Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T02:06:41.634Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Minimal NFA and biRFSA Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2008

Michel Latteux,
Yves Roos and
Alain Terlutte
Michel Latteux
Affiliation:
Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille, UMR CNRS 8022, Université de Lille 1, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France; michel.latteuxyves.roos@lifl.fr
Yves Roos
Affiliation:
Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille, UMR CNRS 8022, Université de Lille 1, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France; michel.latteuxyves.roos@lifl.fr
Alain Terlutte
Affiliation:
Équipe Grappa–EA 3588, Université de Lille 3, Domaine universitaire du “Pont de bois”, BP 149, 59653 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France; alain.terlutte@univ-lille3.fr
Get access

Abstract

In this paper, we define the notion of biRFSA which is a residual finate stateautomaton (RFSA) whose the reverse is also an RFSA. The languages recognized bysuch automata are called biRFSA languages. We prove that the canonical RFSA of abiRFSA language is a minimal NFA for this language and that each minimalNFA for this language is a sub-automaton of the canonical RFSA. This leadsto a characterization of the family of biRFSA languages.In the second part of this paper, we define the family of biseparable automata. We prove that every biseparable NFA is uniquely minimal among all NFAs recognizinga same language, improving the result of H. Tamm and E. Ukkonen for bideterministic automata.

Keywords

Residual finite state automata; minimal NFA

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 2009, pp. 221 - 237
Copyright
© EDP Sciences, 2008

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

References

Dana Angluin. Inference of reversible languages. J. ACM 29 (1982) 741–765.
André Arnold, Anne Dicky, and Maurice Nivat. A note about minimal non deterministic finite automata. Bull. EATCS 47 (1992) 166–169.
Christian Carrez. On the minimalization of non-deterministic automaton. Technical report, Laboratoire de Calcul de la Faculté des Sciences de Lille (1970).
Jean-Marc Champarnaud and Fabien Coulon. NFA reduction algorithms by means of regular inequalities. Theoretical Computer Science 327 (2004) 241–253.
François Denis, Aurélien Lemay, and Alain Terlutte. Residual finite state automata. In Proceedings of STACS 2001 2010. Springer-Verlag, Dresden (2001) 144–157.
Michael R. Garey and David S. Johnson. Computers and Intractability, A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness. W.H. Freeman and Company, New York (1979).
JE Hopcroft and JD Ullman. Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts (1979).
Hunt, Harry B. III, Rosenkrantz, Daniel J., and Szymanski., Thomas G. On the equivalence, containment, and covering problems for the regular and context-free languages. Journal of Computer and System Sciences 12 (1976) 222–268. CrossRef
Michel Latteux, Aurélien Lemay, Yves Roos, and Alain Terlutte. Identification of biRFSA languages. Theoretical Computer Science 356 (2006) 212–223.
Michel Latteux, Yves Roos, and Alain Terlutte. BiRFSA languages and minimal NFAs. Technical Report GRAPPA-0205, GRAppA, (2006).
Oliver Matz and Andreas Potthoff. Computing small nondeterministic automata. In U.H. Engberg, K.G. Larsen, and A. Skou, Eds., Workshop on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems (1995).
Dominique Perrin. Finite automata. In J. van Leeuwen, editor, Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science, Volume B: Formal Models and Sematics (B). Elsevier (1990) 1–57.
Jean-Eric Pin. On reversible automata. In Proceedings of the first LATIN conference, Saõ-Paulo. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 583. Springer Verlag (1992) 401–416.
L.J. Stockmeyer and A.R. Meyer. Word problems requiring exponential time(preliminary report). In STOC '73: Proceedings of the fifth annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing. ACM Press, NY, USA (1973) 1–9.
Hellis Tamm and Esko Ukkonen. Bideterministic automata and minimal representations of regular languages. Theoretical Computer Science 328 (2004) 135–149.