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International Workshop on Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing

FSMNLP 2009: Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing pp 81–92Cite as

Reducing Nondeterministic Finite Automata with SAT Solvers

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6062))

Abstract

We consider the problem of reducing the number of states of nondeterministic finite automata, and show how to encode the reduction as a Boolean satisfiability problem. This approach improves on previous work by reducing a more general class of automata. Experimental results show that it produces a minimal automaton in almost all cases and that the running time compares favourably to the Kameda-Weiner algorithm.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, 7602, Matieland, South Africa

    Jaco Geldenhuys, Brink van der Merwe & Lynette van Zijl

Authors
  1. Jaco Geldenhuys
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  2. Brink van der Merwe
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  3. Lynette van Zijl
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki, 00014, Finland

    Anssi Yli-Jyrä

  2. Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, 1737, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA

    András Kornai

  3. Laboratoire Traitement et Communication de L’Informations, Département Infoamtique et Réseaux, CNRS, 75634, Paris Cedex 13, France

    Jacques Sakarovitch

  4. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 5600, Eindhoven, MB, The Netherlands

    Bruce Watson

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Geldenhuys, J., van der Merwe, B., van Zijl, L. (2010). Reducing Nondeterministic Finite Automata with SAT Solvers. In: Yli-Jyrä, A., Kornai, A., Sakarovitch, J., Watson, B. (eds) Finite-State Methods and Natural Language Processing. FSMNLP 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6062. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14684-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14684-8_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14683-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14684-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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