The theory of two-dimensional languages as a generalization of formal string languages was motivated by problems arising from image processing and pattern recognition and also concerns models of parallel computing. Here we investigate power series on pictures and assign weights to different devices, ranging from tiling systems to picture automata. We will prove that, for commutative semirings, ...

Regular cost functions were introduced as a quantitative generalisation of regular languages, retaining many of their equivalent characterisations and decidability properties. For instance, stabilisation monoids play the same role for cost functions as monoids do for regular languages. The purpose of this article is to further extend this algebraic approach by generalizing two results on regula...

We investigate the applicability of divisible residuated lattices (DRLs) as a general evaluation framework for soft constraint satisfaction problems (soft CSPs). DRLs are in fact natural candidates for this role, since they form the algebraic semantics of a large family of substructural and fuzzy logics [GJKO07, Háj98]. We present the following results. (i) We show that DRLs subsume important v...

We present a uniform framework for the treatment of a large class of toy models of quantum theory. Specifically, we will be interested in theories of wavefunctions valued in commutative involutive semirings, and which give rise to some semiring-based notion of classical non-determinism via the Born rule. The models obtained with our construction possess many of the familiar structures used in C...

Compositional construction and manipulation of semirings. This package is motivated by static analyzers like AbsInt1. In AbsInt the complete lattice to be used for the abstract interpretation can be specified by the user by combining basic lattices, e.g., two power-set algebras on disjoint finite sets can be combined into their product lattice. In a similar fashion, we plan to give the user the...

PAWS is a tool to analyse the behaviour of weighted automata and conditional transition systems. At its core PAWS is based on a generic implementation of algorithms for checking language equivalence in weighted automata and bisimulation in conditional transition systems. This architecture allows for the use of arbitrary user-defined semirings. New semirings can be generated during run-time and ...

Closed semirings are algebraic structures that provide a unified approach to a number of seemingly unrelated problems of computer science and operations research. For example, semirings can be used to describe the algebra related to regular expressions, graph-theoretical path problems, and linear equations. We present a new axiomatic formulation of semirings. We introduce the concept of elimina...

We show that the set of realizations of a given dimension of a max-plus linear sequence is a finite union of polyhedral sets, which can be computed from any realization of the sequence. This yields an (expensive) algorithm to solve the max-plus minimal realization problem. These results are derived from general facts on rational expressions over idempotent commutative semirings: we show more ge...

We present a general algorithm, pre-determinization, that makes an arbitrary weighted transducer over the tropical semiring or an arbitrary unambiguous weighted transducer over a cancellative commutative semiring determinizable by inserting in it transitions labeled with special symbols. After determinization, the special symbols can be removed or replaced with -transitions. The resulting trans...