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Documents authored by Policriti, Alberto

Document
DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.Manzini.12
Wheeler Graphs and Wheeler Languages

Authors: Nicola Cotumaccio, Giovanna D'Agostino, Daniel Gibney, Alberto Policriti, Nicola Prezza, and Sharma V. Thankachan

Published in: OASIcs, Volume 131, The Expanding World of Compressed Data: A Festschrift for Giovanni Manzini's 60th Birthday (2025)

Abstract
Suffix sorting stands at the core of the most efficient solutions for indexed pattern matching: the suffix tree, the suffix array, compressed indexes based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform, and so on. In [Gagie, Manzini, Sirén, TCS 2017] this concept was extended to labeled graphs, obtaining the rich class of Wheeler graphs. This work opened a very fruitful line of research, ultimately generating results able to bridge the fields of compressed data structures, graph theory, and regular language theory. In a Wheeler graph, nodes are sorted according to the alphabetic order of their incoming labels, propagating this order through pairs of equally-labeled edges. This apparently-simple definition makes it possible to solve on Wheeler graphs problems (including, but not limited to: compression, subpath queries, NFA equivalence, determinization, minimization) that on general labeled graphs are extremely hard to solve, and induces a rich structure in the class of regular languages (Wheeler languages) recognized by automata whose state transition is a Wheeler graph. The goal of this survey is to provide a summary of (and intuitions behind) the results on Wheeler graphs that appeared in the literature since their introduction, in addition to a discussion of interesting problems that are still open in the field.
Cite as

Nicola Cotumaccio, Giovanna D'Agostino, Daniel Gibney, Alberto Policriti, Nicola Prezza, and Sharma V. Thankachan. Wheeler Graphs and Wheeler Languages. In The Expanding World of Compressed Data: A Festschrift for Giovanni Manzini's 60th Birthday. Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 131, pp. 12:1-12:28, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{cotumaccio_et_al:OASIcs.Manzini.12,
  author =	{Cotumaccio, Nicola and D'Agostino, Giovanna and Gibney, Daniel and Policriti, Alberto and Prezza, Nicola and Thankachan, Sharma V.},
  title =	{{Wheeler Graphs and Wheeler Languages}},
  booktitle =	{The Expanding World of Compressed Data: A Festschrift for Giovanni Manzini's 60th Birthday},
  pages =	{12:1--12:28},
  series =	{Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-390-4},
  ISSN =	{2190-6807},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{131},
  editor =	{Ferragina, Paolo and Gagie, Travis and Navarro, Gonzalo},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/OASIcs.Manzini.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-239205},
  doi =		{10.4230/OASIcs.Manzini.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: Wheeler languages, Wheeler graphs, pattern matching, indexing, compressed data structures}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2024.23
The Rational Construction of a Wheeler DFA

Authors: Giovanni Manzini, Alberto Policriti, Nicola Prezza, and Brian Riccardi

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 296, 35th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2024)

Abstract
Deterministic Finite Wheeler Automata are a natural generalisation to regular languages of the theory of compressed data structures originated by the introduction of the Burrows-Wheeler transform. Indeed, if we can find a Wheeler automaton recognizing a given language L, such automaton can be used to design time and space efficient algorithms for representing and searching L. In this paper we introduce an alternative representation of Deterministic Wheeler Automata by showing that a natural map between strings and rational numbers in ℚ [0,1) can be extended to represent the automaton’s states as intervals in ℚ [0,1). Using this representation it emerges a natural relationship between automata properties and some properties of real numbers. In addition, such representation enables us to formulate problems related to automata in a numerical setting. Although at the moment the numerical approach does not lead to time efficient algorithms, we believe this new perspective deserves further consideration. As a further demonstration of the convenience of this new representation, we use it to provide a simple proof of an unexpected result on regular languages. More precisely, we compare the size of the smallest Wheeler automaton recognizing a given language L with respect to the size of the smallest automaton, possibly non-Wheeler, recognizing the same language. We show settings in which there can be an exponential gap between the two sizes, and we discuss the implications of this result on the problem of representing regular languages.
Cite as

Giovanni Manzini, Alberto Policriti, Nicola Prezza, and Brian Riccardi. The Rational Construction of a Wheeler DFA. In 35th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 296, pp. 23:1-23:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{manzini_et_al:LIPIcs.CPM.2024.23,
  author =	{Manzini, Giovanni and Policriti, Alberto and Prezza, Nicola and Riccardi, Brian},
  title =	{{The Rational Construction of a Wheeler DFA}},
  booktitle =	{35th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2024)},
  pages =	{23:1--23:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-326-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{296},
  editor =	{Inenaga, Shunsuke and Puglisi, Simon J.},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2024.23},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-201336},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2024.23},
  annote =	{Keywords: String Matching, Deterministic Finite Automata, Wheeler languages, Graph Indexing, Co-lexicographical Sorting}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2018.52
String Attractors: Verification and Optimization

Authors: Dominik Kempa, Alberto Policriti, Nicola Prezza, and Eva Rotenberg

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 112, 26th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2018)

Abstract
String attractors [STOC 2018] are combinatorial objects recently introduced to unify all known dictionary compression techniques in a single theory. A set Gamma subseteq [1..n] is a k-attractor for a string S in Sigma^n if and only if every distinct substring of S of length at most k has an occurrence crossing at least one of the positions in Gamma. Finding the smallest k-attractor is NP-hard for k >= 3, but polylogarithmic approximations can be found using reductions from dictionary compressors. It is easy to reduce the k-attractor problem to a set-cover instance where the string's positions are interpreted as sets of substrings. The main result of this paper is a much more powerful reduction based on the truncated suffix tree. Our new characterization of the problem leads to more efficient algorithms for string attractors: we show how to check the validity and minimality of a k-attractor in near-optimal time and how to quickly compute exact solutions. For example, we prove that a minimum 3-attractor can be found in O(n) time when |Sigma| in O(sqrt[3+epsilon]{log n}) for some constant epsilon > 0, despite the problem being NP-hard for large Sigma.
Cite as

Dominik Kempa, Alberto Policriti, Nicola Prezza, and Eva Rotenberg. String Attractors: Verification and Optimization. In 26th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 112, pp. 52:1-52:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)

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@InProceedings{kempa_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2018.52,
  author =	{Kempa, Dominik and Policriti, Alberto and Prezza, Nicola and Rotenberg, Eva},
  title =	{{String Attractors: Verification and Optimization}},
  booktitle =	{26th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2018)},
  pages =	{52:1--52:13},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-081-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{112},
  editor =	{Azar, Yossi and Bast, Hannah and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2018.52},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-95153},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2018.52},
  annote =	{Keywords: Dictionary compression, String attractors, Set cover}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2017.17
From LZ77 to the Run-Length Encoded Burrows-Wheeler Transform, and Back

Authors: Alberto Policriti and Nicola Prezza

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 78, 28th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2017)

Abstract
The Lempel-Ziv factorization (LZ77) and the Run-Length encoded Burrows-Wheeler Transform (RLBWT) are two important tools in text compression and indexing, being their sizes z and r closely related to the amount of text self-repetitiveness. In this paper we consider the problem of converting the two representations into each other within a working space proportional to the input and the output. Let n be the text length. We show that RLBWT can be converted to LZ77 in O(n log r) time and O(r) words of working space. Conversely, we provide an algorithm to convert LZ77 to RLBWT in O(n(log r + log z)) time and O(r+z) words of working space. Note that r and z can be constant if the text is highly repetitive, and our algorithms can operate with (up to) exponentially less space than naive solutions based on full decompression.
Cite as

Alberto Policriti and Nicola Prezza. From LZ77 to the Run-Length Encoded Burrows-Wheeler Transform, and Back. In 28th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2017). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 78, pp. 17:1-17:10, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)

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@InProceedings{policriti_et_al:LIPIcs.CPM.2017.17,
  author =	{Policriti, Alberto and Prezza, Nicola},
  title =	{{From LZ77 to the Run-Length Encoded Burrows-Wheeler Transform, and Back}},
  booktitle =	{28th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2017)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:10},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-039-2},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2017},
  volume =	{78},
  editor =	{K\"{a}rkk\"{a}inen, Juha and Radoszewski, Jakub and Rytter, Wojciech},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2017.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-73215},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2017.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Lempel-Ziv, Burrows-Wheeler transform, compressed computation, repetitive text collections}
}
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