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Emptiness Problem
In theoretical computer science and formal language theory, a formal language is empty if its set of valid sentences is the empty set. The emptiness problem is the question of determining whether a language is empty given some representation of it, such as a finite-state automaton. For an automaton having n states, this is a decision problem that can be solved in O(n^2) time, or in time O(n+m) if the automaton has ''n'' states and ''m'' transitions. However, variants of that question, such as the emptiness problem for non-erasing stack automata, are PSPACE-complete. The emptiness problem is undecidable for context-sensitive grammars, a fact that follows from the undecidability of the halting problem. It is, however, decidable for context-free grammar In formal language theory, a context-free grammar (CFG) is a formal grammar whose production rules can be applied to a nonterminal symbol regardless of its context. In particular, in a context-free grammar, each production ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theoretical Computer Science
Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the Abstraction, abstract and mathematical foundations of computation. It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Association for Computing Machinery, ACM's Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) provides the following description: History While logical inference and mathematical proof had existed previously, in 1931 Kurt Gödel proved with his incompleteness theorem that there are fundamental limitations on what statements could be proved or disproved. Information theory was added to the field with A Mathematical Theory of Communication, a 1948 mathematical theory of communication by Claude Shannon. In the same decade, Donald Hebb introduced a mathematical model of Hebbian learning, learning in the brain. With mounting biological data supporting this hypothesis with some modification, the fields of neural networks and para ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Addison-Wesley
Addison–Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson plc, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison–Wesley also distributes its technical titles through the O'Reilly Online Learning e-reference service. Addison–Wesley's majority of sales derive from the United States (55%) and Europe (22%). The Addison–Wesley Professional Imprint produces content including books, eBooks, and video for the professional IT worker including developers, programmers, managers, system administrators. Classic titles include '' The Art of Computer Programming'', '' The C++ Programming Language'', '' The Mythical Man-Month'', and '' Design Patterns''. History Lew Addison Cummings and Melbourne Wesley Cummings founded Addison–Wesley in 1942, with the first book published by Addison–Wesley being Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Francis Weston Sears' ''Mechanics''. Its first comput ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polynomial-time Problems
In theoretical computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of computer time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm, supposing that each elementary operation takes a fixed amount of time to perform. Thus, the amount of time taken and the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm are taken to be related by a constant factor. Since an algorithm's running time may vary among different inputs of the same size, one commonly considers the worst-case time complexity, which is the maximum amount of time required for inputs of a given size. Less common, and usually specified explicitly, is the average-case complexity, which is the average of the time taken on inputs of a given size (this makes sense because there are only a finite number of possible inputs of a given size). In both cases, the time complexity is genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formal Languages
In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of string (computer science), strings whose symbols are taken from a set called "#Definition, alphabet". The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbols that concatenate into strings (also called "words"). Words that belong to a particular formal language are sometimes called Formal language#Definition, ''well-formed words''. A formal language is often defined by means of a formal grammar such as a regular grammar or context-free grammar. In computer science, formal languages are used, among others, as the basis for defining the grammar of programming languages and formalized versions of subsets of natural languages, in which the words of the language represent concepts that are associated with meanings or semantics. In computational complexity theory, decision problems are typically defined as formal languages, and complexity classes are defined as the sets of the formal languages that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intersection Non-emptiness Problem
The intersection non-emptiness problem, also known as finite automaton intersection problem or the non-emptiness of intersection problem, is a PSPACE-complete decision problem from the field of automata theory. Definitions A Emptiness_problem, non-emptiness decision problem is defined as follows. Given an automaton as input, the goal is to determine whether or not the automaton's language is non-empty. In other words, the goal is to determine if there exists a string that is accepted by the automaton. Non-emptiness problems have been studied in the field of automata theory for many years. Several common non-emptiness problems have been shown to be complete for complexity classes ranging from L_(complexity), Deterministic Logspace up to PSPACE. The intersection non-emptiness decision problem is concerned with whether the intersection of given languages is non-empty. In particular, the intersection non-emptiness problem is defined as follows. Given a list of Deterministic_fin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Context-free Grammar
In formal language theory, a context-free grammar (CFG) is a formal grammar whose production rules can be applied to a nonterminal symbol regardless of its context. In particular, in a context-free grammar, each production rule is of the form : A\ \to\ \alpha with A a ''single'' nonterminal symbol, and \alpha a string of terminals and/or nonterminals (\alpha can be empty). Regardless of which symbols surround it, the single nonterminal A on the left hand side can always be replaced by \alpha on the right hand side. This distinguishes it from a context-sensitive grammar, which can have production rules in the form \alpha A \beta \rightarrow \alpha \gamma \beta with A a nonterminal symbol and \alpha, \beta, and \gamma strings of terminal and/or nonterminal symbols. A formal grammar is essentially a set of production rules that describe all possible strings in a given formal language. Production rules are simple replacements. For example, the first rule in the picture, : \lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halting Problem
In computability theory (computer science), computability theory, the halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever. The halting problem is ''Undecidable problem, undecidable'', meaning that no general algorithm exists that solves the halting problem for all possible program–input pairs. The problem comes up often in discussions of computability since it demonstrates that some functions are mathematically Definable set, definable but not Computable function, computable. A key part of the formal statement of the problem is a mathematical definition of a computer and program, usually via a Turing machine. The proof then shows, for any program that might determine whether programs halt, that a "pathological" program exists for which makes an incorrect determination. Specifically, is the program that, when called with some input, passes its own s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Context-sensitive Grammar
A context-sensitive grammar (CSG) is a formal grammar in which the left-hand sides and right-hand sides of any Production (computer science), production rules may be surrounded by a context of terminal symbol, terminal and nonterminal symbols. Context-sensitive grammars are more general than context-free grammars, in the sense that there are languages that can be described by a CSG but not by a context-free grammar. Context-sensitive grammars are less general (in the same sense) than unrestricted grammars. Thus, CSGs are positioned between context-free and unrestricted grammars in the Chomsky hierarchy. A formal language that can be described by a context-sensitive grammar, or, equivalently, by a noncontracting grammar or a linear bounded automaton, is called a context-sensitive language. Some textbooks actually define CSGs as non-contracting, although this is not how Noam Chomsky defined them in 1959. This choice of definition makes no difference in terms of the languages generated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undecidable Problem
In computability theory and computational complexity theory, an undecidable problem is a decision problem for which it is proved to be impossible to construct an algorithm that always leads to a correct yes-or-no answer. The halting problem is an example: it can be proven that there is no algorithm that correctly determines whether an arbitrary program eventually halts when run. Background A decision problem is a question which, for every input in some infinite set of inputs, requires a "yes" or "no" answer. Those inputs can be numbers (for example, the decision problem "is the input a prime number?") or values of some other kind, such as strings of a formal language. The formal representation of a decision problem is a subset of the natural numbers. For decision problems on natural numbers, the set consists of those numbers that the decision problem answers "yes" to. For example, the decision problem "is the input even?" is formalized as the set of even numbers. A decision pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Formal Language Theory
In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of string (computer science), strings whose symbols are taken from a set called "#Definition, alphabet". The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbols that concatenate into strings (also called "words"). Words that belong to a particular formal language are sometimes called Formal language#Definition, ''well-formed words''. A formal language is often defined by means of a formal grammar such as a regular grammar or context-free grammar. In computer science, formal languages are used, among others, as the basis for defining the grammar of programming languages and formalized versions of subsets of natural languages, in which the words of the language represent concepts that are associated with meanings or semantics. In computational complexity theory, decision problems are typically defined as formal languages, and complexity classes are defined as the sets of the formal languages that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PSPACE-complete
In computational complexity theory, a decision problem is PSPACE-complete if it can be solved using an amount of memory that is polynomial in the input length (PSPACE, polynomial space) and if every other problem that can be solved in polynomial space can be Polynomial-time reduction, transformed to it in polynomial time. The problems that are PSPACE-complete can be thought of as the hardest problems in PSPACE, the class of decision problems solvable in polynomial space, because a solution to any one such problem could easily be used to solve any other problem in PSPACE. Problems known to be PSPACE-complete include determining properties of regular expressions and context-sensitive grammars, determining the truth of quantified Boolean formula problem, quantified Boolean formulas, step-by-step changes between solutions of combinatorial optimization problems, and many puzzles and games. Theory A problem is defined to be PSPACE-complete if it can be solved using a polynomial amount o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
