Computing the image of a regular language by the transitive closure of a relation is a central question in regular model checking. In a recent paper Bouajjani et al. [IEEE Comput. Soc. (2001) 399–408] proved that the class of regular languages L – called APC – of the form UjL0,jL1,jL2,j...Lkj,j, where the union is finite and each Li,j is either a single symbol or a language of the form B* with B a subset of the alphabet, is closed under all semi-commutation relations R. Moreover a recursive algorithm on the regular expressions was given to compute R*(L). This paper provides a new approach, based on automata, for the same problem. Our approach produces a simpler and more efficient algorithm which furthermore works for a larger class of regular languages closed under union, intersection, semi-commutation relations and conjugacy. The existence of this new class, PolC, answers the open question proposed in the paper of Bouajjani et al.

We compare two sets of (infinite) binary sequences whose suffixes satisfy extremal conditions: one occurs when studying iterations of unimodal continuous maps from the unit interval into itself, but it also characterizes univoque real numbers; the other is a disguised version of the set of characteristic Sturmian sequences. As a corollary to our study we obtain that a real number β in (1,2) is univoque and self-Sturmian if and only if the β-expansion of 1 is of the form 1v, where v is a characteristic Sturmian sequence beginning itself in 1.

Real functions on the domain [0,1)n – often used to describe digital images – allow for different well-known types of binary operations. In this note, we recapitulate how weighted finite automata can be used in order to represent those functions and how certain binary operations are reflected in the theory of these automata. Different types of products of automata are employed, including the seldomly-used full Cartesian product. We show, however, the infeasibility of functional composition; simple examples yield that the class of automatic functions (i.e., functions computable by automata) is not closed under this operation.

We investigate automatic presentations of ω-words. Starting points of our study are the works of Rigo and Maes, Caucal, and Carton and Thomas concerning lexicographic presentation, MSO-interpretability in algebraic trees, and the decidability of the MSO theory of morphic words. Refining their techniques we observe that the lexicographic presentation of a (morphic) word is in a certain sense canonical. We then generalize our techniques to a hierarchy of classes of ω-words enjoying the above mentioned definability and decidability properties. We introduce k-lexicographic presentations, and morphisms of level k stacks and show that these are inter-translatable, thus giving rise to the same classes of k-lexicographic or level k morphic words. We prove that these presentations are also canonical, which implies decidability of the MSO theory of every k-lexicographic word as well as closure of these classes under MSO-definable recolorings, e.g. closure under deterministic sequential mappings. The classes of k-lexicographic words are shown to constitute an infinite hierarchy.

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).

We consider the parallel approximability of two problems arising from high multiplicity scheduling, namely the unweighted model with variable processing requirements and the weighted model with identical processing requirements. These two problems are known to be modelled by a class of quadratic programs that are efficiently solvable in polynomial time. On the parallel setting, both problems are P-complete and hence cannot be efficiently solved in parallel unless P = NC. To deal with the parallel approximablity of these problems, we show first a parallel additive approximation procedure to a subclass of multi-valued quadratic programming, called smooth multi-valued QP, which is defined by imposing certain restrictions on the coefficients of the instance. We use this procedure to obtain parallel approximation to dense instances of the two problems by observing that dense instances of these problems are instances of smooth multi-valued QP. The dense instances of the problems considered here are defined similarly as for other combinatorial problems in the literature. For such instances we can find in parallel a near optimal schedule. The definition of smooth multi-valued QP as well as the procedure for approximating it in parallel are of interest independently of the application to the scheduling problems considered in this paper.

Let $\mathcal{L}$ be a language. A balanced pair (u,v) consists of two words u and v in $\mathcal{L}$ which have the same number of occurrences of each letter. It is irreducible if the pairs of strict prefixes of u and v of the same length do not form balanced pairs. In this article, we are interested in computing the set of irreducible balanced pairs on several cases of languages. We make connections with the balanced pairs algorithm and discrete geometrical constructions related to substitutive languages. We characterize substitutive languages which have infinitely many irreducible balanced pairs of a given form.

This paper is a contribution to the general tiling problem for the hyperbolic plane. It is an intermediary result between the result obtained by R. Robinson [Invent. Math.44 (1978) 259–264] and the conjecture that the problem is undecidable.

The complexity of infinite words is considered from the point of view of a transformation with a Mealy machine that is the simplest model of a finite automaton transducer. We are mostly interested in algebraic properties of the underlying partially ordered set. Results considered with the existence of supremum, infimum, antichains, chains and density aspects are investigated.

Lorsqu'on observe des orbites de certains automates cellulaires, on peut penser qu'elles apparaissent comme des mélanges d'orbites d'autres automates (composants). Dans cet article, nous tentons de comprendre ce phénomène en construisant un hybride de deux automates au moyen d'un troisième. Deux types d'automates cellulaires sont introduits : les captifs et les foulards. Nous comparons des propriétés de ces hybrides dans le cadre des classifications algébriques introduites par [B. Martin (2001) ; N. Ollinger (2002) ; I. Rapaport (1998) ; G. Teyssier (2005) : PhD. Thesis, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon].

The necessary and sufficient conditions are extracted for periodicity of bi-ideals. They cover infinitely and finitely generated bi-ideals.

In this paper, we solve some open problems related to (pseudo)palindrome closure operators and to the infinite words generated by their iteration, that is, standard episturmian and pseudostandard words. We show that if ϑ is an involutory antimorphism of A*, then the right and left ϑ-palindromic closures of any factor of a ϑ-standard word are also factors of some ϑ-standard word. We also introduce the class of pseudostandard words with “seed”, obtained by iterated pseudopalindrome closure starting from a nonempty word. We show that pseudostandard words with seed are morphic images of standard episturmian words. Moreover, we prove that for any given pseudostandard word s with seed, all sufficiently long left special factors of s are prefixes of it.

The first-value operator assigns to any sequence of partial functions of the same type a new such function. Its domain is the union of the domains of the sequence functions, and its value at any point is just the value of the first function in the sequence which is defined at that point. In this paper, the first-value operator is applied to establish hierarchies of classes of functions under various settings. For effective sequences of computable discrete functions, we obtain a hierarchy connected with Ershov's one within $\Delta^{0}_2$. The non-effective version over real functions is connected with the degrees of discontinuity and yields a hierarchy related to Hausdorff's difference hierarchy in the Borel class $\Delta^{B}_2$. Finally, the effective version over approximately computable real functions forms a hierarchy which provides a useful tool in computable analysis.

Here is presented a 6-states non minimal-time solution which is intrinsically Minsky-like and solves the three following problems: unrestricted version on a line, with one initiator at each end of a line and the problem on a ring. We also give a complete proof of correctness of our solution, which was never done in a publication for Minsky's solutions.

We prove two cases of a strong version of Dejean's conjecture involving extremal letter frequencies. The results are that there exist an infinite $\left({\frac{5}{4}^+}\right)$-free word over a 5 letter alphabet with letter frequency $\frac{1}{6}$ and an infinite $\left({\frac{6}{5}^+}\right)$-free word over a 6 letter alphabet with letter frequency $\frac{1}{5}$.

We survey several quantitative problems on infinite words related to repetitions, recurrence, and palindromes, for which the Fibonacci word often exhibits extremal behaviour.

Three basic operations on labelled net structures are proposed: synchronised union, synchronised intersection and synchronised difference. The first of them is a version of known parallel composition with synchronised actions identically labelled. The operations work analogously to the ordinary union, intersection and difference on sets. It is shown that the universe of net structures with these operations is a distributive lattice and – if infinite pre/post sets of transitions are allowed – even a Boolean algebra. As a consequence, some representation theorems of this algebra are stated. The primitive objects are atomic net structures containing one transition with at most one pre-place or post-place (but not both). A simple example of a production system constructed by making use of the operations (and its transformations) is given. Some remarks on behavioural properties of compound nets are stated, in particular, how some constructing strategies may help to infer liveness. The latter issue is limited to semantics of place/transition nets without weights on arrows and with unbounded capacity of places and is not extensively investigated, since the main objective is focused on a calculus of net structures.