Related papers: On $k$-piecewise testability (preliminary report)
Given a language L and a nondeterministic finite automaton M, we consider whether we can determine efficiently (in the size of M) if M accepts at least one word in L, or infinitely many words. Given that M accepts at least one word in L, we…
Grammatical inference consists in learning a formal grammar as a finite state machine or as a set of rewrite rules. In this paper, we are concerned with inferring Nondeterministic Finite Automata (NFA) that must accept some words, and…
In probabilistic program analysis, quantitative analysis aims at deriving tight numerical bounds for probabilistic properties such as expectation and assertion probability. Most previous works consider numerical bounds over the whole…
A test set for a formal language (set of strings) L is a subset T of L such that for any two string homomorphisms f and g defined on L, if the restrictions of f and g on T are identical functions, then f and g are identical on the entire L.…
Indexed languages are a classical notion in formal language theory. As the language equivalent of second-order pushdown automata, they have received considerable attention in higher-order model checking. Unfortunately, counting properties…
The $k$-spectrum is the set of all $\alpha>0$ such that $G(n,n^{-\alpha})$ does not obey the 0-1 law for FO sentences with quantifier depth at most $k$. In this paper, we prove that the minimum $k$ such that the $k$-spectrum is infinite…
We show that the Parikh image of the language of an NFA with n states over an alphabet of size k can be described as a finite union of linear sets with at most k generators and total size 2^{O(k^2 log n)}, i.e., polynomial for all fixed k…
In this paper, we consider block languages, namely sets of words having the same length, and we propose a new representation for these languages. In particular, given an alphabet of size $k$ and a length $\ell$, a block language can be…
A subsequence of a word $w$ is a word $u$ such that $u = w[i_1] w[i_2] \cdots w[i_k]$, for some set of indices $1 \leq i_1 < i_2 < \dots < i_k \leq \vert w \vert$. A word $w$ is \emph{$k$-subsequence universal} over an alphabet $\Sigma$ if…
Let $\Sigma = X\cup X^{-1} = \{ x_1 ,x_2 ,..., x_m ,x_1^{-1} ,x_2^{-1} ,..., x_m^{-1} \}$ and let $G$ be a group with set of generators $\Sigma$. Let $\mathfrak{L} (G) =\left\{ \left. \omega \in \Sigma^* \; \right\vert \;\omega \equiv e \;…
We develop a theory of k-partitions of the set of infinite words recognizable by classes of finite automata. The theory enables to complete proofs of existing results about topological classifications of the (aperiodic) omega-regular…
We study the capabilities of probabilistic finite-state machines that act as verifiers for certificates of language membership for input strings, in the regime where the verifiers are restricted to toss some fixed nonzero number of coins…
The class of Boolean combinations of tree languages recognized by deterministic top-down tree automata (also known as deterministic root-to-frontier automata) is studied. The problem of determining for a given regular tree language whether…
We study counting-regular languages -- these are languages $L$ for which there is a regular language $L'$ such that the number of strings of length $n$ in $L$ and $L'$ are the same for all $n$. We show that the languages accepted by…
In this paper we consider the problem of deciding membership in Dyck languages, a fundamental family of context-free languages, comprised of well-balanced strings of parentheses. In this problem we are given a string of length $n$ in the…
We establish the satisfiability threshold for random $k$-SAT for all $k\ge k_0$, with $k_0$ an absolute constant. That is, there exists a limiting density $\alpha_*(k)$ such that a random $k$-SAT formula of clause density $\alpha$ is with…
We establish unconditionally that for every integer $k \geq 1$ there is a language $L \in \mbox{P}$ such that it is consistent with Cook's theory PV that $L \notin Size(n^k)$. Our argument is non-constructive and does not provide an…
A set X of partial words over a finite alphabet A is called unavoidable if every two-sided infinite word over A has a factor compatible with an element of X. Unlike the case of a set of words without holes, the problem of deciding whether…
Indexed languages are a classical notion in formal language theory, which has attracted attention in recent decades due to its role in higher-order model checking: They are precisely the languages accepted by order-2 pushdown automata. The…
An automaton is unambiguous if for every input it has at most one accepting computation. An automaton is k-ambiguous (for k > 0) if for every input it has at most k accepting computations. An automaton is boundedly ambiguous if it is…