Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-npj9w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-10T19:38:03.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Well quasi-orders, unavoidable sets,and derivation systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2006

Flavio D'Alessandro
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza” Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, 00185 Roma, Italy; dalessan@mat.uniroma1.it
Stefano Varricchio
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, via della Ricerca Scientifica, 00133 Roma, Italy; varricch@mat.uniroma2.it
Get access

Abstract

Let I be a finite set of words and $\Rightarrow_I^*$ be the derivation relationgenerated by the set of productions {ε → u | u ∈ I}.Let $L_I^{\epsilon}$ be the set of words u such that $\epsilon\Rightarrow_I^* u$ .We prove that the set I is unavoidable if and only if the relation $\Rightarrow_I^*$ is a well quasi-order on the set $L_I^{\epsilon}$ . This result generalizes a theorem of[Ehrenfeucht et al., Theor. Comput. Sci.27 (1983) 311–332]. Further generalizations are investigated.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable