On the Length of Shortest Strings Accepted by Two-way Finite Automata

2021 ◽  
Vol 180 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-331
Author(s):  
Egor Dobronravov ◽  
Nikita Dobronravov ◽  
Alexander Okhotin

Given a two-way finite automaton recognizing a non-empty language, consider the length of the shortest string it accepts, and, for each n ≥ 1, let f(n) be the maximum of these lengths over all n-state automata. It is proved that for n-state two-way finite automata, whether deterministic or nondeterministic, this number is at least Ω(10n/5) and less than (2nn+1), with the lower bound reached over an alphabet of size Θ(n). Furthermore, for deterministic automata and for a fixed alphabet of size m ≥ 1, the length of the shortest string is at least e(1+o(1))mn(log n− log m).

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (07) ◽  
pp. 877-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN KUTRIB ◽  
ANDREAS MALCHER ◽  
MATTHIAS WENDLANDT

We investigate the descriptional complexity of deterministic one-way multi-head finite automata accepting unary languages. It is known that in this case the languages accepted are regular. Thus, we study the increase of the number of states when an n-state k-head finite automaton is simulated by a classical (one-head) deterministic or nondeterministic finite automaton. In the former case upper and lower bounds that are tight in the order of magnitude are shown. For the latter case we obtain an upper bound of O(n2k) and a lower bound of Ω(nk) states. We investigate also the costs for the conversion of one-head nondeterministic finite automata to deterministic k-head finite automata, that is, we trade nondeterminism for heads. In addition, we study how the conversion costs vary in the special case of finite and, in particular, of singleton unary lanuages. Finally, as an application of the simulation results, we show that decidability problems for unary deterministic k-head finite automata such as emptiness or equivalence are LOGSPACE-complete.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 471-484
Author(s):  
Sebastian Brandt ◽  
Jara Uitto ◽  
Roger Wattenhofer

Abstract Recently, there has been a growing interest in grid exploration by agents with limited capabilities. We show that the grid cannot be explored by three semi-synchronous finite automata, answering an open question by Emek et al. (Theor Comput Sci 608:255–267, 2015) in the negative. In the setting we consider, time is divided into discrete steps, where in each step, an adversarially selected subset of the agents executes one look–compute–move cycle. The agents operate according to a shared finite automaton, where every agent is allowed to have a distinct initial state. The only means of communication is to sense the states of the agents sharing the same grid cell. The agents are equipped with a global compass and whenever an agent moves, the destination cell of the movement is chosen by the agent’s automaton from the set of neighboring grid cells. In contrast to the four agent protocol by Emek et al., we show that three agents do not suffice for grid exploration.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (05) ◽  
pp. 557-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vojtěch Vorel

We present a strongly exponential lower bound that applies both to the subset synchronization threshold for binary deterministic automata and to the careful synchronization threshold for binary partial automata. In the later form, the result finishes the research initiated by Martyugin (2013). Moreover, we show that both the thresholds remain strongly exponential even if restricted to strongly connected binary automata. In addition, we apply our methods to computational complexity. Existence of a subset reset word is known to be PSPACE-complete; we show that this holds even under the restriction to strongly connected binary automata. The results apply also to the corresponding thresholds in two more general settings: D1- and D3-directable nondeterministic automata and composition sequences over finite domains.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2-3-4) ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Michal Hospodár ◽  
Galina Jirásková

We study the state complexity of the concatenation operation on regular languages represented by deterministic and alternating finite automata. For deterministic automata, we show that the upper bound m2n − k2n−1 on the state complexity of concatenation can be met by ternary languages, the first of which is accepted by an m-state DFA with k final states, and the second one by an n-state DFA with ℓ final states for arbitrary integers m, n, k, ℓ with 1 ≤ k ≤ m − 1 and 1 ≤ ℓ ≤ n − 1. In the case of k ≤ m − 2, we are able to provide appropriate binary witnesses. In the case of k = m − 1 and ℓ ≥ 2, we provide a lower bound which is smaller than the upper bound just by one. We use our binary witnesses for concatenation on deterministic automata to describe binary languages meeting the upper bound 2m + n + 1 for the concatenation on alternating finite automata. This solves an open problem stated by Fellah et al. [Int. J. Comput. Math. 35 (1990) 117–132].


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 150-156
Author(s):  
A. V. Galatenko ◽  
◽  
V. A. Kuzovikhina ◽  

We propose an automata model of computer system security. A system is represented by a finite automaton with states partitioned into two subsets: "secure" and "insecure". System functioning is secure if the number of consecutive insecure states is not greater than some nonnegative integer k. This definition allows one to formally reflect responsiveness to security breaches. The number of all input sequences that preserve security for the given value of k is referred to as a k-secure language. We prove that if a language is k-secure for some natural and automaton V, then it is also k-secure for any 0 < k < k and some automaton V = V (k). Reduction of the value of k is performed at the cost of amplification of the number of states. On the other hand, for any non-negative integer k there exists a k-secure language that is not k"-secure for any natural k" > k. The problem of reconstruction of a k-secure language using a conditional experiment is split into two subcases. If the cardinality of an input alphabet is bound by some constant, then the order of Shannon function of experiment complexity is the same for al k; otherwise there emerges a lower bound of the order nk.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (02) ◽  
pp. 315-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Ng ◽  
David Rappaport ◽  
Kai Salomaa

The neighbourhood of a language [Formula: see text] with respect to an additive distance consists of all strings that have distance at most the given radius from some string of [Formula: see text]. We show that the worst case deterministic state complexity of a radius [Formula: see text] neighbourhood of a language recognized by an [Formula: see text] state nondeterministic finite automaton [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text]. In the case where [Formula: see text] is deterministic we get the same lower bound for the state complexity of the neighbourhood if we use an additive quasi-distance. The lower bound constructions use an alphabet of size linear in [Formula: see text]. We show that the worst case state complexity of the set of strings that contain a substring within distance [Formula: see text] from a string recognized by [Formula: see text] is [Formula: see text].


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (04) ◽  
pp. 527-538
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Madejski ◽  
Andrzej Szepietowski

Two-dimensional general row jumping finite automata were recently introduced as an interesting computational model for accepting two-dimensional languages. These automata are nondeterministic. They guess an order in which rows of the input array are read and they jump to the next row only after reading all symbols in the previous row. In each row, they choose, also nondeterministically, an order in which segments of the row are read. In this paper, we study the membership problem for these automata. We show that each general row jumping finite automaton can be simulated by a nondeterministic Turing machine with space bounded by the logarithm. This means that the fixed membership problems for such automata are in NL, and so in P. On the other hand, we show that the uniform membership problem is NP-complete.


2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (05) ◽  
pp. 843-858 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREAS MALCHER ◽  
CARLO MEREGHETTI ◽  
BEATRICE PALANO

Iterative arrays (IAs) are a parallel computational model with a sequential processing of the input. They are one-dimensional arrays of interacting identical deterministic finite automata. In this paper, realtime-IAs with sublinear space bounds are used to recognize formal languages. The existence of an infinite proper hierarchy of space complexity classes between logarithmic and linear space bounds is proved. Some decidability questions on logarithmically space bounded realtime-IAs are investigated, and an optimal logarithmic space lower bound for non-regular language recognition on realtime-IAs is shown. Finally, some non-recursive trade-offs between space bounded realtime-IAs are emphasized.


2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (05) ◽  
pp. 1027-1038 ◽  
Author(s):  
LYNETTE VAN ZIJL

Iwama et al. showed that there exists an n-state binary nondeterministic finite automaton such that its equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton has exactly 2n - α states, for all n ≥ 7 and 5 ≤ α ≤ 2n-2, subject to certain coprimality conditions. We investigate the same question for both unary and binary symmetric difference nondeterministic finite automata. In the binary case, we show that for any n ≥ 4, there is an n-state symmetric difference nondeterministic finite automaton for which the equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton has 2n - 1 + 2k - 1 - 1 states, for 2 < k ≤ n - 1. In the unary case, we consider a large practical subclass of unary symmetric difference nondeterministic finite automata: for all n ≥ 2, we argue that there are many values of α such that there is no n-state unary symmetric difference nondeterministic finite automaton with an equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton with 2n - α states, where 0 < α < 2n - 1. For each n ≥ 2, we quantify such values of α precisely.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (03) ◽  
pp. 1250020
Author(s):  
YONG HE ◽  
GONGCAI XIN ◽  
ZHIXI WANG

The semirings admitting maximal factorizations of any finite dimension are called MF-semirings. We first show that a commutative semiring K is an MF-semiring if and only if K admits a maximal factorization of dimension n ≥ 2, and if and only if K is a multiplicatively cancellative semiring satisfying the g.c.d. condition. And then, by using above result, we prove that a weighted finite automaton [Formula: see text] over a commutative idempotent MF-semiring has a determination if [Formula: see text] has the victory property and twins property. Also, some special cases are considered.


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