We introduce the notion of nested distance desert automata as a joint generalization of distance automata and desert automata. We show that limitedness of nested distance desert automata is PSPACE-complete. As an application, we show that it is decidable in 22O(n) space whether the language accepted by an n-state non-deterministic automaton is of a star height less than a given integer h (concerning rational expressions with union, concatenation and iteration), which is the first ever complexity bound for the star height problem.

We study the concept of an H-partition of the vertex set of a graph G, which includes all vertex partitioning problems into four parts which we require to be nonempty with only external constraints according to the structure of a model graph H, with the exception of two cases, one that has already been classified as polynomial, and the other one remains unclassified. In the context of more general vertex-partition problems, the problems addressed in this paper have these properties: non-list, 4-part, external constraints only (no internal constraints), each part non-empty. We describe tools that yield for each problem considered in this paper a simple and low complexity polynomial-time algorithm.

The paradigm of type-based termination is explored for functional programming with recursive data types. The article introduces $\boldsymbol{\Lambda_\mu^+}$, a lambda-calculus with recursion, inductive types, subtyping and bounded quantification. Decorated type variables representing approximations of inductive types are used to track the size of function arguments and return values. The system is shown to be type safe and strongly normalizing. The main novelty is a bidirectional type checking algorithm whose soundness is established formally.

It is shown that small fragments of the first-order theory of the subword order, the (partial) lexicographic path ordering on words, the homomorphism preorder, and the infix order are undecidable. This is in contrast to the decidability of the monadic second-order theory of the prefix order [M.O. Rabin, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., 1969] and of the theory of the total lexicographic path ordering [P. Narendran and M. Rusinowitch, Lect. Notes Artificial Intelligence, 2000] and, in case of the subword and the lexicographic path order, improves upon a result by Comon & Treinen [H. Comon and R. Treinen, Lect. Notes Comp. Sci., 1994]. Our proofs rely on the undecidability of the positive ∑1-theory of $(\mathbb N,+,\cdot)$ [Y. Matiyasevich, Hilbert's Tenth Problem, 1993] and on Treinen's technique [R. Treinen, J. Symbolic Comput., 1992] that allows to reduce Post's correspondence problem to logical theories.

Given an ordered alphabet and a permutation, according to the lexicographic order, on the set of suffixes of a word w, we present in this article a linear time and space method to determine whether a word w' has the same permutation on its suffixes. Using this method, we are then also able to build the class of all the words having the same permutation on their suffixes, first of all the smallest one. Finally, we note that this work can lead to a method for generating a Lyndon word randomly in linear time or for computing the set of Lyndon words of length n .

We investigate the succinctness of several kinds of unary automata by studying their state complexity in accepting the family {Lm } of cyclic languages, where Lm = akm | k ∈ N. In particular, we show that, for any m, the number of states necessary and sufficient for accepting the unary language L m with isolated cut point on one-way probabilistic finite automata is $p_1^{\alpha_1}+ p_2^{\alpha_2} +\cdots +p_s^{\alpha_s}$ , with $p_1^{\alpha_1}p_2^{\alpha_2} \cdots p_s^{\alpha_s}$ being the factorization of m. To prove this result, we give a general state lower bound for accepting unary languages with isolated cut point on the one-way probabilistic model. Moreover, we exhibit one-way quantum finite automata that, for any m, accept L m with isolated cut point and only two states. These results are settled within a survey on unary automata aiming to compare the descriptional power of deterministic, nondeterministic, probabilistic and quantum paradigms.

Quantum annealing, or quantum stochastic optimization, is a classical randomized algorithm which provides good heuristics for the solution of hard optimization problems. The algorithm, suggested by the behaviour of quantum systems, is an example of proficuous cross contamination between classical and quantum computer science. In this survey paper we illustrate how hard combinatorial problems are tackled by quantum computation and present some examples of the heuristics provided by quantum annealing. We also present preliminary results about the application of quantum dissipation (as an alternative to imaginary time evolution) to the task of driving a quantum system toward its state of lowest energy.

We describe Wadge degrees of ω-languages recognizable by deterministic Turing machines. In particular, it is shown that the ordinal corresponding to these degrees is ξω where ξ = ω1CK is the first non-recursive ordinal known as the Church–Kleene ordinal. This answers a question raised in [2].

A number of methodological papers published during the last years testify that a need for a thorough revision of the research methodology is felt by the operations research community – see, for example, [Barr et al., J. Heuristics1 (1995) 9–32; Eiben and Jelasity, Proceedings of the 2002 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2002) 582–587; Hooker, J. Heuristics1 (1995) 33–42; Rardin and Uzsoy, J. Heuristics7 (2001) 261–304]. In particular, the performance evaluation of nondeterministic methods, including widely studied metaheuristics such as evolutionary computation and ant colony optimization, requires the definition of new experimental protocols. A careful and thorough analysis of the problem of evaluating metaheuristics reveals strong similarities between this problem and the problem of evaluating learning methods in the machine learning field. In this paper, we show that several conceptual tools commonly used in machine learning – such as, for example, the probabilistic notion of class of instances and the separation between the training and the testing datasets – fit naturally in the context of metaheuristics evaluation. Accordingly, we propose and discuss some principles inspired by the experimental practice in machine learning for guiding the performance evaluation of optimization algorithms. Among these principles, a clear separation between the instances that are used for tuning algorithms and those that are used in the actual evaluation is particularly important for a proper assessment.

This paper deals with lower bounds on the approximability of different subproblems of the TravelingSalesman Problem (TSP) which is known not to admit any polynomial time approximation algorithm in general(unless $\mathcal{P}=\mathcal{NP}$ ). First of all, we present an improved lower bound for the Traveling Salesman Problemwith Triangle Inequality, Delta-TSP for short. Moreover our technique, an extension of the method ofEngebretsen [11], also applies to the case of relaxed and sharpened triangle inequality,respectively, denoted $\Delta_\beta$ -TSP for an appropriate β. In case of theDelta-TSP, we obtain a lowerbound of $\frac{3813}{3812}-\varepsilon$ on the polynomial-time approximability (for any small $\varepsilon> 0$ ), compared to the previous bound of $\frac{5381}{5380}-\varepsilon$ in [11]. Incase of the $\Delta_\beta$ -TSP, for the relaxed case ( $\beta> 1$ ) we present a lower bound of $\frac{3803+10\beta}{3804+8\beta}-\varepsilon$ , and for the sharpened triangle inequality( $\frac{1}{2}< \beta< 1$ ), the lower bound is $\frac{7611+10\beta^2+5\beta}{7612+8\beta^2+4\beta}-\varepsilon$ . The latter result is of interestespecially since it shows that the TSP is $\mathcal{APX}$ -hard even if one comes arbitrarily close to the trivialcase that all edges have the same cost.

This article is a case study in the implementation of a portable, proven and efficient correctly rounded elementary function in double-precision. We describe the methodology used to achieve these goals in the crlibm library. There are two novel aspects to this approach. The first is the proof framework, and in general the techniques used to balance performance and provability. The second is the introduction of processor-specific optimization to get performance equivalent to the best current mathematical libraries, while trying to minimize the proof work. The implementation of the natural logarithm is detailed to illustrate these questions.

We present the first (polynomial-time) algorithm for reducing a given deterministic finite state automaton (DFA) into a hyper-minimized DFA, which may have fewer states than the classically minimized DFA. The price we pay is that the language recognized by the new machine can differ from the original on a finite number of inputs. These hyper-minimized automata are optimal, in the sense that every DFA with fewer states must disagree on infinitely many inputs. With small modifications, the construction works also for finite state transducers producing outputs. Within a class of finitely differing languages, the hyper-minimized automaton is not necessarily unique. There may exist several non-isomorphic machines using the minimum number of states, each accepting a separate language finitely-different from the original one. We will show that there are large structural similarities among all these smallest automata.

We consider the family UREC of unambiguous recognizable two-dimensional languages. We prove that there are recognizable languages that are inherently ambiguous, that is UREC family is a proper subclass of REC family. The result is obtained by showing a necessary condition for unambiguous recognizable languages. Further UREC family coincides with the class of picture languages defined by unambiguous 2OTA and it strictly contains its deterministic counterpart. Some closure and non-closure properties of UREC are presented. Finally we show that it is undecidable whether a given tiling system is unambiguous.

This paper presents a new lower bound for the recursive algorithm for solving parity games which is induced by the constructive proof of memoryless determinacy by Zielonka. We outline a family of games of linear size on which the algorithm requires exponential time.

Bertoni et al.  introduced in Lect. Notes Comput. Sci.2710 (2003) 1–20 a new model of 1-way quantum finite automaton (1qfa) called 1qfa with control language (1qfc). This model, whose recognizing power is exactly the class of regular languages, generalizes main models of 1qfa's proposed in the literature. Here, we investigate some properties of 1qfc's. In particular, we provide algorithms for constructing 1qfc's accepting the inverse homomorphic images and quotients of languages accepted by 1qfc's. Moreover, we give instances of binary regular languages on which 1qfc's are proved to be more succinct (i.e. , to have less states) than the corresponding classical (deterministic) automata.

We introduce the notion of a k-synchronized sequence, where k is an integer larger than 1. Roughly speaking, a sequence of natural numbers is said to be k-synchronized if its graph is represented, in base k, by a right synchronized rational relation. This is an intermediate notion between k-automatic and k-regular sequences. Indeed, we show that the class of k-automatic sequences is equal to the class of bounded k-synchronized sequences and that the class of k-synchronized sequences is strictly contained in that of k-regular sequences. Moreover, we show that equality of factors in a k-synchronized sequence is represented, in base k, by a right synchronized rational relation. This result allows us to prove that the separator sequence of a k-synchronized sequence is a k-synchronized sequence, too. This generalizes a previous result of Garel, concerning k-regularity of the separator sequences of sequences generated by iterating a uniform circular morphism.

We show that any positive integer is the least period of a factor of the Thue-Morse word. We also characterize the set of least periods of factors of a Sturmian word. In particular, the corresponding set for the Fibonacci word is the set of Fibonacci numbers. As a by-product of our results, we give several new proofs and tightenings of well-known properties of Sturmian words.

In an earlier paper, the second author generalized Eilenberg's variety theory by establishing a basic correspondence between certain classes of monoid morphisms and families of regular languages. We extend this theory in several directions. First, we prove a version of Reiterman's theorem concerning the definition of varieties by identities, and illustrate this result by describing the identities associated with languages of the form (a1a2...ak)+, where a1,...,ak are distinct letters. Next, we generalize the notions of Mal'cev product, positive varieties, and polynomial closure. Our results not only extend those already known, but permit a unified approach of different cases that previously required separate treatment.

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) and several more general BDD models have turned out to be representations of Boolean functions which are useful in applications like verification, timing analysis, test pattern generation or combinatorial optimization.The hidden weighted bit function (HWB) is of particular interest, since it seems to be the simplest function with exponential OBDD size. The complexity of this function with respect to different circuit models, formulas, and various BDD models is discussed.

Given a finite set of matrices with integer entries, consider the question of determining whether the semigroup they generated 1) is free; 2) contains the identity matrix; 3) contains the null matrix or 4) is a group. Even for matrices of dimension 3, questions 1) and 3) are undecidable. For dimension 2, they are still open as far as we know. Here we prove that problems 2) and 4) are decidable by proving more generally that it is recursively decidable whether or not a given non singular matrix belongs to a given finitely generated semigroup.