Related papers: On the context-freeness of the set of words contai…
We give in this paper additional answers to questions of Lescow and Thomas [Logical Specifications of Infinite Computations, In:"A Decade of Concurrency", Springer LNCS 803 (1994), 583-621], proving new topological properties of omega…
This paper offers a comprehensive treatment of the question as to whether a binary relation can be consistent (transitive) without being decisive (complete), or decisive without being consistent, or simultaneously inconsistent or…
In this paper we study the privileged complexity function of the Thue-Morse word. We prove a recursive formula describing this function, and using the formula we show that the function is unbounded and that the values of the function have…
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,…
The avoidability of binary patterns by binary cube-free words is investigated and the exact bound between unavoidable and avoidable patterns is found. All avoidable patterns are shown to be D0L-avoidable. For avoidable patterns, the growth…
A language L is closed if L = L*. We consider an operation on closed languages, L-*, that is an inverse to Kleene closure. It is known that if L is closed and regular, then L-* is also regular. We show that the analogous result fails to…
We define a morphism based upon a Latin square that generalizes the Thue-Morse morphism. We prove that fixed points of this morphism are overlap-free sequences generalizing results of Allouche - Shallit and Frid.
Circular words are cyclically ordered finite sequences of letters. We give a computer-free proof of the following result by Currie: square-free circular words over the ternary alphabet exist for all lengths $l$ except for 5, 7, 9, 10, 14,…
We show that, consistently, there exists a Borel set B subset Cantor admitting a sequence (eta_alpha:alpha<lambda) of distinct elements of Cantor such that (eta_alpha+B) cap (eta_beta+B) is uncountable for all alpha,beta<lambda but with no…
The (bitwise) complement $\overline{x}$ of a binary word $x$ is obtained by changing each $0$ in $x$ to $1$ and vice versa. An $\textit{antisquare}$ is a nonempty word of the form $x\, \overline{x}$. In this paper, we study infinite binary…
This article is an exposition of recent results on self-similar sets, asserting that if the dimension is smaller than the trivial upper bound then there are almost overlaps between cylinders. We give a heuristic derivation of the theorem…
Iterated hairpin completion is an operation on formal languages that is inspired by the hairpin formation in DNA biochemistry. Iterated hairpin completion of a word (or more precisely a singleton language) is always a context-sensitive…
Let $u \shuffle v$ denote the set of all shuffles of the words $u$ and $v$. It is shown that for each integer $n \geq 3$ there exists a square-free ternary word $u$ of length $n$ such that $u\shuffle u$ contains a square-free word. This…
We consider expressions built up from binary relation names using the operators union, composition, and set difference. We show that it is undecidable to test whether a given such expression $e$ is finitely satisfiable, i.e., whether there…
We say that a theory $T$ is intermediate under effective reducibility if the isomorphism problems among its computable models is neither hyperarithmetic nor on top under effective reducibility. We prove that if an infinitary sentence $T$ is…
We study the computational complexity of reachability, coverability and inclusion for extensions of context-free commutative grammars with integer counters and reset operations on them. Those grammars can alternatively be viewed as an…
A language L is prefix-free if, whenever words u and v are in L and u is a prefix of v, then u=v. Suffix-, factor-, and subword-free languages are defined similarly, where "subword" means "subsequence". A language is bifix-free if it is…
We show that the equality language of two non-periodic binary morphisms is generated by at most two words. If its rank is two, then the generators start (and end) with different letters. This in particular implies that any binary language…
We show that the 2-abelian complexity of the infinite Thue-Morse word is 2-regular, and other properties of the 2-abelian complexity, most notably that it is a concatenation of palindromes of increasing length. We also show sharp bounds for…
The syntactic structure of a sentence can be modeled as a tree where vertices are words and edges indicate syntactic dependencies between words. It is well-known that those edges normally do not cross when drawn over the sentence. Here a…