Related papers: A generic polynomial time approach to separation b…
We show that for any $i > 0$, it is decidable, given a regular language, whether it is expressible in the $\Sigma_i[<]$ fragment of first-order logic FO[<]. This settles a question open since 1971. Our main technical result relies on the…
Polynomial closure is a standard operator which is applied to a class of regular languages. In the paper, we investigate three restrictions called left (LPol), right (RPol) and mixed polynomial closure (MPol). The first two were known while…
We investigate a famous decision problem in automata theory: separation. Given a class of language C, the separation problem for C takes as input two regular languages and asks whether there exists a third one which belongs to C, includes…
We investigate quantifier alternation hierarchies in first-order logic on finite words. Levels in these hierarchies are defined by counting the number of quantifier alternations in formulas. We prove that one can decide membership of a…
We investigate the decidability of the definability problem for fragments of first order logic over finite words enriched with modular predicates. Our approach aims toward the most generic statements that we could achieve, which…
Group languages are regular languages recognized by finite groups, or equivalently by finite automata in which each letter induces a permutation on the set of states. We investigate the separation problem for this class of languages: given…
We consider first-order logic over the subword ordering on finite words, where each word is available as a constant. Our first result is that the $\Sigma_1$ theory is undecidable (already over two letters). We investigate the decidability…
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…
We investigate the quantifier alternation hierarchy in first-order logic on finite words. Levels in this hierarchy are defined by counting the number of quantifier alternations in formulas. We prove that one can decide membership of a…
We investigate an operator on classes of languages. For each class $C$, it outputs a new class $FO^2(I_C)$ associated with a variant of two-variable first-order logic equipped with a signature$I_C$ built from $C$. For $C = \{\emptyset,…
Concatenation hierarchies are classifications of regular languages. All such hierarchies are built through the same construction process: start from an initial class of languages and build new levels using two generic operations.…
This article fits in the area of research that investigates the application of topological duality methods to problems that appear in theoretical computer science. One of the eventual goals of this approach is to derive results in…
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…
We investigate the expressive power of quantifier alternation hierarchy of first-order logic over words. This hierarchy includes the classes ${\Sigma}_i$ (sentences having at most $i$ blocks of quantifiers starting with an $\exists$) and…
For every class $\mathscr{C}$ of word languages, one may associate a decision problem called $\mathscr{C}$-separation. Given two regular languages, it asks whether there exists a third language in $\mathscr{C}$ containing the first…
The study of various decision problems for logic fragments has a long history in computer science. This paper is on the membership problem for a fragment of first-order logic over infinite words; the membership problem asks for a given…
We investigate the polynomial closure operation (C -> Pol(C)) defined on classes of regular languages. We present an interesting and useful connection relating the separation problem for the class C and the membership problem for it…
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…
Motivated by a historical combinatorial problem that resembles the well-known Josephus problem, we investigate circular partition algorithms and formulate problems in deterministic finite automata with practical algorithms. The historical…
We study the task, for a given language $L$, of enumerating the (generally infinite) sequence of its words, without repetitions, while bounding the delay between two consecutive words. To allow for delay bounds that do not depend on the…