Related papers: Directed Regular and Context-Free Languages
In this paper we examine decision problems associated with various classes of convex languages, studied by Ang and Brzozowski (under the name "continuous languages"). We show that we can decide whether a given language L is prefix-,…
We consider variations on the following problem: given an NFA M and a pattern p, does there exist an x in L(M) such that p matches x? We consider the restricted problem where M only accepts a finite language. We also consider the variation…
We continue our study of open and closed languages. We investigate how the properties of being open and closed are preserved under concatenation. We investigate analogues, in formal languages, of the separation axioms in topological spaces;…
The hairpin completion is an operation on formal languages that has been inspired by the hairpin formation in DNA biochemistry and by DNA computing. In this paper we investigate the hairpin completion of regular languages. It is well known…
A language over an alphabet $B = A \cup \overline{A}$ of opening ($A$) and closing ($\overline{A}$) brackets, is balanced if it is a subset of the Dyck language $D_B$ over $B$, and it is well-formed if all words are prefixes of words in…
A language $L$ over an alphabet $\Sigma$ is prefix-convex if, for any words $x,y,z\in\Sigma^*$, whenever $x$ and $xyz$ are in $L$, then so is $xy$. Prefix-convex languages include right-ideal, prefix-closed, and prefix-free languages. We…
We consider a general class of decision problems concerning formal languages, called ``(one-dimensional) unboundedness predicates'', for automata that feature reversal-bounded counters (RBCA). We show that each problem in this class reduces…
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…
Partially ordered nondeterminsitic finite automata (poNFAs) are NFAs whose transition relation induces a partial order on states, that is, for which cycles occur only in the form of self-loops on a single state. A poNFA is universal if it…
In this paper, we continue the research on the power of contextual grammars with selection languages from subfamilies of the family of regular languages. We investigate infix-, prefix-, and suffix-closed languages (referred to as…
A language $L$ is said to be dense if every word in the universe is an infix of some word in $L$. This notion has been generalized from the infix operation to arbitrary word operations $\varrho$ in place of the infix operation…
An automaton is partially ordered if the only cycles in its transition diagram are self-loops. The expressivity of partially ordered NFAs (poNFAs) can be characterized by the Straubing-Th\'erien hierarchy. Level 3/2 is recognized by poNFAs,…
In single-core processors, concurrency requires that multiple processes be interleaved into a single thread of execution by a scheduler. The language-theoretic operation that corresponds to this is the shuffle of two languages: the set of…
Often, when analyzing the behaviour of systems modelled as context-free languages, we wish to know if two languages overlap. To this end, we present an effective semi-decision procedure for regular separability of context-free languages,…
We study regular expressions that use variables, or parameters, which are interpreted as alphabet letters. We consider two classes of languages denoted by such expressions: under the possibility semantics, a word belongs to the language if…
We show the surprising result that the cutpoint isolation problem is decidable for Probabilistic Finite Automata (PFA) where input words are taken from a letter-bounded context-free language. A context-free language $\mathcal{L}$ is…
When a system sends messages through a lossy channel, then the language encoding all sequences of messages can be abstracted by its downward closure, i.e. the set of all (not necessarily contiguous) subwords. This is useful because even if…
We study decision problems of the form: given a regular or linear context-free language $L$, is there a word of a given fixed form in $L$, where given fixed forms are based on word operations copy, marked copy, shuffle and their…
The computational complexity of the isomorphism problem for regular trees, regular linear orders, and regular words is analyzed. A tree is regular if it is isomorphic to the prefix order on a regular language. In case regular languages are…
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…