Related papers: Universal quantification makes automatic structure…
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…
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…
We study the existence of automatic presentations for various algebraic structures. An automatic presentation of a structure is a description of the universe of the structure by a regular set of words, and the interpretation of the…
We investigate the properties of formal languages expressible in terms of formulas over quantifier-free theories of word equations, arithmetic over length constraints, and language membership predicates for the classes of regular, visibly…
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 show that there are quantum devices that accept all regular languages and that are exponentially more concise than deterministic finite automata (DFA). For this purpose, we introduce a new computing model of {\it one-way quantum finite…
We give a simple new proof that regular languages defined by first-order sentences with no quantifier alteration can be defined by such sentences in which only regular atomic formulas appear. Earlier proofs of this fact relied on arguments…
This paper explores the fine-grained structure of classes of regular languages maintainable in fragments of first-order logic within the dynamic descriptive complexity framework of Patnaik and Immerman. A result by Hesse states that the…
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…
We investigate the elimination of quantifiers in first-order formulas via Hilbert's epsilon-operator (or -binder), following Bernays' explicit definitions of the existential and the universal quantifier symbol by means of epsilon-terms.…
It is an open problem to characterize the class of languages recognized by quantum finite automata (QFA). We examine some necessary and some sufficient conditions for a (regular) language to be recognizable by a QFA. For a subclass of…
In this article we formally define and investigate the computational complexity of the Definability Problem for open first-order formulas (i.e., quantifier free first-order formulas) with equality. Given a logic $\mathbf{\mathcal{L}}$, the…
In this paper we address the decision problem for a fragment of set theory with restricted quantification which extends the language studied in [4] with pair related quantifiers and constructs, in view of possible applications in the field…
The uniform one-dimensional fragment of first-order logic was introduced a few years ago as a generalization of the two-variable fragment of first-order logic to contexts involving relations of arity greater than two. Quantifiers in this…
We prove that two-way probabilistic and quantum finite automata (2PFA's and 2QFA's) can be considerably more concise than both their one-way versions (1PFA's and 1QFA's), and two-way nondeterministic finite automata (2NFA's). For this…
Unambiguous non-deterministic finite automata have intermediate expressive power and succinctness between deterministic and non-deterministic automata. It has been conjectured that every unambiguous non-deterministic one-way finite…
We define a new subclass of nondeterministic finite automata for prefix-closed languages called Flanked Finite Automata (FFA). We show that this class enjoys good complexity properties while preserving the succinctness of nondeterministic…
We consider a finite universe U (more exactly - a family U of them) and second order quantifiers Q_K, where for each U this means quantifying over a family of n(K)-place relations closed under permuting U. We define some natural orders and…
We define a class of languages of infinite words over infinite alphabets, and the corresponding automata. The automata used for recognition are a generalisation of deterministic Muller automata to the setting of nominal sets. Remarkably,…
We investigate structures that can be represented by omega-automata, so called omega-automatic structures, and prove that relations defined over such structures in first-order logic expanded by the first-order quantifiers `there exist at…