq S$ and $S\cap L=\emptyset$. This problem has recently been studied for various classes of…
We consider the embedding problem in coding theory: given an independence (a code-related property) and an independent language $L$, find a maximal independent language containing $L$. We consider the case where the code-related property is…
A locally threshold testable language L is a language with the property that for some non negative integers k and l and for some word u from L, a word v belongs to L if and only if (1) the prefixes [suffixes] of length k-1 of words u and v…
For fragments L of first-order logic (FO) with counting quantifiers, we consider the definability problem, which asks whether a given L-formula can be equivalently expressed by a formula in some fragment of L without counting, and the more…
This paper provides a geometric characterization of subclasses of the regular languages. We use finite model theory to characterize objects like strings and trees as relational structures. Logical statements meeting certain criteria over…
We study the problem of deciding whether a given language is directed. A language $L$ is \emph{directed} if every pair of words in $L$ have a common (scattered) superword in $L$. Deciding directedness is a fundamental problem in connection…
The single shortest path algorithm is undefined for weighted finite-state automata over non-idempotent semirings because such semirings do not guarantee the existence of a shortest path. However, in non-idempotent semirings admitting an…
We show that the predictability of letters in written English texts depends strongly on their position in the word. The first letters are usually the least easy to predict. This agrees with the intuitive notion that words are well defined…