Pattern avoidance is an important topic in combinatorics on words which dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century when Thue constructed an infinite word over a ternary alphabet that avoids squares, i.e., a word with no two adjacent identical factors. This result finds applications in various algebraic contexts where more general patterns than squares are considered. On the other hand, Erdős raised the question as to whether there exists an infinite word that avoids abelian squares, i.e., a word with no two adjacent factors being permutations of one another. Although this question was answered affirmately years later, knowledge of abelian pattern avoidance is rather limited. Recently, (abelian) pattern avoidance was initiated in the more general framework of partial words, which allow for undefined positions called holes. In this paper, we show that any pattern p with n> 3 distinct variables of length at least 2n is abelian avoidable by a partial word with infinitely many holes, the bound on the length of p being tight. We complete the classification of all the binary and ternary patterns with respect to non-trivial abelian avoidability, in which no variable can be substituted by only one hole. We also investigate the abelian avoidability indices of the binary and ternary patterns.

We study deterministic one-way communication complexity of functions with Hankel communication matrices. Some structural properties of such matrices are established and applied to the one-way two-party communication complexity of symmetric Boolean functions. It is shown that the number of required communication bits does not depend on the communication direction, provided that neither direction needs maximum complexity. Moreover, in order to obtain an optimal protocol, it is in any case sufficient to consider only the communication direction from the party with the shorter input to the other party. These facts do not hold for arbitrary Boolean functions in general. Next, gaps between one-way and two-way communication complexity for symmetric Boolean functions are discussed. Finally, we give some generalizations to the case of multiple parties.

Analyzing genomic data for finding those gene variations which are responsible for hereditary diseases is one of the great challenges in modern bioinformatics. In many living beings (including the human), every gene is present in two copies, inherited from the two parents, the so-called haplotypes. In this paper, we propose a simple combinatorial model for classifying the set of haplotypes in a population according to their responsibility for a certain genetic disease. This model is based on the minimum-ones 2SAT problem with uniform clauses. The minimum-ones 2SAT problem asks for a satisfying assignment to a satisfiable formula in 2CNF which sets a minimum number of variables to true. This problem is well-known to be $\mathcal{NP}$-hard, even in the case where all clauses are uniform, i.e., do not contain a positive and a negative literal. We analyze the approximability and present the first non-trivial exact algorithm for the uniform minimum-ones 2SAT problem with a running time of $\mathcal{O}$(1.21061n) on a 2SAT formula with n variables. We also show that the problem is fixed-parameter tractable by showing that our algorithm can be adapted to verify in $\mathcal{O}^*$(2k) time whether an assignment with at most k true variables exists.

The algebraic study of formal languages shows that ω-rational sets correspond precisely to the ω-languages recognizable by finite ω-semigroups. Within this framework, we provide a construction of the algebraic counterpart of the Wagner hierarchy. We adopt a hierarchical game approach, by translating the Wadge theory from the ω-rational language to the ω-semigroup context. More precisely, we first show that the Wagner degree is indeed a syntactic invariant. We then define a reduction relation on finite pointed ω-semigroups by means of a Wadge-like infinite two-player game. The collection of these algebraic structures ordered by this reduction is then proven to be isomorphic to the Wagner hierarchy, namely a well-founded and decidable partial ordering of width 2 and height ωω.

We consider shifted equality sets of the form EG(a,g1,g2) = {ω | g1(ω) = ag2(ω)}, where g1 and g2 are nonerasing morphisms and a is a letter. We are interested in the family consisting of the languages h(EG(J)), where h is a coding and (EG(J)) is a shifted equality set. We prove several closure properties for this family. Moreover, we show that every recursively enumerable language L ⊆ A* is a projection of a shifted equality set, that is, L = πA(EG(a,g1,g2)) for some (nonerasing) morphisms g1 and g2 and a letter a, where πA deletes the letters not in A. Then we deduce that recursively enumerable star languages coincide with the projections of equality sets.

This short note reviews the main contributions of the Ph.D. thesis of Imre Simon. His graduate work had major impact on algebraic theory of automata and thirty years later we are in a good position to appreciate how sensitive he was in selecting good problems, and how clever in solving them!

We investigate the structure of “worst-case” quasi reduced ordered decision diagrams and Boolean functions whose truth tables are associated to: we suggest different ways to count and enumerate them. We, then, introduce a notion of complexity which leads to the concept of “hard” Boolean functions as functions whose QROBDD are “worst-case” ones. So we exhibit the relation between hard functions and the Storage Access function (also known as Multiplexer).

J. Hromkovic et al. have given an elegant method to convert a regular expression of size n into an ε-free nondeterministic finite automaton having O(n) states and O(nlog2(n)) transitions. This method has been implemented efficiently in O(nlog2(n)) time by C. Hagenah and A. Muscholl. In this paper we extend this method to weighted regular expressions and we show that it can be achieved in O(nlog2(n)) time.

In this paper, we examine the class of "deco" polyominoes and the succession rule describing their construction. These polyominoes are enumerated according to their directed height by factorial numbers. By changing some aspects of the "factorial" rule, we obtain some succession rules that describe various "deco" polyomino subclasses. By enumerating the subclasses according to their height and width, we find the following well-known numbers: Stirling numbers of the first and second kind, Narayana and odd index Fibonacci numbers. We wish to point out how the changes made on the original succession rule yield some new succession rules that produce transcendental, algebraic and rational generating functions.

Processes in Place/Transition (P/T) nets are defined inductively by a peculiar numbering of place occurrences. Along with an associative sequential composition called catenation and a neutral process, a monoid of processes is obtained. The power algebra of this monoid contains all process languages with appropriate operations on them. Hence the problems of analysis and synthesis, analogous to those in the formal languages and automata theory, arise. Here, the analysis problem is: for a given P/T net with an initial marking find the set of all processes the net may evoke. The synthesis problem is: given a process language L decide if there exists a marked net whose evolutions (represented by processes) are collected in L and, in the positive case, find such net and its initial marking. The problems are posed and given a general solution.

We discuss how much space is sufficient to decide whether a unary given numbern is a prime. We show thatO(log log n) space is sufficient for a deterministicTuring machine, if it is equipped with an additional pebble movable along the input tape,and also for an alternating machine, if the space restriction applies only to itsaccepting computation subtrees. In other words, the language is a prime is inpebble–DSPACE(log log n) and also inaccept–ASPACE(log log n). Moreover, if the givenn is composite, such machines are able to find a divisor ofn. Since O(log log n) space is toosmall to write down a divisor, which might requireΩ(log n) bits, the witness divisor is indicated by theinput head position at the moment when the machine halts.

In this paper, we consider a class of scheduling problems that are among the fundamental optimization problems in operations research. More specifically, we deal with a particular version called job shop scheduling with unit length tasks. Using the results of Hromkovič, Mömke, Steinhöfel, and Widmayer presented in their work Job Shop Scheduling with Unit Length Tasks: Bounds and Algorithms, we analyze the problem setting for 2 jobs with an unequal number of tasks. We contribute a deterministic algorithm which achieves a vanishing delay in certain cases and a randomized algorithm with a competitive ratio tending to 1. Furthermore, we investigate the problem with 3 jobs and we construct a randomized online algorithm which also has a competitive ratio tending to 1.

We study translations of dyadic first-order sentences into equalities between relationalexpressions. The proposed translation techniques (which work also in the conversedirection) exploit a graphical representation of formulae in a hybrid of the twoformalisms. A major enhancement relative to previous work is that we can cope with therelational complement construct and with the negation connective. Complementation ishandled by adopting a Smullyan-like uniform notation to classify and decompose relationalexpressions; negation is treated by means of a generalized graph-representation offormulae in ℒ+, and through a series of graph-transformation rules whichreflect the meaning of connectives and quantifiers.

We define L rational and L recognizable power series, and establish a Kleene-Schützenberger theorem for Lindenmayerian power series by showing that a power series is L rational if and only if it is L recognizable.

This paper presents two extensions of the second order polymorphiclambda calculus, system F, with monotone (co)inductive types supporting(co)iteration, primitive (co)recursion and inversion principles asprimitives. One extension is inspired by the usual categoricalapproach to programming by means of initial algebras and finalcoalgebras; whereas the other models dialgebras, and can be seen as an extension of Hagino'scategorical lambda calculus within the framework of parametricpolymorphism. The systems are presented in Curry-style, and are proven to be terminating andtype-preserving. Moreovertheir expressiveness is shown by means of several programmingexamples, going from usual data types to lazy codata types such as streamsor infinite trees.

We give several new applications of the wreath product of forest algebras to the study oflogics on trees. These include new simplified proofs of necessary conditions fordefinability in CTL and first-order logic with the ancestor relation; asequence of identities satisfied by all forest languages definable inPDL; and new examples of languages outside CTL, alongwith an application to the question of what properties are definable in bothCTL and LTL.

Several types of systems of parallel communicating restarting automata are introduced andstudied. The main result shows that, for all types of restarting automata X, centralizedsystems of restarting automata of type X have the same computational power asnon-centralized systems of restarting automata of the same type and the same number ofcomponents. This result is proved by a direct simulation. In addition, it is shown thatfor one-way restarting automata without auxiliary symbols, systems of degree at least twoare more powerful than the component automata themselves. Finally, a lower and an upperbound are given for the expressive power of systems of parallel communicating restartingautomata.

Given two trees (a target T and a pattern P) and a natural number w, window embedded subtree problems consist in deciding whether P occurs as an embedded subtree of T and/or finding the number of size (at most) w windows of T which contain pattern P as an embedded subtree. P is an embedded subtree of T if P can be obtained by deleting some nodes from T (if a node v is deleted, all edges adjacent to v are also deleted, and outgoing edges are replaced by edges going from the parent of v (if it exists) to the children of v). Deciding whether P is an embedded subtree of T is known to be NP-complete. Our algorithms run in time O(|T|22|P|) where |T| (resp. |P|) is the size of T (resp. P).

Motivated by striking properties of the well known Fibonacci wordwe consider pictures which are defined by this word and itsvariants via so-called turtle graphics. Such a picture can bebounded or unbounded. We characterize when the picture defined bynot only the Fibonacci recurrence, but also by a generalrecurrence formula, is bounded, the characterization beingcomputable.