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Regular Sets of Higher-Order Pushdown Stacks

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Book cover Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2005 (MFCS 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 3618))

Abstract

It is a well-known result that the set of reachable stack contents in a pushdown automaton is a regular set of words. We consider the more general case of higher-order pushdown automata and investigate, with a particular stress on effectiveness and complexity, the natural notion of regularity for higher-order stacks: a set of level k stacks is regular if it is obtained by a regular sequence of level k operations. We prove that any regular set of level k stacks admits a normalized representation and we use it to show that the regular sets of a given level form an effective Boolean algebra. In fact, this notion of regularity coincides with the notion of monadic second order definability over the canonical structure associated to level k stacks. Finally, we consider the link between regular sets of stacks and families of infinite graphs defined by higher-order pushdown systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Irisa, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042, Rennes Cedex, France

    Arnaud Carayol

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  1. Arnaud Carayol
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mathematics, Gdansk University, Wita Stwosza 57, 80 952, Gdansk, Poland

    Joanna Jȩdrzejowicz  & Andrzej Szepietowski  & 

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Carayol, A. (2005). Regular Sets of Higher-Order Pushdown Stacks. In: Jȩdrzejowicz, J., Szepietowski, A. (eds) Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2005. MFCS 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3618. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11549345_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11549345_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28702-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31867-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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