arXiv subjects

Martin Hruška

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Hruška.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

The use of a simple digital weather station (not only) in teaching physics

One of key goals of contemporary physics (and, realistically, STEM) education is to develop students' science literacy and critical thinking skills. In this paper, we present the construction and use of several versions of a simple school-based digital weather station that students can use to measure fundamental physical quantities (temperature, pressure, air humidity, light intensity) as part of school activities. The weather stations were constructed at our workplace using an Arduino microcontroller, BBC micro: bit, and the school measurement system Coach. This paper proposes not only the design and related programming of the weather stations but also how students can collect, analyse, and interpret measured data, thereby learning scientific methods and developing science literacy and critical thinking. This hands-on approach also develops students' experimental skills, emphasizes the cross-curricular relationships between physics, computer science and geography, and teaches them to work with accurate data in the context of real environmental problems.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2024

Mata, a Fast and Simple Finite Automata Library (Technical Report)

Mata is a well-engineered automata library written in C++ that offers a unique combination of speed and simplicity. It is meant to serve in applications such as string constraint solving and reasoning about regular expressions, and as a~reference implementation of automata algorithms. Besides basic algorithms for (non)deterministic automata, it implements a fast simulation reduction and antichain-based language inclusion checking. The simplicity allows a straightforward access to the low-level structures, making it relatively easy to extend and modify. Besides the C++ API, the library also implements a Python binding. The library comes with a large benchmark of automata problems collected from relevant applications such as string constraint solving, regular model checking, and reasoning about regular expressions. We show that Mata is on this benchmark significantly faster than all libraries from a wide range of automata libraries we collected. Its usefulness in string constraint solving is demonstrated by the string solver Z3-Noodler, which is based on Mata and outperforms the state of the art in string constraint solving on many standard benchmarks.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2023

Reasoning about Regular Properties: A Comparative Study

Several new algorithms for deciding emptiness of Boolean combinations of regular languages and of languages of alternating automata (AFA) have been proposed recently, especially in the context of analysing regular expressions and in string constraint solving. The new algorithms demonstrated a significant potential, but they have never been systematically compared, neither among each other nor with the state-of-the art implementations of existing (non)deterministic automata-based methods. In this paper, we provide the first such comparison as well as an overview of the existing algorithms and their implementations. We collect a diverse benchmark mostly originating in or related to practical problems from string constraint solving, analysing LTL properties, and regular model checking, and evaluate collected implementations on it. The results reveal the best tools and hint on what the best algorithms and implementation techniques are. Roughly, although some advanced algorithms are fast, such as antichain algorithms and reductions to IC3/PDR, they are not as overwhelmingly dominant as sometimes presented and there is no clear winner. The simplest NFA-based technology may be actually the best choice, depending on the problem source and implementation style. Our findings should be highly relevant for development of these techniques as well as for related fields such as string constraint solving.

cs.FL↗