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Antonio Restivo

Publications and source records attributed to Antonio Restivo.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Guillotine and Tiling Cofiniteness in Unary Picture Languages

Motivated by the study of closure operations on picture languages, we ask when a set of unary tiles can generate all sufficiently large pictures either via repeated horizontal and vertical concatenations or via tiling operations. In one dimension, the lengths of words in the concatenation closure of a unary language form an additive subsemigroup of positive natural numbers; hence, they are finitely generated. Cofiniteness is characterized by the gcd of these generators being one. Since ordinary cofiniteness in two dimensions is too restrictive and essentially reduces to degenerate one-dimensional conditions on strips, we introduce and study asymptotic cofiniteness: all sufficiently large rectangular pictures are generated. A direct extension of the one-dimensional criterion, requiring the gcd of the tile heights and of the tile widths to be one, is not sufficient, because local congruence obstructions may persist in two dimensions. We give an exact arithmetic characterization of asymptotic cofiniteness for arbitrary, possibly infinite, sets of unary rectangular tiles. The characterization is the same for the guillotine closure, obtained by horizontal and vertical concatenation, and for the full tiling closure. For finite tile sets, the proof combines semigroup arguments and an explicit least-common-multiple stacking construction for sufficiency, while necessity is obtained by a roots-of-unity argument applying also to nonsliceable tilings. The extension to infinite tile sets follows from the finite-basis theorem for Klarner systems.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2025

Universally Wheeler Languages

The notion of Wheeler languages is rooted in the Burrows-Wheeler transform (BWT), one of the most central concepts in data compression and indexing. The BWT has been generalized to finite automata, the so-called Wheeler automata, by Gagie et al. [Theor. Comput. Sci. 2017]. Wheeler languages have subsequently been defined as the class of regular languages for which there exists a Wheeler automaton accepting them. Besides their advantages in data indexing, these Wheelerlanguages also satisfy many interesting properties from a language theoretic point of view [Alanko et al., Inf. Comput. 2021]. A characteristic yet unsatisfying feature of Wheeler languages however is that their definition depends on a fixed order of the alphabet. In this paper we introduce the Universally Wheeler languages UW, i.e., the regular languages that are Wheeler with respect to all orders of a given alphabet. Our first main contribution is to relate UW to some very well known regular language classes. We first show that the Striclty Locally Testable languages are strictly included in UW. After noticing that UW is not closed under taking the complement, we prove that the class of languages for which both the language and its complement are in UW exactly coincides with those languages that are Definite or Reverse Definite. Secondly, we prove that deciding if a regular language given by a DFA is in UW can be done in quadratic time. We also show that this is optimal unless the Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (SETH) fails.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2024

Decidable problems in substitution shifts

In this paper, we investigate the structure of the most general kind of substitution shifts, including non-minimal ones, and allowing erasing morphisms. We prove the decidability of many properties of these morphisms with respect to the shift space generated by iteration, such as aperiodicity, recognizability and (under an additional assumption) irreducibility, or minimality.

math.DS↗
arXiv2023

Recognizability in S-adic shifts

We investigate questions related to the notion of recognizability of sequences of morphisms, a generalization of Moss{é}'s Theorem. We consider the most general class of morphisms including ones with erasable letters. The main result states that a sequence of morphisms with finite alphabet rank is eventually recognizable for aperiodic points, improving and simplifying a result of Berth{é} et al. (2019). This also provides a new simple proof for the recognizability of a single morphism on its shift space. The main ingredient of the proof are elementary morphisms.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2023

Two-dimensional Dyck words

We propose different ways of lifting the notion of Dyck language from words to 2-dimensional (2D) pictures, by means of new definitions of increasing comprehensiveness. Two of the proposals are based on alternative definitions of a Dyck language, which are equivalent over words but not on pictures. First, the property that any two pairs of matching parentheses are well-nested or disjoint is rephrased for rectangular boxes and leads to the well-nested Dyck, $DW_k$. This is a generalization of the known Chinese box language, but, unlike the Chinese boxes, $DW_k$ is not recognizable by a tiling system. Second, the Dyck cancellation rule is rephrased as a neutralization rule, mapping a quadruple of symbols representing the corners of a subpicture onto neutral symbols.The neutralizable Dyck language $DN_k$ is obtained by iterating neutralizations, starting from 2-by-2 subpictures, until the picture is wholly neutralized. Third, we define the Dyck crossword $DC_k$ as the row-column combination of Dyck word languages, which prescribes that each column and row is a Dyck word. The relation between matching parentheses is represented in $DC_k$ by an edge of a graph situated on the picture grid. Such edges form a circuit, of path length multiple of four, of alternating row and column matches. Length-four circuits have rectangular shape, while longer ones exhibit a large variety of forms. A proper subset of $DC_k$, called quaternate, is also introduced by excluding all circuits of length greater than 4. We prove that $DN_k$ properly includes $DW_k$, and that it coincides with the quaternate $DC_k$ such that the neutralizability relation between subpictures induces a partial order. The 2D languages well-nested, neutralizable, quaternate and Dyck crossword are ordered by strict inclusions. This work can be also seen as a first step towards the definition of context-free picture languages.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2023

A New Class of String Transformations for Compressed Text Indexing

Introduced about thirty years ago in the field of Data Compression, the Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) is a string transformation that, besides being a booster of the performance of memoryless compressors, plays a fundamental role in the design of efficient self-indexing compressed data structures. Finding other string transformations with the same remarkable properties of BWT has been a challenge for many researchers for a long time. Among the known BWT variants, the only one that has been recently shown to be a valid alternative to BWT is the Alternating BWT (ABWT), another invertible string transformation introduced about ten years ago in connection with a generalization of Lyndon words. In this paper, we introduce a whole class of new string transformations, called local orderings-based transformations, which have all the myriad virtues of BWT. We show that this new family is a special case of a much larger class of transformations, based on context adaptive alphabet orderings, that includes BWT and ABWT. Although all transformations support pattern search, we show that, in the general case, the transformations within our larger class may take quadratic time for inversion and pattern search. As a further result, we show that the local orderings-based transformations can be used for the construction of the recently introduced r-index, which makes them suitable also for highly repetitive collections. In this context, we consider the problem of finding, for a given string, the BWT variant that minimizes the number of runs in the transformed string, and we provide an algorithm solving this problem in linear time.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2022

Recognizability of morphisms

We investigate several questions related to the notion of recognizable morphism. The main result is a new proof of Mossé's theorem and actually of a generalization to non primitive morphisms due to Berthé et al. We actually prove the result of Berthé et al. for the most general class of morphisms, including ones with erasable letters. It is derived from a result concerning elementary morphisms for which we also provide a new proof. We also show how to decide whether an injective morphism is recognizable on the full shift for aperiodic points.

math.DS↗
arXiv2022

Reducing the local alphabet size in tiling systems by means of 2D comma-free codes

A recognizable picture language is defined as the projection of a local picture language defined by a set of two-by-two tiles, i.e. by a strictly-locally-testable (SLT) language of order 2. The family of recognizable picture languages is also defined, using larger $k$ by $k$ tiles, $k>2$, by the projection of the corresponding SLT language. A basic measure of the descriptive complexity of a picture language is given by the size of the SLT alphabet using two-by-two tiles, more precisely by the so-called alphabetic ratio of sizes: SLT-alphabet / picture-alphabet. We study how the alphabetic ratio changes moving from tiles of size two to tiles of larger size, and we obtain the following result: any recognizable picture language over an alphabet of size $n$ is the projection of an SLT language over an alphabet of size $2n$. Moreover, two is the minimal alphabetic ratio possible in general. The proof relies on a new family of comma-free picture codes, for which a lower bound on numerosity is established; and on the relation of languages of encoded pictures with SLT languages. Our result reproduces in two dimensions a similar property (known as Extended Medvedev's theorem) of the regular word languages, concerning the minimal alphabetic ratio needed to define a language by means of a projection of an SLT word language.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2022

String Attractors and Infinite Words

The notion of string attractor has been introduced in [Kempa and Prezza, 2018] in the context of Data Compression and it represents a set of positions of a finite word in which all of its factors can be "attracted". The smallest size $γ^*$ of a string attractor for a finite word is a lower bound for several repetitiveness measures associated with the most common compression schemes, including BWT-based and LZ-based compressors. The combinatorial properties of the measure $γ^*$ have been studied in [Mantaci et al., 2021]. Very recently, a complexity measure, called string attractor profile function, has been introduced for infinite words, by evaluating $γ^*$ on each prefix. Such a measure has been studied for automatic sequences and linearly recurrent infinite words [Schaeffer and Shallit, 2021]. In this paper, we study the relationship between such a complexity measure and other well-known combinatorial notions related to repetitiveness in the context of infinite words, such as the factor complexity and the recurrence. Furthermore, we introduce new string attractor-based complexity measures, in which the structure and the distribution of positions in a string attractor of the prefixes of infinite words are considered. We show that such measures provide a finer classification of some infinite families of words.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2022

Unambiguously coded shifts

We study the coded systems introduced by Blanchard and Hansel. We give several constructions which allow one to represent a coded system as a strongly unambiguous one.

math.DS↗
arXiv2021

A new distance based on minimal absent words and applications to biological sequences

A minimal absent word of a sequence x, is a sequence yt hat is not a factorof x, but all of its proper factors are factors of x as well. The set of minimal absent words uniquely defines the sequence itself. In recent times minimal absent words have been used in order to compare sequences. In fact, to do this, one can compare the sets of their minimal absent words. Chairungasee and Crochemorein [2] define a distance between pairs of sequences x and y, where the symmetric difference of the sets of minimal absent words of x and y is involved. Here, weconsider a different distance, introduced in [1], based on a specific subset of such symmetric difference that, in our opinion, better capture the different features ofthe considered sequences. We show the result of some experiments where the distance is tested on a dataset of genetic sequences by 11 living species, in order to compare the new distance with the ones existing in literature.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2020

Primitive Sets of Words

Given a (finite or infinite) subset $X$ of the free monoid $A^*$ over a finite alphabet $A$, the rank of $X$ is the minimal cardinality of a set $F$ such that $X \subseteq F^*$. We say that a submonoid $M$ generated by $k$ elements of $A^*$ is {\em $k$-maximal} if there does not exist another submonoid generated by at most $k$ words containing $M$. We call a set $X \subseteq A^*$ {\em primitive} if it is the basis of a $|X|$-maximal submonoid. This definition encompasses the notion of primitive word -- in fact, $\{w\}$ is a primitive set if and only if $w$ is a primitive word. By definition, for any set $X$, there exists a primitive set $Y$ such that $X \subseteq Y^*$. We therefore call $Y$ a {\em primitive root} of $X$. As a main result, we prove that if a set has rank $2$, then it has a unique primitive root. To obtain this result, we prove that the intersection of two $2$-maximal submonoids is either the empty word or a submonoid generated by one single primitive word. For a single word $w$, we say that the set $\{x,y\}$ is a {\em bi-root} of $w$ if $w$ can be written as a concatenation of copies of $x$ and $y$ and $\{x,y\}$ is a primitive set. We prove that every primitive word $w$ has at most one bi-root $\{x,y\}$ such that $|x|+|y|<\sqrt{|w|}$. That is, the bi-root of a word is unique provided the word is sufficiently long with respect to the size (sum of lengths) of the root. Our results are also compared to previous approaches that investigate pseudo-repetitions, where a morphic involutive function $θ$ is defined on $A^*$. In this setting, the notions of $θ$-power, $θ$-primitive and $θ$-root are defined, and it is shown that any word has a unique $θ$-primitive root. This result can be obtained with our approach by showing that a word $w$ is $θ$-primitive if and only if $\{w, θ(w)\}$ is a primitive set.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2019

String Attractors and Combinatorics on Words

The notion of \emph{string attractor} has recently been introduced in [Prezza, 2017] and studied in [Kempa and Prezza, 2018] to provide a unifying framework for known dictionary-based compressors. A string attractor for a word $w=w[1]w[2]\cdots w[n]$ is a subset $Γ$ of the positions $\{1,\ldots,n\}$, such that all distinct factors of $w$ have an occurrence crossing at least one of the elements of $Γ$. While finding the smallest string attractor for a word is a NP-complete problem, it has been proved in [Kempa and Prezza, 2018] that dictionary compressors can be interpreted as algorithms approximating the smallest string attractor for a given word. In this paper we explore the notion of string attractor from a combinatorial point of view, by focusing on several families of finite words. The results presented in the paper suggest that the notion of string attractor can be used to define new tools to investigate combinatorial properties of the words.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2019

The Alternating BWT: an algorithmic perspective

The Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) is a word transformation introduced in 1994 for Data Compression. It has become a fundamental tool for designing self-indexing data structures, with important applications in several area in science and engineering. The Alternating Burrows-Wheeler Transform (ABWT) is another transformation recently introduced in [Gessel et al. 2012] and studied in the field of Combinatorics on Words. It is analogous to the BWT, except that it uses an alternating lexicographical order instead of the usual one. Building on results in [Giancarlo et al. 2018], where we have shown that BWT and ABWT are part of a larger class of reversible transformations, here we provide a combinatorial and algorithmic study of the novel transform ABWT. We establish a deep analogy between BWT and ABWT by proving they are the only ones in the above mentioned class to be rank-invertible, a novel notion guaranteeing efficient invertibility. In addition, we show that the backward-search procedure can be efficiently generalized to the ABWT; this result implies that also the ABWT can be used as a basis for efficient compressed full text indices. Finally, we prove that the ABWT can be efficiently computed by using a combination of the Difference Cover suffix sorting algorithm [Kärkkäinen et al., 2006] with a linear time algorithm for finding the minimal cyclic rotation of a word with respect to the alternating lexicographical order.

cs.DS↗
arXiv2019

On Sets of Words of Rank Two

Given a (finite or infinite) subset $X$ of the free monoid $A^*$ over a finite alphabet $A$, the rank of $X$ is the minimal cardinality of a set $F$ such that $X \subseteq F^*$. A submonoid $M$ generated by $k$ elements of $A^*$ is $k$-maximal if there does not exist another submonoid generated by at most $k$ words containing $M$. We call a set $X \subseteq A^*$ primitive if it is the basis of a $|X|$-maximal submonoid. This extends the notion of primitive word: indeed, $\{w\}$ is a primitive set if and only if $w$ is a primitive word. By definition, for any set $X$, there exists a primitive set $Y$ such that $X \subseteq Y^*$. The set $Y$ is therefore called a primitive root of $X$. As a main result, we prove that if a set has rank $2$, then it has a unique primitive root. This result cannot be extended to sets of rank larger than 2. For a single word $w$, we say that the set $\{x,y\}$ is a {\em binary root} of $w$ if $w$ can be written as a concatenation of copies of $x$ and $y$ and $\{x,y\}$ is a primitive set. We prove that every primitive word $w$ has at most one binary root $\{x,y\}$ such that $|x|+|y|<\sqrt{|w|}$. That is, the binary root of a word is unique provided the length of the word is sufficiently large with respect to the size of the root. Our results are also compared to previous approaches that investigate pseudo-repetitions, where a morphic involutive function $θ$ is defined on $A^*$. In this setting, the notions of $θ$-power, $θ$-primitive and $θ$-root are defined, and it is shown that any word has a unique $θ$-primitive root. This result can be obtained with our approach by showing that a word $w$ is $θ$-primitive if and only if $\{w, θ(w)\}$ is a primitive set.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2019

Some variations on Lyndon words

In this paper we compare two finite words $u$ and $v$ by the lexicographical order of the infinite words $u^ω$ and $v^ω$. Informally, we say that we compare $u$ and $v$ by the infinite order. We show several properties of Lyndon words expressed using this infinite order. The innovative aspect of this approach is that it allows to take into account also non trivial conditions on the prefixes of a word, instead that only on the suffixes. In particular, we derive a result of Ufnarovskij [V. Ufnarovskij, "Combinatorial and asymptotic methods in algebra", 1995] that characterizes a Lyndon word as a word which is greater, with respect to the infinite order, than all its prefixes. Motivated by this result, we introduce the prefix standard permutation of a Lyndon word and the corresponding (left) Cartesian tree. We prove that the left Cartesian tree is equal to the left Lyndon tree, defined by the left standard factorization of Viennot [G. Viennot, "Algèbres de Lie libres et monoïdes libres", 1978]. This result is dual with respect to a theorem of Hohlweg and Reutenauer [C. Hohlweg and C. Reutenauer, "Lyndon words, permutations and trees", 2003].

cs.DM↗
arXiv2018

On generalized Lyndon words

A generalized lexicographical order on infinite words is defined by choosing for each position a total order on the alphabet. This allows to define generalized Lyndon words. Every word in the free monoid can be factorized in a unique way as a nonincreasing factorization of generalized Lyndon words. We give new characterizations of the first and the last factor in this factorization as well as new characterization of generalized Lyndon words. We also give more specific results on two special cases: the classical one and the one arising from the alternating lexicographical order.

cs.DM↗