Synchronizing automata with finitely many minimal synchronizing words

A synchronizing word for a given synchronizing DFA is called minimal if none of its proper factors is synchronizing. We characterize the class of synchronizing automata having only finitely many minimal synchronizing words (the class of such automata is denoted by FG). Using this characterization we prove that any such automaton possesses a synchronizing word of length at most 3n-5. We also prove that checking whether a given DFA A is in FG is co-NP-hard and provide an algorithm for this problem which is exponential in the number of states A.     

Compositional synthesis of asynchronous automata

Asynchronous automata are a model of communication processes with a control structure distributed on a set P of processes, global initializations and global accepting conditions. The well-known theorem of Zielonka states that they recognize exactly the class of regular Mazurkiewicz trace languages. The corresponding synthesis problem is, given a global specification A of any regular trace language L, to build an asynchronous automaton that recognizes L, automatically. Yet, all such existing constructions are quite involved and yield an explosion of the number of states in each process, which is exponential in both the sizes of A and P. In this paper, we introduce the particular case of distributed asynchronous automata, which require that the initializations and the accepting conditions are distributed as well. We present an original technique based on simple compositions/decompositions of these distributed asynchronous automata that results in the construction of smaller non-deterministic asynchronous automata: now, the number of states in each process is only polynomial in the size of A, but is still exponential in the size of P.     

The relationships among several types of fuzzy automata

We discuss the relationships among several types of fuzzy automata in which all fuzzy sets are defined by membership functions whose codomains are a lattice-ordered monoid L. These automata include nondeterministic L-valued finite automata with Λ-move, nondeterministic L-valued finite automata, deterministic L-valued finite automata, and L-valued finite-state automata. We consider all that come with fuzzy initial states and fuzzy final states or with crisp initial states or crisp final states. Some comparative results concerning the power of fuzzy automata used in the existing literature to recognize fuzzy languages are given systematically.     

General suffix automaton construction algorithm and space bounds

Suffix automata and factor automata are efficient data structures for representing the full index of a set of strings. They are minimal deterministic automata representing the set of all suffixes or substrings of a set of strings. This paper presents a novel analysis of the size of the suffix automaton or factor automaton of a set of strings. It shows that the suffix automaton or factor automaton of a set of strings U$U$ has at most 2Q−2$2Q-2$ states, where Q$Q$ is the number of nodes of a prefix-tree representing the strings in U$U$. This bound significantly improves over 2‖U‖−1$2\Vert U\Vert -1$, the bound given by Blumer et al. [A. Blumer, J. Blumer, D. Haussler, R.M. McConnell, A. Ehrenfeucht, Complete inverted files for efficient text retrieval and analysis, Journal of the ACM 34 (1987) 578–589], where ‖U‖$\Vert U\Vert$ is the sum of the lengths of all strings in U$U$. More generally, we give novel and general bounds for the size of the suffix or factor automaton of an automaton as a function of the size of the original automaton and the maximal length of a suffix shared by the strings it accepts. We also describe in detail a linear-time algorithm for constructing the suffix automaton S$S$ or factor automaton F$F$ of U$U$ in time O(|S|)$O\left(\left|S\right|\right)$. Our algorithm applies in fact to any input suffix-unique automaton and strictly generalizes the standard on-line construction of a suffix automaton for a single input string. Our algorithm can also be used straightforwardly to generate the suffix oracle or factor oracle of a set of strings, which has been shown to have various useful properties in string-matching. Our analysis suggests that the use of factor automata of automata can be practical for large-scale applications, a fact that is further supported by the results of our experiments applying factor automata to a music identification task with more than 15,000 songs.     

Succinct representation of regular languages by boolean automata

Boolean automata are a generalization of finite automata in the sense that the ‘next state’, i.e. the result of the transition function given a state and a letter, is not just a single state (deterministic automata) or a union of states (nondeterministic automata) but a boolean function of states. Boolean automata accept precisely regular languages; furthermore they correspond in a natural way to certain language equations as well as to sequential networks. We investigate the succinctness of representing regular languages by boolean automata. In particular, we show that for every deterministic automaton A with m states there exists a boolean automaton with [log₂m] states which accepts the reverse of the language accepted by A (m≥1). We also show that for every n≥1 there exists a boolean automation with n states such that the smallest deterministic automaton accepting the same language has 2⁽²ⁿ⁾ states; moreover this holds for an alphabet with only two letters.     

Fast construction of space‐optimized recursive automaton

Finite‐state automata are important components in information retrieval and natural language processing software. A recursive automaton is the most compact representation of the acyclic deterministic finite‐state automata. It is based on merging not only the equivalent states but also the identical substructures in an automaton. The LZ trie variant is the state‐of‐the‐art in automata compression regarding space, but the time needed for its construction was, until now, quadratic, which has made it impractical for large inputs. In this paper, we present the first algorithm for LZ trie construction that runs in effectively linear time thereby making it an attractive choice for finite‐state automata implementation. We achieve this goal by adding a new functionality to the enhanced suffix array data structure. We present two variants of the construction procedure – an optimal method regarding the final size and a method that sacrifices some compression for low intermediate memory usage. We have made the implementation of our algorithms available in an open source software package LzLex.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inequality of finite behaviors of rational weight finite automata is in R

Inequivalence of finite automata accepting finite languages over a non-unary alphabet is NP-complete. However, the inequality of their behaviors does not appear to have been carefully investigated. In the simplest case, the behavior of a finite automaton is the formal series f such that the coefficient f(w) of a word w is the number of distinct accepting computations on w. This notion will be generalized in the paper to finite automata with rational weights. The main result is that inequality of rational weight finite automata with finite behaviors is in R, random polynomial time.     

A characterization of s-languages

We show that a language L is an s-language if and only if the set of the quotients of L (i.e., the set of the states of its minimal deterministic automaton seen as languages) is a subset of a free monoid generated by a finite set of prefix codes. We demonstrate through examples how to use this result for deciding whether a given language is an s-language.     

Positive expansiveness versus network dimension in symbolic dynamical systems

A symbolic dynamical system is a continuous transformation Φ:X?X of closed subset X⊆A^V, where A is a finite set and V is countable (examples include subshifts, odometers, cellular automata, and automaton networks). The function Φ induces a directed graph (‘network’) structure on V, whose geometry reveals information about the dynamical system (X,Φ). The dimensiondim(V) is an exponent describing the growth rate of balls in this network as a function of their radius. We show that, if X has positive entropy and dim(V)>1, and the system (A^V,X,Φ) satisfies minimal symmetry and mixing conditions, then (X,Φ) cannot be positively expansive; this generalizes a well-known result of Shereshevsky about multidimensional cellular automata. We also construct a counterexample to a version of this result without the symmetry condition. Finally, we show that network dimension is invariant under topological conjugacies which are Hölder-continuous.     

Deciding word neighborhood with universal neighborhood automata

Given some form of distance between words, a fundamental operation is to decide whether the distance between two given words w and v is within a given bound. In earlier work, we introduced the concept of a universal Levenshtein automaton for a given distance bound n. This deterministic automaton takes as input a sequence χ of bitvectors computed from w and v. The sequence χ is accepted iff the Levenshtein distance between w and v does not exceed n. The automaton is called universal since the same automaton can be used for arbitrary input words w and v, regardless of the underlying input alphabet. Here, we extend this picture. After introducing a large abstract family of generalized word distances, we exactly characterize those members where word neighborhood can be decided using universal neighborhood automata similar to universal Levenshtein automata. Our theoretical results establish several bridges to the theory of synchronized finite-state transducers and dynamic programming. For small neighborhood bounds, universal neighborhood automata can be held in main memory. This leads to very efficient algorithms for the above decision problem. Evaluation results show that these algorithms are much faster than those based on dynamic programming.     

Incremental construction of minimal deterministic finite cover automata

We present a fast incremental algorithm for constructing minimal Deterministic Finite Cover Automata (DFCA) for a given language. Since it was shown that the minimal DFCA for a language L has less states than the minimal Deterministic Finite Automata (DFA) for the same language L, this technique seems to be the best choice for incrementally building the automaton for a large language, especially when the number of states in the DFCA is significantly less than the number of states in the corresponding minimal DFA. We have implemented the proposed algorithm and have tested it against the best-known DFCA minimization technique.     

Some Aspects of Synchronization of DFA

A word w is called synchronizing （recurrent, reset, directable） word of deterministic finite automata （DFA） if w brings all states of the automaton to a unique state. According to the famous conjecture of Cerny from 1964, every n-state synchronizing automaton possesses a synchronizing word of length at most （n - 1）2. The problem is still open. It will be proved that the Cerny conjecture holds good for synchronizing DFA with transition monoid having no involutions and for every n-state （n 〉 2） synchronizing DFA with transition monoid having only trivial subgroups the minimal length of synchronizing word is not greater than （n - 1）2/2. The last important class of DFA involved and studied by Schutzenberger is called aperiodic; its automata accept precisely star-free languages. Some properties of an arbitrary synchronizing DFA were established.     

A combinatorial property of the factor poset of a word

We prove the following interesting combinatorial property of the poset of the factors of a word. Let w be a word and n=G_w+2, where G_w is the maximal length of a repeated factor of w. If v is any word such that the posets of the factors of v and of w up to length n are isomorphic, then v can be obtained by renaming the letters of w or of the reversal of w.     

Absolute convergence of rational series is semi-decidable

This paper deals with absolute convergence of real-valued rational series, i.e. mappings r:Σ^∗→R computed by weighted automata. An algorithm is provided, that takes a weighted automaton A as input and halts if and only if the corresponding series r_A is absolutely convergent: hence, absolute convergence of rational series is semi-decidable. A spectral radius-like parameter ρ_|r| is introduced, which satisfies the following property: a rational series r is absolutely convergent iff ρ_|r|<1. We show that if r is rational, then ρ_|r| can be approximated by convergent upper estimates. Then, it is shown that the sum ∑_w∈Σ^∗|r(w)| can be estimated to any accuracy rate. This result can be extended to any sum of the form ∑_w∈Σ^∗|r(w)|^p, for any integer p.     

Learning regular languages using RFSAs

Residual languages are important and natural components of regular languages and several grammatical inference algorithms naturally rely on this notion. In order to identify a given target language L, classical inference algorithms try to identify words which define identical residual languages of L. Here, we study whether it could be interesting to perform a tighter analysis by identifying inclusion relations between the residual languages of L. We consider the class of Residual Finite State Automata (RFSAs). An RFSA A is a NonDeterministic Automaton whose states corresponds to residual languages of the language L_A it recognizes. The inclusion relations between residual languages of L_A can be naturally materialized on A. We prove that the class of RFSAs is not polynomially characterizable. We lead some experiments which show that when a regular language is randomly drawn by using a nondeterministic representation, the number of inclusion relations between its residual languages is very important. Moreover, its minimal RFSA representation is much smaller than its minimal DFA representation. Finally, we design a new learning algorithm, DeLeTe2, based on the search for the inclusion relations between the residual languages of the target language. We give sufficient conditions for the identifiability of the target language. We experimentally compare the performance of DeLeTe2 to those of classical inference algorithms.     

Descendants of a recognizable tree language for sets of linear monadic term rewrite rules

For a tree language L and a set S of term rewrite rules over Σ, the descendant of L for S is the set S^∗(L) of trees reachable from a tree in L by rewriting in S. For a recognizable tree language L, we study the set D(L) of descendants of L for all sets of linear monadic term rewrite rules over Σ. We show that D(L) is finite. For each tree automaton A over Σ, we can effectively construct a set {R₁,…,Rk} of linear monadic term rewrite systems over Σ such that and for any 1?i<j?k, .     

Simulating reversible Turing machines and cyclic tag systems by one-dimensional reversible cellular automata

In this paper, we investigate how 1-D reversible cellular automata (RCAs) can simulate reversible Turing machines (RTMs) and cyclic tag systems (CTSs). A CTS is a universal string rewriting system proposed by M. Cook. First, we show that for any m-state n-symbol RTM there is a 1-D 2-neighbor RCA with a number of states less than (m+2n+1)(m+n+1) that simulates it. It improves past results both in the number of states and in the neighborhood size. Second, we study the problem of finding a 1-D RCA with a small number of states that can simulate any CTS. So far, a 30-state RCA that can simulate any CTS and works on ultimately periodic infinite configurations has been given by K. Morita. Here, we show there is a 24-state 2-neighbor RCA with this property.     

The concept of duality for automata over a changing alphabet and generation of a free group by such automata

In the paper, we deal with the notion of an automaton over a changing alphabet, which generalizes the concept of a Mealy-type automaton. We modify the methods based on the idea of a dual automaton and its action used by B. Steinberg et al. (2011) and M. Vorobets and Ya. Vorobets (2007, 2010) [16], [17] and [18] and adapt them to automata over a changing alphabet. We show that this modification provides some naturally defined automaton representations of a free nonabelian group by a 2-state automaton over a changing alphabet.     

On the Height of a Finite Automaton

The states of a finite automaton are ordered by height. This order is shown to be graduated, and the well-known Cerny problem on the minimal length of reset words can be formulated in terms of global height. The problem is proved for automata with four states.     

Cellular automata with limited inter-cell bandwidth

A d-dimensional cellular automaton is a d-dimensional grid of interconnected interacting finite automata. There are models with parallel and sequential input modes. In the latter case, the distinguished automaton at the origin, the communication cell, is connected to the outside world and fetches the input sequentially. Often in the literature this model is referred to as an iterative array. In this paper, d-dimensional iterative arrays and one-dimensional cellular automata are investigated which operate in real and linear time and whose inter-cell communication bandwidth is restricted to some constant number of different messages independent of the number of states. It is known that even one-dimensional two-message iterative arrays accept rather complicated languages such as {a^p∣p prime} or {a²ⁿ∣n∈N} (H. Umeo, N. Kamikawa, Real-time generation of primes by a 1-bit-communication cellular automaton, Fund. Inform. 58 (2003) 421-435). Here, the computational capacity of d-dimensional iterative arrays with restricted communication is investigated and an infinite two-dimensional hierarchy with respect to dimensions and messages is shown. Furthermore, the computational capacity of the one-dimensional devices in question is compared with the power of two-way and one-way cellular automata with restricted communication. It turns out that the relations between iterative arrays and cellular automata are quite different from the relations in the unrestricted case. Additionally, an infinite strict message hierarchy for real-time two-way cellular automata is obtained as well as a very dense time hierarchy for k-message two-way cellular automata. Finally, the closure properties of one-dimensional iterative arrays with restricted communication are investigated and differences to the unrestricted case are shown as well.