23 Search Results for "Paperman, Charles"


Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
Out-Of-Order Membership in Regular Languages

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Sebastien Labbe, and Charles Paperman

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 374, 53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026)


Abstract
We introduce the task of out-of-order membership to a formal language L, where the letters of a word w are revealed one by one in an arbitrary order. The length |w| is known in advance, but the content of w is streamed as pairs (i, w[i]), received exactly once for each position i, in arbitrary order. We study efficient algorithms for this task when L is regular, seeking tight complexity bounds as a function of |w| for a fixed target language. Most of our results apply to an algebraically defined variant dubbed out-of-order evaluation: this problem is defined for a fixed finite monoid or semigroup S, and our goal is to compute the ordered product of the streamed elements of w. We show that, for any fixed regular language or finite semigroup, both problems can be solved in constant time per streamed symbol and in linear space. However, the precise space complexity strongly depends on the algebraic structure of the target language or evaluation semigroup. Our main contributions are therefore to show (deterministic) space complexity characterizations, which we do for out-of-order evaluation of monoids and semigroups. For monoids, we establish a trichotomy: the space complexity is either Θ(1), Θ(log n), or Θ(n), where n = |w|. More specifically, the problem admits a constant-space solution for commutative monoids, while all non-commutative monoids require Ω(log n) space. We further identify a class of monoids admitting an O(log n)-space algorithm, and show that all remaining monoids require Ω(n) space. For general semigroups, the situation is more intricate. We characterize a class of semigroups admitting constant-space algorithms for out-of-order evaluation, and show that semigroups outside this class require at least Ω(log n) space. At the same time, we exhibit semigroups for which specialized techniques yield intermediate bounds such as an O(√n)-space algorithm, suggesting that the landscape may be richer and less well-behaved than for the monoid setting.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Sebastien Labbe, and Charles Paperman. Out-Of-Order Membership in Regular Languages. In 53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 374, pp. 161:1-161:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.161,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Labbe, Sebastien and Paperman, Charles},
  title =	{{Out-Of-Order Membership in Regular Languages}},
  booktitle =	{53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026)},
  pages =	{161:1--161:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-428-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{374},
  editor =	{Bhattacharya, Sayan and Nanongkai, Danupon and Benedikt, Michael and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.161},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-265498},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.161},
  annote =	{Keywords: Automata, Complexity, Algebra}
}
Document
Pumping-Like Results for Copyless Cost Register Automata and Polynomially Ambiguous Weighted Automata

Authors: Filip Mazowiecki, Antoni Puch, and Daniel Smertnig

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)


Abstract
In this work we consider two rich subclasses of weighted automata over fields: polynomially ambiguous weighted automata and copyless cost register automata. Primarily we are interested in understanding their expressiveness power. Over the field of rationals and 1-letter alphabets, it is known that the two classes coincide; they are equivalent to linear recurrence sequences (LRS) whose exponential bases are roots of rationals. We develop a tool we call Pumping Sequence Families, which, by exploiting the simple single-letter behaviour of the models, yields two pumping-like results over arbitrary fields with unrestricted alphabets, one for each class. As a corollary of these results, we present examples proving that the two classes become incomparable over the field of rationals with unrestricted alphabets. We complement the results by analysing the zeroness and equivalence problems. For weighted automata (even unrestricted) these problems are well understood: there are polynomial time, and even NC² algorithms. For copyless cost register automata we show that the two problems are PSpace-complete, where the difficulty is to show the lower bound.

Cite as

Filip Mazowiecki, Antoni Puch, and Daniel Smertnig. Pumping-Like Results for Copyless Cost Register Automata and Polynomially Ambiguous Weighted Automata. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 67:1-67:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{mazowiecki_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.67,
  author =	{Mazowiecki, Filip and Puch, Antoni and Smertnig, Daniel},
  title =	{{Pumping-Like Results for Copyless Cost Register Automata and Polynomially Ambiguous Weighted Automata}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{67:1--67:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.67},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-255568},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.67},
  annote =	{Keywords: weighted automata, cost register automata, ambiguity, linear recurrence sequences, equivalence problem}
}
Document
On the Complexity of Language Membership for Probabilistic Words

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Mikaël Monet, Paul Raphaël, and Sylvain Salvati

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 364, 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)


Abstract
We study the membership problem to context-free languages L (CFLs) on probabilistic words, that specify for each position a probability distribution on the letters (assuming independence across positions). Our task is to compute, given a probabilistic word, what is the probability that a word drawn according to the distribution belongs to L. This problem generalizes the problem of counting how many words of length n belong to L, or of counting how many completions of a partial word belong to L. We show that this problem is in polynomial time for unambiguous context-free languages (uCFLs), but can be #P-hard already for unions of two linear uCFLs. More generally, we show that the problem is in polynomial time for so-called poly-slicewise-unambiguous languages, where given a length n we can tractably compute an uCFL for the words of length n in the language. This class includes some inherently ambiguous languages, and implies the tractability of bounded CFLs and of languages recognized by unambiguous polynomial-time counter automata; but we show that the problem can be #P-hard for nondeterministic counter automata, even for Parikh automata with a single counter. We then introduce classes of circuits from knowledge compilation which we use for tractable counting, and show that this covers the tractability of poly-slicewise-unambiguous languages and of some CFLs that are not poly-slicewise-unambiguous. Extending these circuits with negation further allows us to show tractability for the language of primitive words, and for the language of concatenations of two palindromes. We finally show the conditional undecidability of the meta-problem that asks, given a CFG, whether the probabilistic membership problem for that CFG is tractable or #P-hard.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Mikaël Monet, Paul Raphaël, and Sylvain Salvati. On the Complexity of Language Membership for Probabilistic Words. In 43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 364, pp. 5:1-5:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2026.5,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Monet, Mika\"{e}l and Rapha\"{e}l, Paul and Salvati, Sylvain},
  title =	{{On the Complexity of Language Membership for Probabilistic Words}},
  booktitle =	{43rd International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2026)},
  pages =	{5:1--5:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-412-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{364},
  editor =	{Mahajan, Meena and Manea, Florin and McIver, Annabelle and Thắng, Nguy\~{ê}n Kim},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.5},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-254943},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2026.5},
  annote =	{Keywords: Automaton, probabilistic words, context-free grammar, membership problem}
}
Document
Invited Talk
Unboundedness Problems for Formal Languages (Invited Talk)

Authors: Georg Zetzsche

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 360, 45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025)


Abstract
Informally, unboundedness problems are decision problems that ask about the existence of infinitely many words (satisfying certain properties) in a formal language. For example: Is a given language infinite? Or: Does a given language have super-polynomial growth? These came into focus in recent years because of their connections to downward closure computation and separability problems. Although unboundedness problems may seem difficult at first, it turns out that there are techniques that are at the same time conceptually very simple, but also apply to a surprisingly wide variety of language classes. The talk will survey recent results (and techniques) concerning unboundedness problems.

Cite as

Georg Zetzsche. Unboundedness Problems for Formal Languages (Invited Talk). In 45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 360, pp. 2:1-2:10, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{zetzsche:LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.2,
  author =	{Zetzsche, Georg},
  title =	{{Unboundedness Problems for Formal Languages}},
  booktitle =	{45th IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 2025)},
  pages =	{2:1--2:10},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-406-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{360},
  editor =	{Aiswarya, C. and Mehta, Ruta and Roy, Subhajit},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.2},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-250810},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FSTTCS.2025.2},
  annote =	{Keywords: Decidability, formal languages, unifying frameworks, downward closure, separability}
}
Document
Dynamic Membership for Regular Tree Languages

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Corentin Barloy, Louis Jachiet, and Charles Paperman

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)


Abstract
We study the dynamic membership problem for regular tree languages under relabeling updates: we fix an alphabet Σ and a regular tree language L over Σ (expressed, e.g., as a tree automaton), we are given a tree T with labels in Σ, and we must maintain the information of whether the tree T belongs to L while handling relabeling updates that change the labels of individual nodes in T. Our first contribution is to show that this problem admits an O(log n / log log n) algorithm for any fixed regular tree language, improving over known O(log n) algorithms. This generalizes the known O(log n / log log n) upper bound over words, and it matches the lower bound of Ω(log n / log log n) from dynamic membership to some word languages and from the existential marked ancestor problem. Our second contribution is to introduce a class of regular languages, dubbed almost-commutative tree languages, and show that dynamic membership to such languages under relabeling updates can be decided in constant time per update. Almost-commutative languages generalize both commutative languages and finite languages: they are the analogue for trees of the ZG languages enjoying constant-time dynamic membership over words. Our main technical contribution is to show that this class is conditionally optimal when we assume that the alphabet features a neutral letter, i.e., a letter that has no effect on membership to the language. More precisely, we show that any regular tree language with a neutral letter which is not almost-commutative cannot be maintained in constant time under the assumption that the prefix-U1 problem from [Antoine Amarilli et al., 2021] also does not admit a constant-time algorithm.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Corentin Barloy, Louis Jachiet, and Charles Paperman. Dynamic Membership for Regular Tree Languages. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 8:1-8:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.8,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Barloy, Corentin and Jachiet, Louis and Paperman, Charles},
  title =	{{Dynamic Membership for Regular Tree Languages}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241155},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: automaton, dynamic membership, incremental maintenance, forest algebra}
}
Document
Lexicographic Transductions of Finite Words

Authors: Emmanuel Filiot, Nathan Lhote, and Pierre-Alain Reynier

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)


Abstract
Regular transductions over finite words have linear input-to-output growth. This class of transductions enjoys many characterizations, such as transductions computable by two-way transducers as well as transductions definable in MSO (in the sense of Courcelle). Recently, regular transductions have been extended by Bojańczyk to polyregular transductions, which have polynomial growth, and are characterized by pebble transducers and MSO interpretations. Another class of interest is that of transductions defined by streaming string transducers or marble transducers, which have exponential growth and are incomparable with polyregular transductions. In this paper, we consider MSO set interpretations (MSOSI) over finite words, that were introduced by Colcombet and Loeding. MSOSI are a natural candidate for the class of "regular transductions with exponential growth", and are rather well behaved. However, MSOSI for now lacks two desirable properties that regular and polyregular transductions have. The first property is to have an automata description. This property is closely related to a second property, that of being regularity preserving, meaning preserving regular languages under inverse image. We first show that if MSOSI are (effectively) regularity preserving then any automatic ω-word has a decidable MSO theory, an almost 20 years old conjecture of Bárány. Our main contribution is the introduction of a class of transductions of exponential growth, which we call lexicographic transductions. We provide three different presentations for this class: first, as the closure of simple transductions (recognizable transductions) under a single operator called maplex; second, as a syntactic fragment of MSOSI (but the regular languages are given by automata instead of formulas); and third, we give an automaton based model called nested marble transducers, which generalize both marble transducers and pebble transducers. We show that this class enjoys many nice properties including being regularity preserving.

Cite as

Emmanuel Filiot, Nathan Lhote, and Pierre-Alain Reynier. Lexicographic Transductions of Finite Words. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 50:1-50:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{filiot_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.50,
  author =	{Filiot, Emmanuel and Lhote, Nathan and Reynier, Pierre-Alain},
  title =	{{Lexicographic Transductions of Finite Words}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{50:1--50:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.50},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241572},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.50},
  annote =	{Keywords: Transducers, Automata, MSO, Logical interpretations, Automatic structures}
}
Document
The Complexity of Separability for Semilinear Sets and Parikh Automata

Authors: Elias Rojas Collins, Chris Köcher, and Georg Zetzsche

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 345, 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)


Abstract
In a separability problem, we are given two sets K and L from a class 𝒞, and we want to decide whether there exists a set S from a class 𝒮 such that K ⊆ S and S ∩ L = ∅. In this case, we speak of separability of sets in 𝒞 by sets in 𝒮. We study two types of separability problems. First, we consider separability of semilinear sets (i.e. subsets of ℕ^d for some d) by sets definable by quantifier-free monadic Presburger formulas (or equivalently, the recognizable subsets of ℕ^d). Here, a formula is monadic if each atom uses at most one variable. Second, we consider separability of languages of Parikh automata by regular languages. A Parikh automaton is a machine with access to counters that can only be incremented, and have to meet a semilinear constraint at the end of the run. Both of these separability problems are known to be decidable with elementary complexity. Our main results are that both problems are coNP-complete. In the case of semilinear sets, coNP-completeness holds regardless of whether the input sets are specified by existential Presburger formulas, quantifier-free formulas, or semilinear representations. Our results imply that recognizable separability of rational subsets of Σ* × ℕ^d (shown decidable by Choffrut and Grigorieff) is coNP-complete as well. Another application is that regularity of deterministic Parikh automata (where the target set is specified using a quantifier-free Presburger formula) is coNP-complete as well.

Cite as

Elias Rojas Collins, Chris Köcher, and Georg Zetzsche. The Complexity of Separability for Semilinear Sets and Parikh Automata. In 50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 345, pp. 38:1-38:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{collins_et_al:LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.38,
  author =	{Collins, Elias Rojas and K\"{o}cher, Chris and Zetzsche, Georg},
  title =	{{The Complexity of Separability for Semilinear Sets and Parikh Automata}},
  booktitle =	{50th International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (MFCS 2025)},
  pages =	{38:1--38:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-388-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{345},
  editor =	{Gawrychowski, Pawe{\l} and Mazowiecki, Filip and Skrzypczak, Micha{\l}},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.38},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-241457},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.MFCS.2025.38},
  annote =	{Keywords: Vector Addition System, Separability, Regular Language}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
Positive and Monotone Fragments of FO and LTL

Authors: Simon Iosti, Denis Kuperberg, and Quentin Moreau

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)


Abstract
We study the positive logic FO^+ on finite words, and its fragments, pursuing and refining the work initiated in [Denis Kuperberg, 2023]. First, we transpose notorious logic equivalences into positive first-order logic: FO^+ is equivalent to LTL^+, and its two-variable fragment FO^{2+} with (resp. without) successor available is equivalent to UTL^+ with (resp. without) the "next" operator X available. This shows that despite previous negative results, the class of FO^+-definable languages exhibits some form of robustness. We then exhibit an example of an FO-definable monotone language on one predicate, that is not FO^+-definable, refining the example from [Denis Kuperberg, 2023] with 3 predicates. Moreover, we show that such a counter-example cannot be FO²-definable. Finally, we provide a new example distinguishing the positive and monotone versions of FO² without quantifier alternation. This does not rely on a variant of the previously known counter-example, and witnesses a new phenomenon.

Cite as

Simon Iosti, Denis Kuperberg, and Quentin Moreau. Positive and Monotone Fragments of FO and LTL. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 162:1-162:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{iosti_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.162,
  author =	{Iosti, Simon and Kuperberg, Denis and Moreau, Quentin},
  title =	{{Positive and Monotone Fragments of FO and LTL}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{162:1--162:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.162},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235398},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.162},
  annote =	{Keywords: Positive logic, LTL, separation, first-order, monotone}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
The Trichotomy of Regular Property Testing

Authors: Gabriel Bathie, Nathanaël Fijalkow, and Corto Mascle

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 334, 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)


Abstract
Property testing is concerned with the design of algorithms making a sublinear number of queries to distinguish whether the input satisfies a given property or is far from having this property. A seminal paper of Alon, Krivelevich, Newman, and Szegedy in 2001 introduced property testing of formal languages: the goal is to determine whether an input word belongs to a given language, or is far from any word in that language. They constructed the first property testing algorithm for the class of all regular languages. This opened a line of work with improved complexity results and applications to streaming algorithms. In this work, we show a trichotomy result: the class of regular languages can be divided into three classes, each associated with an optimal query complexity. Our analysis yields effective characterizations for all three classes using so-called minimal blocking sequences, reasoning directly and combinatorially on automata.

Cite as

Gabriel Bathie, Nathanaël Fijalkow, and Corto Mascle. The Trichotomy of Regular Property Testing. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 334, pp. 141:1-141:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bathie_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.141,
  author =	{Bathie, Gabriel and Fijalkow, Nathana\"{e}l and Mascle, Corto},
  title =	{{The Trichotomy of Regular Property Testing}},
  booktitle =	{52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2025)},
  pages =	{141:1--141:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-372-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{334},
  editor =	{Censor-Hillel, Keren and Grandoni, Fabrizio and Ouaknine, Jo\"{e}l and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.141},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-235186},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2025.141},
  annote =	{Keywords: property testing, regular languages}
}
Document
Dynamic Direct Access of MSO Query Evaluation over Strings

Authors: Pierre Bourhis, Florent Capelli, Stefan Mengel, and Cristian Riveros

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 328, 28th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2025)


Abstract
We study the problem of evaluating a Monadic Second Order (MSO) query over strings under updates in the setting of direct access. We present an algorithm that, given an MSO query with first-order free variables represented by an unambiguous variable-set automaton 𝒜 with state set Q and variables X and a string s, computes a data structure in time 𝒪(|Q|^ω⋅ |X|² ⋅ |s|) and, then, given an index i retrieves, using the data structure, the i-th output of the evaluation of 𝒜 over s in time 𝒪(|Q|^ω ⋅ |X|³ ⋅ log(|s|)²) where ω is the exponent for matrix multiplication. Ours is the first efficient direct access algorithm for MSO query evaluation over strings; such algorithms so far had only been studied for first-order queries and conjunctive queries over relational data. Our algorithm gives the answers in lexicographic order where, in contrast to the setting of conjunctive queries, the order between variables can be freely chosen by the user without degrading the runtime. Moreover, our data structure can be updated efficiently after changes to the input string, allowing more powerful updates than in the enumeration literature, e.g. efficient deletion of substrings, concatenation and splitting of strings, and cut-and-paste operations. Our approach combines a matrix representation of MSO queries and a novel data structure for dynamic word problems over semi-groups which yields an overall algorithm that is elegant and easy to formulate.

Cite as

Pierre Bourhis, Florent Capelli, Stefan Mengel, and Cristian Riveros. Dynamic Direct Access of MSO Query Evaluation over Strings. In 28th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 328, pp. 26:1-26:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{bourhis_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2025.26,
  author =	{Bourhis, Pierre and Capelli, Florent and Mengel, Stefan and Riveros, Cristian},
  title =	{{Dynamic Direct Access of MSO Query Evaluation over Strings}},
  booktitle =	{28th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2025)},
  pages =	{26:1--26:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-364-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{328},
  editor =	{Roy, Sudeepa and Kara, Ahmet},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2025.26},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-229675},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2025.26},
  annote =	{Keywords: Query evaluation, direct access, MSO queries}
}
Document
Uniform Reliability for Unbounded Homomorphism-Closed Graph Queries

Authors: Antoine Amarilli

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 255, 26th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2023)


Abstract
We study the uniform query reliability problem, which asks, for a fixed Boolean query Q, given an instance I, how many subinstances of I satisfy Q. Equivalently, this is a restricted case of Boolean query evaluation on tuple-independent probabilistic databases where all facts must have probability 1/2. We focus on graph signatures, and on queries closed under homomorphisms. We show that for any such query that is unbounded, i.e., not equivalent to a union of conjunctive queries, the uniform reliability problem is #P-hard. This recaptures the hardness, e.g., of s-t connectedness, which counts how many subgraphs of an input graph have a path between a source and a sink. This new hardness result on uniform reliability strengthens our earlier hardness result on probabilistic query evaluation for unbounded homomorphism-closed queries [Amarilli and Ceylan, 2021]. Indeed, our earlier proof crucially used facts with probability 1, so it did not apply to the unweighted case. The new proof presented in this paper avoids this; it uses our recent hardness result on uniform reliability for non-hierarchical conjunctive queries without self-joins [Antoine Amarilli and Benny Kimelfeld, 2022], along with new techniques.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli. Uniform Reliability for Unbounded Homomorphism-Closed Graph Queries. In 26th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 255, pp. 14:1-14:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


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@InProceedings{amarilli:LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.14,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine},
  title =	{{Uniform Reliability for Unbounded Homomorphism-Closed Graph Queries}},
  booktitle =	{26th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2023)},
  pages =	{14:1--14:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-270-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{255},
  editor =	{Geerts, Floris and Vandevoort, Brecht},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.14},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-177566},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.14},
  annote =	{Keywords: Uniform reliability, #P-hardness, probabilistic databases}
}
Document
Enumerating Regular Languages with Bounded Delay

Authors: Antoine Amarilli and Mikaël Monet

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 254, 40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023)


Abstract
We study the task, for a given language L, of enumerating the (generally infinite) sequence of its words, without repetitions, while bounding the delay between two consecutive words. To allow for delay bounds that do not depend on the current word length, we assume a model where we produce each word by editing the preceding word with a small edit script, rather than writing out the word from scratch. In particular, this witnesses that the language is orderable, i.e., we can write its words as an infinite sequence such that the Levenshtein edit distance between any two consecutive words is bounded by a value that depends only on the language. For instance, (a+b)^* is orderable (with a variant of the Gray code), but a^* + b^* is not. We characterize which regular languages are enumerable in this sense, and show that this can be decided in PTIME in an input deterministic finite automaton (DFA) for the language. In fact, we show that, given a DFA A, we can compute in PTIME automata A₁, …, A_t such that L(A) is partitioned as L(A₁) ⊔ … ⊔ L(A_t) and every L(A_i) is orderable in this sense. Further, we show that the value of t obtained is optimal, i.e., we cannot partition L(A) into less than t orderable languages. In the case where L(A) is orderable (i.e., t = 1), we show that the ordering can be produced by a bounded-delay algorithm: specifically, the algorithm runs in a suitable pointer machine model, and produces a sequence of bounded-length edit scripts to visit the words of L(A) without repetitions, with bounded delay - exponential in |A| - between each script. In fact, we show that we can achieve this while only allowing the edit operations push and pop at the beginning and end of the word, which implies that the word can in fact be maintained in a double-ended queue. By contrast, when fixing the distance bound d between consecutive words and the number of classes of the partition, it is NP-hard in the input DFA A to decide if L(A) is orderable in this sense, already for finite languages. Last, we study the model where push-pop edits are only allowed at the end of the word, corresponding to a case where the word is maintained on a stack. We show that these operations are strictly weaker and that the slender languages are precisely those that can be partitioned into finitely many languages that are orderable in this sense. For the slender languages, we can again characterize the minimal number of languages in the partition, and achieve bounded-delay enumeration.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli and Mikaël Monet. Enumerating Regular Languages with Bounded Delay. In 40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 254, pp. 8:1-8:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2023.8,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Monet, Mika\"{e}l},
  title =	{{Enumerating Regular Languages with Bounded Delay}},
  booktitle =	{40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023)},
  pages =	{8:1--8:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-266-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{254},
  editor =	{Berenbrink, Petra and Bouyer, Patricia and Dawar, Anuj and Kant\'{e}, Mamadou Moustapha},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.8},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-176609},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.8},
  annote =	{Keywords: Regular language, constant-delay enumeration, edit distance}
}
Document
An Algebraic Approach to Vectorial Programs

Authors: Charles Paperman, Sylvain Salvati, and Claire Soyez-Martin

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 254, 40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023)


Abstract
Vectorial programming, the combination of SIMD instructions with usual processor instructions, is known to speed-up many standard algorithms. Simple regular languages have benefited from this technology. This paper is a first step towards pushing these benefits further. We take advantage of the inner algebraic structure of regular languages and produce high level representations of efficient vectorial programs that recognize certain classes of regular languages. As a technical ingredient, we establish equivalences between classes of vectorial circuits and logical formalisms, namely unary temporal logic and first order logic. The main result is the construction of compilation procedures that turns syntactic semigroups into vectorial circuits. The circuits we obtain are small in that they improve known upper-bounds on representations of automata within the logical formalisms. The gain is mostly due to a careful sharing of sub-formulas based on algebraic tools.

Cite as

Charles Paperman, Sylvain Salvati, and Claire Soyez-Martin. An Algebraic Approach to Vectorial Programs. In 40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 254, pp. 51:1-51:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)


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@InProceedings{paperman_et_al:LIPIcs.STACS.2023.51,
  author =	{Paperman, Charles and Salvati, Sylvain and Soyez-Martin, Claire},
  title =	{{An Algebraic Approach to Vectorial Programs}},
  booktitle =	{40th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2023)},
  pages =	{51:1--51:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-266-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{254},
  editor =	{Berenbrink, Petra and Bouyer, Patricia and Dawar, Anuj and Kant\'{e}, Mamadou Moustapha},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.51},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-177030},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.STACS.2023.51},
  annote =	{Keywords: Automata theory, Semigroups, Vectorisation}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
Dynamic Membership for Regular Languages

Authors: Antoine Amarilli, Louis Jachiet, and Charles Paperman

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 198, 48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2021)


Abstract
We study the dynamic membership problem for regular languages: fix a language L, read a word w, build in time O(|w|) a data structure indicating if w is in L, and maintain this structure efficiently under letter substitutions on w. We consider this problem on the unit cost RAM model with logarithmic word length, where the problem always has a solution in O(log|w| / log log|w|) per operation. We show that the problem is in O(log log|w|) for languages in an algebraically-defined, decidable class QSG, and that it is in O(1) for another such class QLZG. We show that languages not in QSG admit a reduction from the prefix problem for a cyclic group, so that they require Ω(log|w| /log log|w|) operations in the worst case; and that QSG languages not in QLZG admit a reduction from the prefix problem for the multiplicative monoid U₁ = {0, 1}, which we conjecture cannot be maintained in O(1). This yields a conditional trichotomy. We also investigate intermediate cases between O(1) and O(log log|w|). Our results are shown via the dynamic word problem for monoids and semigroups, for which we also give a classification. We thus solve open problems of the paper of Skovbjerg Frandsen, Miltersen, and Skyum [Skovbjerg Frandsen et al., 1997] on the dynamic word problem, and additionally cover regular languages.

Cite as

Antoine Amarilli, Louis Jachiet, and Charles Paperman. Dynamic Membership for Regular Languages. In 48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 198, pp. 116:1-116:17, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)


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@InProceedings{amarilli_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2021.116,
  author =	{Amarilli, Antoine and Jachiet, Louis and Paperman, Charles},
  title =	{{Dynamic Membership for Regular Languages}},
  booktitle =	{48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2021)},
  pages =	{116:1--116:17},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-195-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{198},
  editor =	{Bansal, Nikhil and Merelli, Emanuela and Worrell, James},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2021.116},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-141850},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2021.116},
  annote =	{Keywords: regular language, membership, RAM model, updates, dynamic}
}
Document
Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming
Comparison-Free Polyregular Functions

Authors: Lê Thành Dũng (Tito) Nguyễn, Camille Noûs, and Cécilia Pradic

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 198, 48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2021)


Abstract
This paper introduces a new automata-theoretic class of string-to-string functions with polynomial growth. Several equivalent definitions are provided: a machine model which is a restricted variant of pebble transducers, and a few inductive definitions that close the class of regular functions under certain operations. Our motivation for studying this class comes from another characterization, which we merely mention here but prove elsewhere, based on a λ-calculus with a linear type system. As their name suggests, these comparison-free polyregular functions form a subclass of polyregular functions; we prove that the inclusion is strict. We also show that they are incomparable with HDT0L transductions, closed under usual function composition - but not under a certain "map" combinator - and satisfy a comparison-free version of the pebble minimization theorem. On the broader topic of polynomial growth transductions, we also consider the recently introduced layered streaming string transducers (SSTs), or equivalently k-marble transducers. We prove that a function can be obtained by composing such transducers together if and only if it is polyregular, and that k-layered SSTs (or k-marble transducers) are closed under "map" and equivalent to a corresponding notion of (k+1)-layered HDT0L systems.

Cite as

Lê Thành Dũng (Tito) Nguyễn, Camille Noûs, and Cécilia Pradic. Comparison-Free Polyregular Functions. In 48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 198, pp. 139:1-139:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2021)


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@InProceedings{nguyen_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2021.139,
  author =	{Nguy\~{ê}n, L\^{e} Th\`{a}nh D\~{u}ng (Tito) and No\^{u}s, Camille and Pradic, C\'{e}cilia},
  title =	{{Comparison-Free Polyregular Functions}},
  booktitle =	{48th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2021)},
  pages =	{139:1--139:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-195-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2021},
  volume =	{198},
  editor =	{Bansal, Nikhil and Merelli, Emanuela and Worrell, James},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2021.139},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-142087},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2021.139},
  annote =	{Keywords: pebble transducers, HDT0L systems, polyregular functions}
}
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