Acta InformaticaPub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1007/s00236-021-00397-8
Henning Bordihn, Markus Holzer
{"title":"On the number of active states in finite automata","authors":"Henning Bordihn, Markus Holzer","doi":"10.1007/s00236-021-00397-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00236-021-00397-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We introduce a new measure of descriptional complexity on finite automata, called the number of active states. Roughly speaking, the number of active states of an automaton <i>A</i> on input <i>w</i> counts the number of different states visited during the most economic computation of the automaton <i>A</i> for the word <i>w</i>. This concept generalizes to finite automata and regular languages in a straightforward way. We show that the number of active states of both finite automata and regular languages is computable, even with respect to nondeterministic finite automata. We further compare the number of active states to related measures for regular languages. In particular, we show incomparability to the radius of regular languages and that the difference between the number of active states and the total number of states needed in finite automata for a regular language can be of exponential order.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7189,"journal":{"name":"Acta Informatica","volume":"58 4","pages":"301 - 318"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00236-021-00397-8","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50037376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Acta InformaticaPub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6
Hiroshi Umeo, Naoki Kamikawa, Gen Fujita
{"title":"A new class of the smallest FSSP partial solutions for 1D rings of length (n=2^{k}-1)","authors":"Hiroshi Umeo, Naoki Kamikawa, Gen Fujita","doi":"10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A synchronization problem in cellular automata has been known as the Firing Squad Synchronization Problem (FSSP), where the FSSP gives a finite-state protocol for synchronizing a large scale of cellular automata. A quest for smaller state FSSP solutions has been an interesting problem for a long time. It has been shown by Balzer (Inf Control 10:22–42, 1967), Sanders (in: Jesshope, Jossifov, Wilhelmi (eds) Proceedings of the VI international workshop on parallel processing by cellular automata and arrays, Akademie, Berlin, 1994) and Berthiaume et al. (Theoret Comput Sci 320:213–228, 2004) that there exists no 4-state FSSP solution in arrays and rings. The number four is the state lower bound in the class of FSSP protocols. Umeo et al. (Parallel Process Lett 19(2):299–313, 2009), by introducing a concept of <i>full</i> versus <i>partial</i> FSSP solutions, provided a list of the smallest 4-state <i>symmetric</i> powers-of-2 FSSP protocols that can synchronize any one-dimensional (1D) ring cellular automata of length <span>(n=2^{k})</span> for any positive integer <span>(k ge 1)</span>. Afterwards, Ng (in: Partial solutions for the firing squad synchronization problem on rings, ProQuest Publications, Ann Arbor, MI, 2011) also added a list of <i>asymmetric</i> FSSP partial solutions, thus completing the 4-state powers-of-2 FSSP partial solutions. A question whether there are any 4-state partial solutions for ring lengths other than powers-of-2 has remained open. In this paper, we answer the question by providing a new class of the smallest symmetric and asymmetric 4-state FSSP protocols that can synchronize any 1D ring of length <span>(n=2^{k}-1)</span> for any positive integer <span>(k ge 2)</span>. We show that the class includes a rich variety of FSSP protocols that consists of 39 <i>symmetric</i> and 132 <i>asymmetric</i> solutions, ranging from minimum to linear synchronization time. In addition, we make an investigation into several interesting properties of those partial solutions, such as swapping general states, transposed protocols, a duality property between them, and an inclusive property of powers-of-2 solutions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":7189,"journal":{"name":"Acta Informatica","volume":"58 4","pages":"427 - 450"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50037381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Acta InformaticaPub Date : 2021-07-19DOI: 10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6
H. Umeo, N. Kamikawa, Gen Fujita
{"title":"A new class of the smallest FSSP partial solutions for 1D rings of length \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 $$n=2^{k}-1$$\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 n\u0000 =\u0000 \u0000 2\u0000 k\u0000 ","authors":"H. Umeo, N. Kamikawa, Gen Fujita","doi":"10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":7189,"journal":{"name":"Acta Informatica","volume":"58 1","pages":"427-450"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2021-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s00236-020-00391-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44714965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}