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The question of the state-size cost for simulation of two-way nondeterministic automata (2NFAs) by two-way deterministic automata (2DFAs) was raised in 1978 and, despite many attempts, it is still open. Subsequently, the problem was…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2011-10-07 Viliam Geffert , Bruno Guillon , Giovanni Pighizzini

This paper considers the existence of short synchronizing words in deterministic finite automata (DFAs). We define two general strategies for generating synchronizing words, and we show that each of these strategies can be applied if and…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2025-08-22 Peter Bradshaw , Alexander Clow , Ladislav Stacho

A word $w$ is called synchronizing (recurrent, reset, magic, directable) word of deterministic finite automaton (DFA) if $w$ sends all states of the automaton to a unique state. In 1964 Jan \v{C}erny found a sequence of n-state complete DFA…

Discrete Mathematics · Computer Science 2014-03-24 A. N. Trahtman

A classical problem in grammatical inference is to identify a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) from a set of positive and negative examples. In this paper, we address the related - yet seemingly novel - problem of identifying a set of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-06-07 Alexis Linard , Rick Smetsers , Frits Vaandrager , Umar Waqas , Joost van Pinxten , Sicco Verwer

Factor Analysis (FA) is a technique of fundamental importance that is widely used in classical and modern multivariate statistics, psychometrics and econometrics. In this paper, we revisit the classical rank-constrained FA problem, which…

Methodology · Statistics 2017-04-25 Dimitris Bertsimas , Martin S. Copenhaver , Rahul Mazumder

Determining the minimum number of states required by a finite automaton to separate a given pair of different words is an important problem. In this paper, we consider this problem for quantum automata (QFAs). We show that 2-state QFAs can…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2016-02-26 Aleksandrs Belovs , Juan Andres Montoya , Abuzer Yakaryılmaz

We investigate the nondeterministic state complexity of basic operations for suffix-free regular languages. The nondeterministic state complexity of an operation is the number of states that are necessary and sufficient in the worst-case…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2010-08-11 Yo-Sub Han , Kai Salomaa

The class of local languages is a well-known subclass of the regular languages that admits many equivalent characterizations. In this short note we establish the PSPACE-completeness of the problem of determining, given as input a…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2025-11-11 Antoine Amarilli , Mikaël Monet , Rémi De Pretto

In the present work, we lay out a new theory showing that all automata can always be co-lexicographically partially ordered, and an intrinsic measure of their complexity can be defined and effectively determined, namely, the minimum width…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2023-05-04 Nicola Cotumaccio , Giovanna D'Agostino , Alberto Policriti , Nicola Prezza

The paper completely characterizes the primality of acyclic DFAs, where a DFA $\mathcal{A}$ is prime if there do not exist DFAs $\mathcal{A}_1,\dots,\mathcal{A}_t$ with $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{A}) = \bigcap_{i=1}^{t}…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2023-07-14 Daniel Alexander Spenner

Number-conserving cellular automata (NCCA) are particularly interesting, both because of their natural appearance as models of real systems, and because of the strong restrictions that number-conservation implies. Here we extend the…

Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases · Physics 2007-05-23 Andres Moreira

We investigate the computational power of affine automata (AfAs) introduced in [4]. In particular, we present a simpler proof for how to change the cutpoint for any affine language and a method how to reduce error in bounded error case.…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2018-06-19 Mika Hirvensalo , Etienne Moutot , Abuzer Yakaryılmaz

Discounting the influence of future events is a key paradigm in economics and it is widely used in computer-science models, such as games, Markov decision processes (MDPs), reinforcement learning, and automata. While a single game or MDP…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-06-11 Udi Boker , Guy Hefetz

Given a Probabilistic Finite Automata (PFA), a set of states S, and an error threshold e > 0, our algorithm approximates the infimum probability (quantifying over all infinite words) that the automata reaches S. Our result contrasts with…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2010-09-21 Sergio Giro

We study minimization problems for deterministic $\omega$-automata in the presence of don't care words. We prove that the number of priorities in deterministic parity automata can be efficiently minimized under an arbitrary set of don't…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2026-04-08 Christof Löding , Max Philip Stachon

We introduce a new complexity measure for finite strings using probabilistic finite-state automata (PFAs), in the same spirit as existing notions employing DFAs and NFAs, and explore its properties. The PFA complexity $A_P(x)$ is the least…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Kenneth Gill

Partially ordered automata are automata where the transition relation induces a partial order on states. The expressive power of partially ordered automata is closely related to the expressivity of fragments of first-order logic on finite…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2023-06-22 Tomáš Masopust , Markus Krötzsch

In automata theory, while determinisation provides a standard route to solving many common problems in automata theory, some weak forms of nondeterminism can be dealt with in some problems without costly determinisation. For example, the…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2026-05-29 Thomas A. Henzinger , Keya Prakash , K. S. Thejaswini

Several new algorithms for deciding emptiness of Boolean combinations of regular languages and of languages of alternating automata (AFA) have been proposed recently, especially in the context of analysing regular expressions and in string…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2023-04-12 Tomáš Fiedor , Lukáš Holík , Martin Hruška , Adam Rogalewicz , Juraj Síč , Pavol Vargovčík

We generalize some of the central results in automata theory to the abstraction level of coalgebras and thus lay out the foundations of a universal theory of automata operating on infinite objects. Let F be any set functor that preserves…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2015-07-01 C. Kupke , Y. Venema