Abstract
A graph-controlled insertion–deletion system is a regulated extension of an insertion–deletion system. It has several components and each component contains some insertion–deletion rules. These components are the vertices of a directed control graph. A transition is performed by any applicable rule in the current component on a string and the resultant string is then moved to the target component specified in the rule. This also describes the arcs of the control graph. Starting from an axiom in the initial component, strings thus move through the control graph. The language of the system is the set of all terminal strings collected in the final component. In this paper, we investigate a variant of the main question in this area: which combinations of size parameters (the maximum number of components, the maximal length of the insertion string, the maximal length of the left context for insertion, the maximal length of the right context for insertion; plus three similar restrictions with respect to deletion) are sufficient to maintain computational completeness of such restricted systems under the additional restriction that the (undirected) control graph is a path? Notice that these results also bear consequences for the domain of insertion–deletion P systems, improving on a number of previous results from the literature, concerning in particular the number of components (membranes) that are necessary for computational completeness results.

Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The shuffle operation, denoted by
, is defined recursively by
$$\begin{aligned} (au\sqcup \mathchoice{}{}{}{}\sqcup \,\, bv) = a(u \sqcup \mathchoice{}{}{}{}\sqcup \,\, bv) \cup b(au \sqcup \mathchoice{}{}{}{}\sqcup \,\, v) \end{aligned}$$and \((u \sqcup \mathchoice{}{}{}{}\sqcup \,\, \lambda ) = (\lambda \sqcup \mathchoice{}{}{}{}\sqcup \,\, u) = \{u\},\) where \(u,v \in \varSigma ^*\) and \(a,b \in \varSigma \).
A type-0 grammar G is usually specified by a quadruple (N, T, P, S) consisting of a nonterminal alphabet N, a terminal alphabet T, a finite set of (production) rules P and a start symbol \(S\in N\). Rules are written in the form \(\alpha \rightarrow \beta \), \(\alpha ,\beta \in (N\cup T)^*\). This defines a rewrite relation \(\Rightarrow _G\subseteq (N\cup T)^*\times (N\cup T)^*\), with \(u\Rightarrow _Gv\) if v is obtained from u by replacing the subword \(\alpha \) by \(\beta \), for some \(\alpha \rightarrow \beta \in P\). The reflexive transitive closure \(\Rightarrow _G^*\) can be used to define the semantics of G—the language of G—collecting all \(w\in T^*\) with \(S\Rightarrow _G^*w\).
References
Alhazov, A., Freund, R., Ivanov, S.: Length P systems. Fundam. Inform. 134(1–2), 17–38 (2014)
Alhazov, A., Krassovitskiy, A., Rogozhin, Y., Verlan, S.: P systems with minimal insertion and deletion. Theor. Comput. Sci. 412(1–2), 136–144 (2011)
Benne, R. (ed.): RNA Editing: The Alteration of Protein Coding Sequences of RNA. Series in Molecular Biology. Ellis Horwood, Chichester (1993)
Biegler, F., Burrell, M.J., Daley, M.: Regulated RNA rewriting: modelling RNA editing with guided insertion. Theor. Comput. Sci. 387(2), 103–112 (2007)
Dassow, J., Păun, G.: Regulated Rewriting in Formal Language Theory, EATCS Monographs in Theoretical Computer Science, vol. 18. Springer, Berlin (1989)
Fernau, H.: An essay on general grammars. J. Autom. Lang. Comb. 21, 69–92 (2016)
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L.: Parikh images of matrix ins-del systems. In: Gopal, T.V., Jäger, G., Steila, S. (eds.) Theory and Applications of Models of Computation, TAMC, LNCS, vol. 10185, pp. 201–215. Springer, Berlin (2017)
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L., Raman, I.: Computational completeness of path-structured graph-controlled insertion-deletion systems. In: Carayol, A., Nicaud, C. (eds.) Implementation and Application of Automata–22nd International Conference, CIAA, LNCS, vol. 10329, pp. 89–100. Springer, Berlin (2017)
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L., Raman, I.: Graph-controlled insertion-deletion systems generating language classes beyond linearity. In: Pighizzini, G., Câmpeanu, C. (eds.) Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems–19th IFIP WG 102 International Conference, DCFS, LNCS, vol. 10316, pp. 128–139. Springer, Berlin (2017)
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L., Raman, I.: Investigations on the power of matrix insertion-deletion systems with small sizes. Natl. Comput. (accepted) (2017)
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L., Raman, I.: On the computational completeness of graph-controlled insertion-deletion systems with binary sizes. Theor. Comput. Sci. 682, 100–121 (2017). (Special Issue on Languages and Combinatorics in Theory and Nature)
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L., Raman, I.: On the generative power of graph-controlled insertion-deletion systems with small sizes. J. Autom. Lang. Comb. 22, 61–92 (2017)
Freund, R., Kogler, M., Rogozhin, Y., Verlan, S.: Graph-controlled insertion-deletion systems. In: McQuillan, I., Pighizzini, G. (eds.) Proceedings Twelfth Annual Workshop on Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems, DCFS, EPTCS, vol. 31, pp. 88–98 (2010)
Geffert, V.: Normal forms for phrase-structure grammars. RAIRO Theor. Inform. Appl. 25, 473–498 (1991)
Haussler, D.: Insertion languages. Inf. Sci. 31(1), 77–89 (1983)
Ivanov, S., Verlan, S.: About one-sided one-symbol insertion-deletion P systems. In: Alhazov, A., Cojocaru, S., Gheorghe, M., Rogozhin, Y., Rozenberg, G., Salomaa, A. (eds.) Membrane Computing—14th International Conference, CMC 2013, LNCS, vol. 8340, pp. 225–237. Springer, Berlin (2014)
Ivanov, S., Verlan, S.: Random context and semi-conditional insertion-deletion systems. Fundam. Inform. 138, 127–144 (2015)
Kari, L.: On insertion and deletion in formal languages. Ph.D. thesis, University of Turku, Finland (1991)
Kari, L., Păun, Gh., Thierrin, G., Yu, S.: At the crossroads of DNA computing and formal languages: characterizing recursively enumerable languages using insertion-deletion systems. In: Rubin, H., Wood, D.H. (eds.) DNA Based Computers III, DIMACS Series in Discrete Mathematics and Theretical Computer Science, vol. 48, pp. 329–338 (1999)
Kari, L., Thierrin, G.: Contextual insertions/deletions and computability. Inf. Comput. 131(1), 47–61 (1996)
Krassovitskiy, A., Rogozhin, Y., Verlan, S.: Further results on insertion-deletion systems with one-sided contexts. In: Martín-Vide, C., Otto, F., Fernau, H. (eds.) Language and Automata Theory and Applications, Second International Conference, LATA, LNCS, vol. 5196, pp. 333–344. Springer, Berlin (2008)
Krassovitskiy, A., Rogozhin, Y., Verlan, S.: Computational power of insertion-deletion (P) systems with rules of size two. Natl. Comput. 10, 835–852 (2011)
Krishna, S.N., Rama, R.: Insertion-deletion P systems. In: Jonoska, N., Seeman, N.C. (eds.) DNA Computing, 7th International Workshop on DNA-Based Computers, 2001, Revised Papers, LNCS, vol. 2340, pp. 360–370. Springer, Berlin (2002)
Kuppusamy, L., Mahendran, A., Krishna, S.N.: Matrix insertion-deletion systems for bio-molecular structures. In: Natarajan, R., Ojo, A.K. (eds.) Distributed Computing and Internet Technology–7th International Conference, ICDCIT, LNCS, vol. 6536, pp. 301–312. Springer, Berlin (2011)
Kuppusamy, L., Rama, R.: On the power of tissue P systems with insertion and deletion rules. In: Pre-Proceedings of Workshop on Membrane Computing, Report RGML, vol. 28, pp. 304–318. Univ. Tarragona, Spain (2003)
Marcus, S.: Contextual grammars. Revue Roumaine de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées 14, 1525–1534 (1969)
Margenstern, M., Păun, Gh, Rogozhin, Y., Verlan, S.: Context-free insertion-deletion systems. Theor. Comput. Sci. 330(2), 339–348 (2005)
Matveevici, A., Rogozhin, Y., Verlan, S.: Insertion-deletion systems with one-sided contexts. In: Durand-Lose, J.O., Margenstern, M. (eds.) Machines, Computations, and Universality, 5th International Conference, MCU, LNCS, vol. 4664, pp. 205–217. Springer, Berlin (2007)
Păun, Gh: Marcus Contextual Grammars, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 67. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1997)
Păun, G.: Membrane Computing: An Introduction. Springer, Berlin (2002)
Păun, G., Rozenberg, G., Salomaa, A.: DNA Computing: New Computing Paradigms. Springer, Berlin (1998)
Petre, I., Verlan, S.: Matrix insertion-deletion systems. Theor. Comput. Sci. 456, 80–88 (2012)
Takahara, A., Yokomori, T.: On the computational power of insertion-deletion systems. Natl. Comput. 2(4), 321–336 (2003)
Verlan, S.: Recent developments on insertion-deletion systems. Comput. Sci. J. Moldova 18(2), 210–245 (2010)
Acknowledgements
Some part of the work done by the second author was during his visit to University of Trier, Germany, in December 2016. The possibility to use some overhead money from the DFG Grant FE 560/6-1 to finance this visit is gratefully acknowledged.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fernau, H., Kuppusamy, L. & Raman, I. On path-controlled insertion–deletion systems. Acta Informatica 56, 35–59 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00236-018-0312-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00236-018-0312-2