Composition and orbits of language operations: finiteness and upper bounds

We consider a set of eight natural operations on formal languages (Kleene closure, positive closure, complement, prefix, suffix, factor, subword, and reversal), and compositions of them. If x and y are compositions, we say x is equivalent to y if they have the same effect on all languages L. We prove that the number of equivalence classes of these eight operations is finite. This implies that the orbit of any language L under the elements of the monoid is finite and bounded, independent of L. This generalizes previous results about complement, Kleene closure, and positive closure. We also estimate the number of distinct languages generated by various subsets of these operations.     

Quotient Complexity of Closed Languages

A language L is prefix-closed if, whenever a word w is in L, then every prefix of w is also in L. We define suffix-, factor-, and subword-closed languages in an analogous way, where by factor we mean contiguous subsequence, and by subword we mean scattered subsequence. We study the state complexity (which we prefer to call quotient complexity) of operations on prefix-, suffix-, factor-, and subword-closed languages. We find tight upper bounds on the complexity of the subword-closure of arbitrary languages, and on the complexity of boolean operations, concatenation, star, and reversal in each of the four classes of closed languages. We show that repeated applications of positive closure and complement to a closed language result in at most four distinct languages, while Kleene closure and complement give at most eight.     

Shuffle languages are in P

In this paper we show that shuffle languages are contained in one-way-NSPACE(log n) thus in P. We consider the class of shuffle languages which emerges from the class of finite languages through regular operations (union, concatenation, Kleene star) and shuffle operations (shuffle and shuffle closure). For every shuffle expression E we construct a shuffle automaton which accepts the language generated by E and we show that the automaton can be simulated by a one-way nondeterministic Turing machine in logarithmic space.     

Formal power series and regular operations on fuzzy languages

In this paper we study formal power series over a quantale with coefficients in the algebra of all languages over a given alphabet, and representation of fuzzy languages by these formal power series. This representation generalizes the well-known representation of fuzzy languages by their cut and kernel languages. We show that regular operations on fuzzy languages can be represented by regular operations on power series which are defined by means of operations on ordinary languages. We use power series in study of fuzzy languages which are recognized by fuzzy finite automata and deterministic finite automata, and we study closure properties of the set of polynomials and the set of polynomials with regular coefficients under regular operations on power series.     

Two-way automata and length-preserving homomorphisms

Closure underlength-preserving homomorphisms is interesting because of its similarity tonondeterminism. We give a characterization of NP in terms of length-preserving homomorphisms and present related complexity results. However, we mostly study the case of two-way finite automata: Let l.p.hom[n state 2DFA] denote the class of languages that are length-preserving homomorphic images of languages recognized byn-state 2DFAs. We give a machine characterization of this class. We show that any language accepted by ann-state two-wayalternating finite automaton (2AFA), or by a l-pebble 2NFA, belongs to l.p.hom[O(n ²) state 2DFA]. Moreover, there are languages in l.p.hom[n state 2DFA] whose smallest accepting 2NFA has at leastc ⁿ states (for some constantc > 1). So for two-way finite automata, the closure under length-preserving homomorphisms is much more powerful than nondeterminism. We disprove two conjectures (of Meyer and Fischer, and of Chrobak) about the state-complexity of unary languages. Finally, we show that the equivalence problems for 2AFAs (resp. 1-pebble 2NFAs) are in PSPACE, and that the equivalence problem for 1-pebble 2AFAs is in ExpSPACE (thus answering a question of Jiang and Ravikumar); it was known that these problems are hard in these two classes. We also give a new proof that alternating 1-pebble machines recognize only regular languages (which was first proved by Goralčíket al.). This research was supported in part by N.S.F. Grant DMS 8702019.     

Perfect correspondences between dot-depth and polynomial-time hierarchies

We introduce the polynomial-time tree reducibility (ptt-reducibility) for formal languages. Our main result establishes a one–one correspondence between this reducibility and inclusions between complexity classes. More precisely, for languages B and C it holds that B ptt-reduces to C if and only if the unbalanced leaf-language class of B is robustly contained in the unbalanced leaf-language class of C. Formerly, such correspondence was only known for balanced leaf-language classes. Moreover, we show that restricted to regular languages, the levels 0, 1/2, 1, and 3/2 of the dot-depth hierarchy are closed under ptt-reducibility. Our results also have applications in complexity theory: We obtain the first gap theorem of leaf-language definability above the Boolean closure of NP.     

On transformations of formal power series

Formal power series are an extension of formal languages. Recognizable formal power series can be captured by the so-called weighted finite automata, generalizing finite state machines. In this paper, motivated by codings of formal languages, we introduce and investigate two types of transformations for formal power series. We characterize when these transformations preserve recognizability, generalizing the recent results of Zhang [16] to the formal power series setting. We show, for example, that the “square-root” operation, while preserving regularity for formal languages, preserves recognizability for formal power series when the underlying semiring is commutative or locally finite, but not in general.     

Inverse star, borders, and palstars

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 hold for the context-free languages. Along the way we find a new relationship between the unbordered words and the prime palstars of Knuth, Morris, and Pratt. We use this relationship to enumerate the prime palstars, and we prove that neither the language of all unbordered words nor the language of all prime palstars is context-free.     

Decidability of operation problems for T0L languages and subclasses

We investigate the decidability of the operation problem for T0L languages and subclasses. Fix an operation on formal languages. Given languages from the family considered (0L languages, T0L languages, or their propagating variants), is the application of this operation to the given languages still a language that belongs to the same language family? Observe, that all the Lindenmayer language families in question are anti-AFLs, that is, they are not closed under homomorphisms, inverse homomorphisms, intersection with regular languages, union, concatenation, and Kleene closure. Besides these classical operations we also consider intersection and substitution, since the language families under consideration are not closed under these operations, too. We show that for all of the above mentioned language operations, except for the Kleene closure, the corresponding operation problems of 0L and T0L languages and their propagating variants are not even semidecidable. The situation changes for unary 0L languages. In this case we prove that the operation problems with respect to Kleene star, complementation, and intersection with regular sets are decidable.     

Relations rationnelles infinitaires

In this paper, we build a theory of infinitary rational relations, which is an extension of the theory of finitary rational relations, i. e. sets ofK-vectors of finite words which are recognized by finite automata withK tapes, and at the same time an extension of the theory of infinitary rational languages, i.e., sets of finite and infinite words which are recognized by finite automata (the condition of recognizability of an infinite word is that its reading by the automaton must go through a state, wich belongs to a designated subset, infinitly time). Our main result is a theorem similar to the Kleene theorem about rational languages of finite words: it is proved that the family of relations recognized by finite automata withK tapes is the family of relations obtained from the finite finitary relations with a finite sequence of operations of: union, product, finite star, and infinite star. Then the closure properties of this family of relations, are studied.      

Some Bounds on the Computational Power of Piecewise Constant Derivative Systems

We study the computational power of Piecewise Constant Derivative (PCD) systems. PCD systems are dynamical systems defined by a piecewise constant differential equation and can be considered as computational machines working on a continuous space with a continuous time. We show that the computation time of these machines can be measured either as a discrete value, called discrete time, or as a continuous value, called continuous time. We relate the two notions of time for general PCD systems. We prove that general PCD systems are equivalent to Turing machines and linear machines in finite discrete time. We prove that the languages recognized by purely rational PCD systems in dimension d in finite continuous time are precisely the languages of the (d-2) th level of the arithmetical hierarchy. Hence the reachability problem of purely rational PCD systems of dimension d in finite continuous time is Σ _d-2 -complete. Received May 1997, and in final form May 1998.     

On Deciding Readiness and Failure Equivalences for Processes

In this paper, we study the complexity of deciding readiness and failure equivalences for finite state processes and recursively defined processes specified by normed context-free grammars (CFGs) in Greibach normal form (GNF). The results are as follows: (1) Readiness and failure equivalences for processes specified by normed GNF CFGs are both undecidable. For this class of processes, the regularity problem with respect to failure or readiness equivalence is also undecidable. Moreover, all these undecidability results hold even for locally unary processes. In the unary case, these problems become decidable. In fact, they are Π^p₂-complete, We also show that with respect to bisimulation equivalence, the regularity for processes specified by normed GNF CFGs is NL-complete. (2) Readiness and failure equivalences for finite state processes are PSPACE-complete. This holds even for locally unary finite state processes. These two equivalences are co-NP-complete for unary finite state processes. Further, for acyclic finite state processes, readiness and failure equivalences are co-NP-complete and they are NL-complete in the unary case. (3) For finite tree processes, we show that finite trace, readiness, and failure equivalences are all L-complete. Further, the results remain true for the unary case. Our results provide a complete characterization of the computational complexity of deciding readiness and failure equivalences for several important classes of processes.     

Kleene modules and linear languages

A Kleene algebra (K, +, ·, *, 0, 1) is an idempotent semiring with an iteration * as axiomatised by Kozen. We consider left semiring modules (A, +, 0, :) over Kleene algebras. We call such a left semiring module a Kleene module if each linear equation x = a + r : x has a least solution, where : is the product from K × A to A. The linear context-free languages can be viewed as a Kleene module A over a Kleene algebra R of binary regular word relations. Thus, the simultaneous linear fixed-point operator μ on languages can be reduced to iteration * on R and the scalar product :.     

Circuit Complexity of Regular Languages

We survey the current state of knowledge on the circuit complexity of regular languages and we prove that regular languages that are in AC⁰ and ACC⁰ are all computable by almost linear size circuits, extending the result of Chandra et al. (J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 30:222–234, 1985). As a consequence we obtain that in order to separate ACC⁰ from NC¹ it suffices to prove for some ε>0 an Ω(n ^1+ε ) lower bound on the size of ACC⁰ circuits computing certain NC¹-complete functions. Partially supported by grant GA ČR 201/07/P276, project No. 1M0021620808 of MŠMT ČR and Institutional Research Plan No. AV0Z10190503.     

The variety of Kleene algebras with conversion is not finitely based

Given an arbitrary set A, one obtains the full Kleene algebra of binary relations over A by considering the operations of union, composition, reflexive-transitive closure, conversion, and the empty set and the identity relation as constants. Such algebras generate the variety of Kleene algebras (with conversion). As a result of a general analysis of identities satisfied by varieties having an involution operation, we prove that the variety of Kleene algebras with conversion has no finite equational axiomatization. In our argument we make use of the fact that the variety of Kleene algebras without conversion is not finitely based and that, relatively to this variety, the variety of Kleene algebras with conversion is finitely axiomatized.     

The complexity of ranking simple languages

Ranking is the problem of computing for an input string its lexicographic index in a given (fixed) language. This paper concerns the complexity of ranking. We show that ranking languages accepted by 1-way unambiguous auxiliary pushdown automata operating in polynomial time is inNC ⁽²⁾. We also prove negative results about ranking for several classes of simple languages.C is rankable in deterministic polynomial time iffP=P ^#P , whereC is any of the following six classes of languages: (1) languages accepted by logtime-bounded nondeterministic Turing machines, (2) languages accepted by (uniform) families of unbounded fan-in circuits of constant depth and polynomial size, (3) languages accepted by 2-way deterministic pushdown automata, (4) languages accepted by multihead deterministic finite automata, (5) languages accepted by 1-way nondeterministic logspace-bounded Turing machines, and (6) finitely ambiguous linear context-free languages.This research was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DCR-8696097. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 3rd Annual Structure in Complexity Theory Conference, Washington, DC, June 1988.     

NC1: The automata-theoretic viewpoint

Concepts from the algebraic theory of finite automata are carried over to the program-over-monoid setting which underlies Barrington's algebraic characterization of the complexity classNC ¹. Sets of languages accepted by polynomial-length programs over finite monoids drawn from a given monoid variety V emerge as fundamental language classes: as V ranges over monoid varieties these classes capture and indeed refine the usual bounded-depth circuit parametrization of nonuniformNC ¹ subclasses. Here it is shown that any two separable such language classes can be separated by a regular language. Basic properties of these language classes are exhibited. New conditions are given under which distinct varieties lead to equal or to distinct language classes, thus sharpening our knowledge of the internal structure of non-uniformNC ¹. The paper concludes with the statement of a conjecture whose proof would refine and then resolve most open questions about this internal structure.     

W-Hierarchies Defined by Symmetric Gates

The classes of the W-hierarchy are the most important classes of intractable problems in parameterized complexity. These classes were originally defined via the weighted satisfiability problem for Boolean circuits. Here, besides the Boolean connectives we consider connectives such as majority, not-all-equal, and unique. For example, a gate labelled by the majority connective outputs true if more than half of its inputs are true. For any finite set C\mathcal{C} of connectives we construct the corresponding W( C\mathcal{C} )-hierarchy. We derive some general conditions which guarantee that the W-hierarchy and the W( C\mathcal{C} )-hierarchy coincide levelwise. If C\mathcal{C} only contains the majority connective then the first levels of the hierarchies coincide. We use this to show that a variant of the parameterized vertex cover problem, the majority vertex cover problem, is W[1]-complete.     

Deciding the Vapnik–Červonenkis Dimension is∑p3-complete

N. Linialet al.raised the question of how difficult the computation of the Vapnik–Červonenkis dimension of a concept class over a finite universe is. C. Papadimitriou and M. Yannakakis obtained a first answer using matrix representations of concept classes. However, this approach does not capture classes having exponential size, like monomials, which are encountered in learning theory. We choose a more natural representation, which leads us to redefine the VC DIMENSION problem. We establish that VC DIMENSION is∑^p₃-complete, thereby giving a rare natural example of a∑^p₃-complete problem.