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Relative Prime Factorization and Finite-State Presentations under Fixed Finite-Monoid Observation

Let $L\subseteqΣ^*$ and fix a morphism $h:Σ^*\to M$ into a finite monoid. We study exact factorization and canonical presentation in the relative syntactic congruence $θ_{L,h}:=\equiv_L\cap\ker h$. We separate unique factorization from finite direct presentation. An exhaustively computer-checked $36$-element quotient has a unique exact prime factorization for every live non-unit class, yet its valid prime-return rules contain an infinite family, so unique factorization does not imply the finite relative presentation property (FRP), even for a finite quotient. We lift the same defect to a nonregular context-free language with an infinite relative quotient and finite prime spectrum. To isolate the obstruction, we introduce the finite-state relative presentation property (FSRP), in which canonical valid right-hand-side languages are represented by finite residual controllers, and prove $\mathrm{FRP}\subsetneq\mathrm{FSRP}$. We then introduce prime-target left-division determinism (PTLD), which implies unique exact factorization, tail exactness, tail determinism, and a quadratic bound on valid rules. A nonregular deterministic context-free example with a finite group observer satisfies PTLD while lying outside every fixed $(k,\ell)$-substitutable class. Finally, for fixed $h$ we give a strong positive-data learner for the canonical PTLD presentation with polynomial-time hypothesis updates and a finite characteristic sample, together with a limit reconstruction of the canonical FSRP controller from weakly behaviorally correct CFG-valued learners.

cs.FL↗

Languages and Recognition in a Category with Factorisation

Language recognition by homomorphisms is a central construction of algebraic language theory. Initially studied for monoids and semigroups, it has subsequently been expanded to other algebraic structures. Our new categorical account is based on fibrations, which have already seen other applications in automata theory. Languages and surjective homomorphisms give indeed rise to two fibrations, and the notion of language recognition is stable under reindexing. We develop this framework in a category with a factorisation system and address two main technical questions in the fibrational setting. First, we provide sufficient conditions under which languages have syntactic quotients (which is a generalisation of syntactic congruences) and we show how such quotients can be described in some concrete cases using a result by Slomiński. Second, we introduce sufficient conditions under which (regular) languages are closed under certain J-limits and J-colimits.

cs.FL↗

Two-State Max-Plus Comparison Is Decidable

Daviaud, Guillon, and Merlet proved that comparison of max-plus automata is undecidable under a fixed state bound of 553 and explicitly left the range from 2 to 552 states open. We resolve the two-state endpoint. More strongly, given an arbitrary finite max-plus automaton $A$ and a max-plus automaton $B$ with at most two states, it is decidable whether $[\![A]\!](w)\leq [\![B]\!](w)$ for every word $w$. The structural reason is a one-dimensional projective normal form for two-state dynamics. Outside an effective bounded region, a transition has one of three tail behaviors: it propagates the unbounded projective gap with gap-independent height increment, forgets the gap with gap-independent height increment, or reads the gap magnitude into the height increment and then forgets it. In particular, any transition whose output depends on the unbounded gap necessarily destroys that gap. This yields an exact one-counter realization of $B$. Effective semilinearity of context-free Parikh images then reduces comparison to Presburger arithmetic. As a consequence, two-state max-plus comparison, equivalence, and positivity are decidable.

cs.FL↗

Neural Logic, Invariance, and the Retina---McCulloch and Pitts

This chapter reconstructs the McCulloch-Pitts program as a physics of neural computation rather than the familiar cartoon of a binary neuron. The 1943 logical calculus is developed in both directions: given a net, characterize the propositions realized by its activity; given an admissible logical expression, construct a net that realizes it. We recover the original distinction between thresholded excitatory summation and absolute inhibitory veto-one the weighted-threshold form cannot preserve for arbitrarily large excitatory inputs-and read unit-time delay as the physical realization of logical depth. Recurrence is treated exactly: an autonomous, deterministic network of finitely many binary units has a finite state space, so every trajectory eventually enters a periodic orbit-a fact about finite-state dynamics, not unbounded Turing computation. A single threshold element realizes only linearly separable Boolean functions, whereas finite feedforward networks of them synthesize any Boolean function on a finite domain. We then follows McCulloch and Pitts beyond threshold logic. The 1945 heterarchy paper turns cyclic preference into an obstruction to representation by a scalar utility. The 1947 work on universals asks how a physical network can identify inputs related by nuisance transformations, developed here via group averaging and feedback canonicalization. The 1959 frog-retina study makes the adequate-stimulus question experimental, revealing parallel invariant operations before the brain proper. Spike-triggered analysis shows how a nonlinearly driven neuron can have a vanishing first-order average while second-order statistics recover its hidden selectivity: methodological failure can masquerade as physiological absence. Modern mathematical tools are used without projecting their notation onto the historical papers, and limitations of the idealization are stated explicitly.

q-bio.NC↗

NeuroSTAR: Automata-guided Neuro-symbolic Specification Formalization

Automated translation of natural language (NL) descriptions into Linear Temporal Logic over finite traces (LTLf) is a prerequisite for automated formal verification of a system's dynamic behavior. Several LLM-based methods have recently shown potential for this task. However, they struggle with the nuance of natural language descriptions, which can lead LLMs to only partially capture the intended meaning. To address this limitation, we propose NeuroSTAR (Automata-guided Neuro-symbolic Specification Formalization), an NL-to-LTLf framework that builds on two insights. First, it leverages multiple generators to obtain diverse LTLf candidates. Second, it uses an automata-theoretic semantic comparison based on DFA traces to identify behavioral disagreements that guide formula refinement. We evaluate NeuroSTAR and show that it improves NL-to-LTLf translation performance by 8-18 percentage points relative to the prior state-of-the-art (SoTA) on unambiguous benchmarks. We further study its applicability to a body of driving law text, a complex, realistic, and reference-free domain critical for autonomous-vehicle specification. This study shows that NeuroSTAR can capture the necessary temporal semantics in 83.9% of the driving law sections, which demonstrates the effectiveness of automata-guided reference-free refinement in formalization.

cs.FL↗

Construction of a DFA for Computing Grundy Numbers in the Successful Derivation Games on Right-Linear Grammars

Inoue et al. have introduced the successful derivation game (SDG) on context-free grammars (CFGs), which is a generalization of classic heap-based games including subtraction games and Keyles, and shown that the least upper bound of the Grundy numbers in the SDG on a given CFG G is undecidable in general even when we restrict G to be a linear CFG. This paper shows that for the SDG on a right-linear grammar (RLG), we can construct a DFA for computing the Grundy number of a given position. In other words, for the SDG on an RLG, the set of positions with a given Grundy number c is regular. As a corollary, the least upper bound of the Grundy numbers in the SDG on a given RLG is decidable. We also investigate the complexity of computing the least upper bound of the Grundy numbers in the SDG on a given RLG, and it is shown to be PSPACE-complete.

cs.FL↗

On smallest synchronizing terms over constant alphabets

We show a subexponential lower bound on the reset threshold of synchronizing deterministic finite tree automata (DTA) over alphabets of just two symbols. This significantly improves the previous one, which was quadratic in the number of states. Our result also narrows the gap towards the lower bound for DTA over alphabets that grow linearly with the number of states, as well as the best known upper bound, both of which are currently exponential.

cs.FL↗

Verification of $K$- and Infinite-Step Strong/Weak Anonymity Using Concurrent Compositions

Anonymity is an information flow property that provides privacy protection in the sense of non-uniqueness of system information at certain moments with respect to observations. The notion of $K$-step anonymity in the context of discrete-event systems characterizes the scenario that the state estimates cannot be a singleton within at most $K$ observational steps prior to the current instant, while infinite-step anonymity is the same as $K$-step anonymity without considering the limit on $K$. In this paper, we lucubrate $K$- and infinite-step anonymity for partially-observed discrete-event systems modeled by non-deterministic finite-state automata. First, we define two strong types and two weak types of $K$- and infinite-step anonymity that are fundamentally different from the existing notions of $K$- and infinite-step anonymity due to the consideration of strong and weak anonymous projections. Then, we develop a new methodology by exploiting the concurrent-composition technique to verify these four types of anonymity. Based on the constructed concurrent compositions, verifiable necessary and sufficient conditions for the four types of anonymity are provided, along with their complexity analysis. Finally, the upper bounds on $K$ for $K$-step strong anonymity and weak anonymity are computed.

cs.FL↗

Behavioral Memory under Symmetry in One-Way Quantum Automata

Under compact symmetry, observable behavior reduces to an invariant operator algebra, but its dimension is not yet classical memory: some coordinates are dynamically frozen, some invisible to threshold tests, and some already classical. We develop an operator-algebraic theory that separates these effects through three filters. For one automaton, behavior is the Hilbert--Schmidt pairing between prefix-reachable states and suffix-observable effects, whose rank equals the real Hankel rank without controllability or observability assumptions. Maximizing this invariant over a symmetry-constrained dynamical class gives a structural capacity controlled by the symmetry commutant: its center stores isotypic populations frozen by reversible dynamics, its traceless multiplicity blocks carry movable noncommutative coordinates, dissipation removes the unary spectral loss inside those blocks, and covariant mobility releases relative populations subject to component conservation. Operational realization then determines which surviving coordinates force probabilistic states. For a fixed nontrivial invariant readout, full mobility gives an exact dichotomy in worst-case state cost: a commutative invariant algebra costs exactly its dimension, whereas a noncommutative multiplicity block raises the unrestricted cost by exactly one state. Thus noncommutativity has a one-state worst-case classical price. The known four-letter quadratic-plus-one law at trivial symmetry is the fully mobile endpoint of this principle. Schur--Weyl duality further shows that different preserved symmetries on the same tensor-power Hilbert space can change the worst memory scale from polynomial to exponential, while fixed-weight modules give an exact Catalan law at half filling, with structural capacity equal to the Catalan count minus its central-sector correction.

cs.FL↗

On Good-for-MDPs Automata

Nondeterministic good-for-MDPs (GFM) automata are for MDP model checking and reinforcement learning what good-for-games (GFG) automata are for reactive synthesis: a more compact alternative to deterministic automata that displays nondeterminism, but only so much that it can be resolved locally, such that a syntactic product can be analysed. GFM has recently been introduced as a property for reinforcement learning, where the simpler Büchi acceptance conditions it allows to use is key. However, while there are classic and novel techniques to obtain automata that are GFM, there has not been a decision procedure for checking whether or not an automaton is GFM. We show that GFM-ness is decidable and provide an EXPTIME decision procedure as well as a PSPACE-hardness proof. We also compare the succinctness of GFM automata with other types of automata with restricted nondeterminism. The first natural comparison point are GFG automata. Deterministic automata are GFG, and GFG automata are GFM, but not vice versa. This raises the question of how these classes relate in terms of succinctness. GFG automata are known to be exponentially more succinct than deterministic automata, but the gap between GFM and GFG automata as well as the gap between ordinary nondeterministic automata and those that are GFM have been open. We establish that these gaps are exponential, and sharpen this result by showing that the latter gap remains exponential when restricting the nondeterministic automata to separating safety or unambiguous reachability automata.

cs.FL↗

Completely Reachable Road Coloring

We characterize the digraphs that admit an edge labeling by letters from a finite alphabet such that the resulting labeled digraph is a completely reachable automaton. This class of digraphs can be recognized in polynomial time. In contrast, we show that, for every fixed alphabet size, the problem of deciding whether a digraph admits an edge labeling with the same property is NP-complete. We also classify the digraphs for which every edge labeling results in a completely reachable automaton.

cs.FL↗

"More Is Different'' in Neural Circuits: Algebraic Emergence of Effective Theories in Canonical Recurrent Motifs of Biological Neuronal Networks

Canonical neural circuit motifs are usually described functionally: divisive normalization rescales population activity by a pooled signal, and winner-take-all competition selects one pattern through recurrent excitation and shared inhibition. We represent them, and their compositions, algebraically as finite transformation systems and analyze the transition monoids generated by their input-conditioned updates, distinguishing structure already present in a generator from structure that appears only through composition, and, on a joint state space, structure inherited from one factor from structure that lives on a joint configuration. Individually aperiodic updates can generate non-aperiodic monoids. In the WTA, every frozen-drive generator collapses to fixed points, yet short input sequences create local cycles of winner-dependent inhibitory gating: globally dissipative dynamics with a reversible action. The strongest result arises in WTA-to-DN composition. The composed monoid then contains a genuinely composite local cycle in which normalization state and the winner's gating state change together, although every primitive generator is aperiodic. Holonomy analysis certifies this as a group component of the Krohn-Rhodes cascade rather than an incidental cycle, and finds most group-carrying image sets on joint configurations, whereas the uncoupled product has none. An exhaustive interface sweep shows that the composite cycle is a property of the coupling rather than of a chosen map. If motifs are building blocks of neural computation, composing them is a form of programming: one chooses primitives and interfaces so that the generated algebra has the intended repertoire. The transition monoid is that repertoire - what a primitive presents to any later construction. Recurrent circuits are compositional transformation systems; their algebra constrains what they can be programmed to compute.

q-bio.NC↗

Further Remarks on Separating Words

We revisit questions on separating words raised by Demaine, Eisenstat, Shallit, and Wilson, together with Ebrahimnejad's follow-up to their reversal problem. For length-$n$ pairs whose difference word has $d$ runs, we prove an $O(d\log n)$ bound, extending the Hamming-distance theorem of Demaine et al. For conjugate words, we give bounds controlled by the arithmetic of the shift. We resolve Demaine et al.'s Open Problem 2 by showing that the order of two words can change nondeterministic separation by an unbounded factor. Our reversal construction addresses Ebrahimnejad's follow-up to Open Problem 1: forward and reversed deterministic separation can differ by an unbounded factor. Since nondeterministic separation is invariant under reversal, the same construction also improves the lower bound in Open Problem 3.

cs.FL↗

A note on the reduction from LTLf to LTL

LTLf, a finite word variant of LTL, can be reduced to LTL by introducing a new atomic proposition indicating the prefix of the infinite words that correspond to the finite words that the original LTLf formula was considering. Such a reduction was originally proposed by De Giacomo and Vardi (IJCAI'13). However, while any LTL formula reduced from LTLf describes an obligation property in the hierarchy of Manna and Pnueli (PODC'90), the aforementioned reduction does not provide an LTL formula that belongs to the syntactic obligation fragment of LTL. This note shows how the reduction was fixed in Spot in order to ensure that the resulting LTL formula is always a syntactic obligation. Doing so allows algorithms specialized to syntactic obligation to be used on LTLf formulas. For instance, in previous work (CAV'26) we described a specialized translation from syntactic obligations to minimal, weak, deterministic Büchi automata that would not be usable with the original reduction.

cs.FL↗

Checking Timed Bisimilarity with Virtual Clocks

Timed automata are a widely used formalism for specifying the discrete-state/continuous-time behavior of time-critical reactive systems. For the fundamental verification problem of comparing two timed automata, it has been shown that timed trace equivalence is undecidable, while timed bisimulation is decidable. The corresponding decidability proof uses region graphs, a finite but space-consuming characterization of timed automata semantics. Most verification tools use zone graphs instead, a symbolic and, on average, more space-efficient representation of timed automata semantics. However, zone graphs provide correct results only for those verification tasks that are reducible to reachability problems, and are too imprecise for timed bisimilarity checking. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no practical tool for automated timed bisimilarity checking. In this paper, we propose a new representation of timed automata semantics that extends zone graphs by so-called virtual clocks. Our zone-based construction is, on average, significantly smaller than the corresponding region graph representation. We also present experimental results obtained by applying our tool implementation to timed automata models, which are often used to evaluate timed automata analysis techniques.

cs.FL↗

Separating Parsing Expression Grammars using Cell-Probe Lower Bounds

We resolve three open problems concerning parsing expression grammars (PEGs). We construct a single language $C$ satisfying $C\in\mathsf{LIN}\cap\mathsf{PEG}$ and $C^R\in\mathsf{LIN}\setminus\mathsf{PEG}$. This proves that some linear context-free language is not a PEG language and that PEG languages are not closed under reversal, confirming a conjecture of Loff, Moreira, and Reis. Factoring the same witness resolves the concatenation-closure problem of Rubtsov and Chudinov negatively, in the strong form $\mathsf{PEG}\cdot\mathsf{REG}\not\subseteq\mathsf{PEG}$ despite $\mathsf{REG}\cdot\mathsf{PEG}\subseteq\mathsf{PEG}$. It also refutes closure under Kleene star, homomorphisms, and substitutions. Our main technique converts scaffolding automata (SCAs), which characterize reversals of PEG languages, into dynamic data structures in the cell-probe model. For any suitably local serialization of a problem with preprocessing, updates, and a final Boolean query, an SCA recognizer yields an exact deterministic cell-probe data structure whose operation costs are proportional to the corresponding encoding lengths. Cell-probe lower bounds can therefore prove SCA non-membership and, by reversal, PEG non-membership. We apply this transfer to Multiphase Inner Product using one-symbol update blocks and a query suffix of length $O(\log n)$, while keeping both the language and its reversal linear context-free. Ko's cell-probe lower bound then yields the witness above. The arguments are additionally formalized in Lean 4.

cs.PL↗

Finite-Monoid Compression in Syntactic Concept Lattices: Arity Hierarchies and a Pseudovariety Trichotomy

Clark's syntactic concept lattice (SCL) records two-sided distributional structure, and Wurm extended it to tuples of arbitrary finite arity. We study \(\operatorname{cmp}_f(L)\), the minimum image size of a finite-monoid observation that preserves guarded tuple substitution through arity \(f\) on the principal layer. For regular languages, we characterize \(\operatorname{cmp}_f(L)\) exactly as the least cardinality of the codomain of an \(f\)-separating relational morphism from the pointed syntactic monoid. Let \(\operatorname{ch}(\mathbf V)\) denote the least arity at which these compression numbers stabilize uniformly over a pseudovariety \(\mathbf V\). Our main result is the following trichotomy of possible uniform heights: \(\operatorname{ch}(\mathbf V)\in\{1,2,\infty\}\), with \(\operatorname{ch}(\mathbf V)=\infty\) if and only if \(\operatorname{Synt}(\{ab\})\in\mathbf V\). Thus no finite uniform compression height \(3,4,\ldots\) occurs. The infinite case is sharp: inside \(\langle\operatorname{Synt}(\{ab\})\rangle\), every boundary \(d\to d+1\) admits unbounded compression gaps, and arbitrary finite strict prefixes of the arity hierarchy are realizable. On the finite side, commutative monoids and bands stabilize at arity one, while every completely regular syntactic monoid stabilizes by arity two; finite group kernels show that the binary bound is sharp. At unary arity, every nonempty finite simple graph is realized by an explicit length-three language, yielding an exact chromatic-number formula and NP-completeness of deciding \(\operatorname{cmp}_1(L)\le 3\) for explicitly listed length-three languages. The structural boundary between compression heights one and two remains open.

cs.FL↗

The Complexity of Coverability-Like Problems in Elementary Object Systems: Data-Nets to the Rescue

Elementary Object Systems (EOSs) are a model in the nets-within-nets (NWNs) paradigm, where tokens in turn can host standard Petri nets. We study the complexity of coverability-like problems, including termination and boundedness, over EOSs. Since coverability and boundedness are undecidable in general on EOSs, we focus on the relevant fragment of conservative EOSs (cEOSs). Our technique interprets cEOSs into the framework of data nets, whose tokens carry data from an infinite domain, thus bridging the nesting and the data-aware paradigms. Specifically, we show that cEOS coverability-like problems are equivalent to the coverability-like problems over an interesting fragment, called channel-$ν$PNs (c-$ν$PNs), of data nets that extends $ν$PN (featuring globally fresh name creation) with restricted forms of transfers with renaming. c-$ν$PNs remain less expressive than Unordered Data Nets, which feature lossy name creation as well as powerful forms of whole-place operations and broadcasts. These reductions allow us to analyze cEOS coverability taking advantage of known results on data nets. We conclude that the complexity of cEOS coverability is double-Ackermanian, $\mathcal{F}_{ω2}$-complete, while termination and boundedness are non-primitive recursive.

cs.CC↗