arXiv subjects

Florin Manea

Publications and source records attributed to Florin Manea.

46 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

k-Spectra of weakly-c-Balanced Words

A word $u$ is a scattered factor of $w$ if $u$ can be obtained from $w$ by deleting some of its letters. That is, there exist the (potentially empty) words $u_1,u_2,..., u_n$, and $v_0,v_1,..,v_n$ such that $u = u_1u_2...u_n$ and $w = v_0u_1v_1u_2v_2...u_nv_n$. We consider the set of length-$k$ scattered factors of a given word w, called here $k$-spectrum and denoted $\ScatFact_k(w)$. We prove a series of properties of the sets $\ScatFact_k(w)$ for binary strictly balanced and, respectively, $c$-balanced words $w$, i.e., words over a two-letter alphabet where the number of occurrences of each letter is the same, or, respectively, one letter has $c$-more occurrences than the other. In particular, we consider the question which cardinalities $n= |\ScatFact_k(w)|$ are obtainable, for a positive integer $k$, when $w$ is either a strictly balanced binary word of length $2k$, or a $c$-balanced binary word of length $2k-c$. We also consider the problem of reconstructing words from their $k$-spectra.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2018

The Satisfiability of Extended Word Equations: The Boundary Between Decidability and Undecidability

The study of word equations (or the existential theory of equations over free monoids) is a central topic in mathematics and theoretical computer science. The problem of deciding whether a given word equation has a solution was shown to be decidable by Makanin in the late 1970s, and since then considerable work has been done on this topic. In recent years, this decidability question has gained critical importance in the context of string SMT solvers for security analysis. Further, many extensions (e.g., quantifier-free word equations with linear arithmetic over the length function) and fragments (e.g., restrictions on the number of variables) of this theory are important from a theoretical point of view, as well as for program analysis applications. Motivated by these considerations, we prove several new results and thus shed light on the boundary between decidability and undecidability for many fragments and extensions of the first order theory of word equations.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2018

Rollercoasters and Caterpillars

A rollercoaster is a sequence of real numbers for which every maximal contiguous subsequence, that is increasing or decreasing, has length at least three. By translating this sequence to a set of points in the plane, a rollercoaster can be defined as a polygonal path for which every maximal sub-path, with positive- or negative-slope edges, has at least three points. Given a sequence of distinct real numbers, the rollercoaster problem asks for a maximum-length subsequence that is a rollercoaster. It was conjectured that every sequence of $n$ distinct real numbers contains a rollercoaster of length at least $\lceil n/2\rceil$ for $n>7$, while the best known lower bound is $Ω(n/\log n)$. In this paper we prove this conjecture. Our proof is constructive and implies a linear-time algorithm for computing a rollercoaster of this length. Extending the $O(n\log n)$-time algorithm for computing a longest increasing subsequence, we show how to compute a maximum-length rollercoaster within the same time bound. A maximum-length rollercoaster in a permutation of $\{1,\dots,n\}$ can be computed in $O(n \log \log n)$ time. The search for rollercoasters was motivated by orthogeodesic point-set embedding of caterpillars. A caterpillar is a tree such that deleting the leaves gives a path, called the spine. A top-view caterpillar is one of degree 4 such that the two leaves adjacent to each vertex lie on opposite sides of the spine. As an application of our result on rollercoasters, we are able to find a planar drawing of every $n$-node top-view caterpillar on every set of $\frac{25}{3}n$ points in the plane, such that each edge is an orthogonal path with one bend. This improves the previous best known upper bound on the number of required points, which is $O(n \log n)$. We also show that such a drawing can be obtained in linear time, provided that the points are given in sorted order.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2017

Longest Gapped Repeats and Palindromes

A gapped repeat (respectively, palindrome) occurring in a word $w$ is a factor $uvu$ (respectively, $u^Rvu$) of $w$. In such a repeat (palindrome) $u$ is called the arm of the repeat (respectively, palindrome), while $v$ is called the gap. We show how to compute efficiently, for every position $i$ of the word $w$, the longest gapped repeat and palindrome occurring at that position, provided that the length of the gap is subject to various types of restrictions. That is, that for each position $i$ we compute the longest prefix $u$ of $w[i..n]$ such that $uv$ (respectively, $u^Rv$) is a suffix of $w[1..i-1]$ (defining thus a gapped repeat $uvu$ -- respectively, palindrome $u^Rvu$), and the length of $v$ is subject to the aforementioned restrictions.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2017

Detecting One-variable Patterns

Given a pattern $p = s_1x_1s_2x_2\cdots s_{r-1}x_{r-1}s_r$ such that $x_1,x_2,\ldots,x_{r-1}\in\{x,\overset{{}_{\leftarrow}}{x}\}$, where $x$ is a variable and $\overset{{}_{\leftarrow}}{x}$ its reversal, and $s_1,s_2,\ldots,s_r$ are strings that contain no variables, we describe an algorithm that constructs in $O(rn)$ time a compact representation of all $P$ instances of $p$ in an input string of length $n$ over a polynomially bounded integer alphabet, so that one can report those instances in $O(P)$ time.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2017

The Hardness of Solving Simple Word Equations

We investigate the class of regular-ordered word equations. In such equations, each variable occurs at most once in each side and the order of the variables occurring in both sides is the preserved (the variables can be, however, separated by potentially distinct constant factors). Surprisingly, we obtain that solving such simple equations, even when the sides contain exactly the same variables, is NP-hard. By considerations regarding the combinatorial structure of the minimal solutions of the more general quadratic equations we obtain that the satisfiability problem for regular-ordered equations is in NP. Finally, we also show that a related class of simple word equations, that generalises one-variable equations, is in P.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2015

Testing k-binomial equivalence

Two words $w_1$ and $w_2$ are said to be $k$-binomial equivalent if every non-empty word $x$ of length at most $k$ over the alphabet of $w_1$ and $w_2$ appears as a scattered factor of $w_1$ exactly as many times as it appears as a scattered factor of $w_2$. We give two different polynomial-time algorithms testing the $k$-binomial equivalence of two words. The first one is deterministic (but the degree of the corresponding polynomial is too high) and the second one is randomised (it is more direct and more efficient). These are the first known algorithms for the problem which run in polynomial time.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2015

Efficiently Finding All Maximal $α$-gapped Repeats

For $α\geq 1$, an $α$-gapped repeat in a word $w$ is a factor $uvu$ of $w$ such that $|uv|\leq α|u|$; the two factors $u$ in such a repeat are called arms, while the factor $v$ is called gap. Such a repeat is called maximal if its arms cannot be extended simultaneously with the same symbol to the right or, respectively, to the left. In this paper we show that the number of maximal $α$-gapped repeats that may occur in a word is upper bounded by $18αn$. This allows us to construct an algorithm finding all the maximal $α$-gapped repeats of a word in $O(αn)$; this is optimal, in the worst case, as there are words that have $Θ(αn)$ maximal $α$-gapped repeats. Our techniques can be extended to get comparable results in the case of $α$-gapped palindromes, i.e., factors $uvu^\mathrm{T}$ with $|uv|\leq α|u|$.

cs.DS↗

arXiv2010

Accepting Hybrid Networks of Evolutionary Processors with Special Topologies and Small Communication

Starting from the fact that complete Accepting Hybrid Networks of Evolutionary Processors allow much communication between the nodes and are far from network structures used in practice, we propose in this paper three network topologies that restrict the communication: star networks, ring networks, and grid networks. We show that ring-AHNEPs can simulate 2-tag systems, thus we deduce the existence of a universal ring-AHNEP. For star networks or grid networks, we show a more general result; that is, each recursively enumerable language can be accepted efficiently by a star- or grid-AHNEP. We also present bounds for the size of these star and grid networks. As a consequence we get that each recursively enumerable can be accepted by networks with at most 13 communication channels and by networks where each node communicates with at most three other nodes.

cs.CC↗

arXiv2009

Small Universal Accepting Networks of Evolutionary Processors with Filtered Connections

In this paper, we present some results regarding the size complexity of Accepting Networks of Evolutionary Processors with Filtered Connections (ANEPFCs). We show that there are universal ANEPFCs of size 10, by devising a method for simulating 2-Tag Systems. This result significantly improves the known upper bound for the size of universal ANEPFCs which is 18. We also propose a new, computationally and descriptionally efficient simulation of nondeterministic Turing machines by ANEPFCs. More precisely, we describe (informally, due to space limitations) how ANEPFCs with 16 nodes can simulate in O(f(n)) time any nondeterministic Turing machine of time complexity f(n). Thus the known upper bound for the number of nodes in a network simulating an arbitrary Turing machine is decreased from 26 to 16.

cs.FL↗