Regular cost functions and stabilization monoids
                  14/03/2016 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 Março, sala 6.2.33 - DM - FCUL 
                  
                    Thomas Colcombet (LIAFA, Université Paris Diderot)
                    
                   
                  Regular cost functions form a quantitative extension to the classical notion of regular languages. 
However, contrary to other models, it focuses only on boundedness questions. Hence, cost 
functions are maps from words to ?∪∞, which are considered modulo ‘preservation of bounds’. The 
resulting theory resembles a lot the one for regular languages. In particular, many models of 
acceptors are effectively equivalent: logic (cost monadic second-order logic), automata (Bautomata/ 
S-automata), expressions (B-rational expression/S-rational expressions), and algebra 
(stabilisation monoids). 
In this course, we will introduce some of these objects, present the central results and the 
remaining open problem. We will be paying a particular attention to the algebraic formalism of 
stabilisaiton monoids. Stabilisation monoids are ordered monoids enriched with a map from 
idempotents to idempotents which essentially represents the effect of iterating a large (unbounded) 
number of times the element. We will see how associating semantics to these objects. We will also 
show how these can be used in ‘la Schützenberger’ algebraic characterization results yielding 
important decidable subclasses. 
  
14 | March | 15:30 – 17:30                         
15 | March | 9:30 – 11:30                         
  
16 | March | 16:00 – 18:00 
17 | March | 10:30 – 12:30 
 
 
 
  
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