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Checking NFA equivalence with bisimulations up to congruence

Published:23 January 2013Publication History
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Abstract

We introduce bisimulation up to congruence as a technique for proving language equivalence of non-deterministic finite automata. Exploiting this technique, we devise an optimisation of the classical algorithm by Hopcroft and Karp. We compare our approach to the recently introduced antichain algorithms, by analysing and relating the two underlying coinductive proof methods. We give concrete examples where we exponentially improve over antichains; experimental results moreover show non negligible improvements.

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              • Published in

                cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices
                ACM SIGPLAN Notices  Volume 48, Issue 1
                POPL '13
                January 2013
                561 pages
                ISSN:0362-1340
                EISSN:1558-1160
                DOI:10.1145/2480359
                Issue’s Table of Contents
                • cover image ACM Conferences
                  POPL '13: Proceedings of the 40th annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages
                  January 2013
                  586 pages
                  ISBN:9781450318327
                  DOI:10.1145/2429069

                Copyright © 2013 ACM

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                Association for Computing Machinery

                New York, NY, United States

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                • Published: 23 January 2013

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