We consider the complexity of the open-world query answering problem, where we wish to determine certain answers to conjunctive queries over incomplete datasets specified by an initial set of facts and a set of guarded TGDs. This problem has been well-studied in the literature and is decidable but with a high complexity, namely, it is 2EXPTIME complete. Further, the complexity shrinks by one exponential when the arity is fixed. We show in this paper how we can obtain better complexity bounds when considering separately the arity of the guard atom and that of the additional atoms, called the side signature. Our results make use of the technique of linearizing guarded TGDs, introduced in Gottlob, Manna, and Pieris. Specifically, we present a variant of the linearization process, making use of a restricted version of the chase that we recently introduced. Our results imply that open-world query answering with guarded TGDs can be solved in EXPTIME with arbitrary-arity guard relations if we simply bound the arity of the side signature; and that the complexity drops to NP if we fix the side signature and bound the width of the dependencies.

Given a conjunctive query \(Q\) and a database \(\mathbf{D}\), a direct access to the answers of \(Q\) over \(\mathbf{D}\) is the operation of returning, given an index \(j\), the \(j^{\mathsf{th}}\) answer for some order on its answers. While this problem is \(\#\mathsf{P}\)-hard in general with respect to combined complexity, many conjunctive queries have an underlying structure that allows for a direct access to their answers for some lexicographical ordering that takes polylogarithmic time in the size of the database after a polynomial time precomputation. Previous work has precisely characterised the tractable classes and given fine-grained lower bounds on the precomputation time needed depending on the structure of the query. In this paper, we generalise these tractability results to the case of signed conjunctive queries, that is, conjunctive queries that may contain negative atoms. Our technique is based on a class of circuits that can represent relational data. We first show that this class supports tractable direct access after a polynomial time preprocessing. We then give bounds on the size of the circuit needed to represent the answer set of signed conjunctive queries depending on their structure. Both results combined together allow us to prove the tractability of direct access for a large class of conjunctive queries. On the one hand, we recover the known tractable classes from the literature in the case of positive conjunctive queries. On the other hand, we generalise and unify known tractability results about negative conjunctive queries – that is, queries having only negated atoms. In particular, we show that the class of \(\beta\)-acyclic negative conjunctive queries and the class of bounded nest set width negative conjunctive queries admit tractable direct access.

We study the membership problem to context-free languages L (CFLs) on probabilistic words, that specify for each position a probability distribution on the letters (assuming independence across positions). Our task is to compute, given a probabilistic word, what is the probability that a word drawn according to the distribution belongs to L. This problem generalizes the problem of counting how many words of length n belong to L, or of counting how many completions of a partial word belong to L. We show that this problem is in polynomial time for unambiguous context-free languages (uCFLs), but can be #P-hard already for unions of two linear uCFLs. More generally, we show that the problem is in polynomial time for so-called poly-slicewise-unambiguous languages, where given a length n we can tractably compute an uCFL for the words of length n in the language. This class includes some inherently ambiguous languages, and implies the tractability of bounded CFLs and of languages recognized by unambiguous polynomial-time counter automata; but we show that the problem can be #P-hard for nondeterministic counter automata, even for Parikh automata with a single counter. We then introduce classes of circuits from knowledge compilation which we use for tractable counting, and show that this covers the tractability of poly-slicewise-unambiguous languages and of some CFLs that are not poly-slicewise-unambiguous. Extending these circuits with negation further allows us to show tractability for the language of primitive words, and for the language of concatenations of two palindromes. We finally show the conditional undecidability of the meta-problem that asks, given a CFG, whether the probabilistic membership problem for that CFG is tractable or #P-hard.

For a fixed regular language L, the enumeration of L-infixes is the following task: we are given an input word w = a1 • • • an and we must enumerate the infixes of w that belong to L, i.e., the pairs i ≤ j such that ai • • • aj ∈ L. We are interested in dynamic enumeration of L-infixes, where we must additionally support letter substitution updates on w (e.g., “replace the i-th letter of w by a letter a”). Each update changes the set of infixes to enumerate, and resets the enumeration state. We study for which regular languages L we can perform dynamic enumeration of L-infixes in constant delay (i.e., the next infix is always produced in constant time) and constant additional memory throughout the enumeration, while supporting each update in constant time. We show that, for languages L with a neutral letter, if the language L belongs to the class ZG and is extensible (i.e., if u ∈ L and u is a factor of v then v ∈ L), then dynamic enumeration of L-infixes can be achieved with a simple algorithm that ensures constant-time updates and constant delay, but not constant additional memory. Our main contribution is then to show an algorithm that additionally uses only constant additional memory, and applies to a more general class of semi-extensible ZG languages for which we give several equivalent characterizations. We further discuss whether our results can be generalized to larger language classes and show some (conditional) lower bounds.

Applications of graph databases are prone to inconsistency due to interoperability issues. This raises the need for studying query answering over inconsistent graph databases in a simple but general framework. We follow the approach of consistent query answering (CQA), and study its data complexity over graph databases for conjunctive regular-path queries (CRPQs) and conjunctive regular-path constraints (CRPCs). We deal with subset, superset and symmetric-difference repairs. Without restrictions, CQA is undecidable for the semantics of superset- and symmetric-difference repairs, and _2^P-complete for subset-repairs. However, we identify restrictions on CRPCs and databases that lead to decidability, and even tractability of CQA.

We give the first two algorithms to enumerate all binary words of {0,1}ℓ (like Gray codes) while ensuring that the delay and the auxiliary space is independent from ℓ, i.e., constant time for each word, and constant memory in addition to the ℓ bits storing the current word. Our algorithms are given in two new computational models: tape machines and deque machines. We also study more restricted models, queue machines and stack machines, and show that they cannot enumerate all binary words with constant auxiliary space, even with unrestricted delay. A tape machine is a Turing machine that stores the current binary word on a single working tape of length ℓ (which never increases), using no other tape. The machine has a single head and must edit its tape to reach all possible words of {0,1}ℓ, and output them (in unit time, by entering special output states), with no duplicates. Hence a tape machine uses constant auxiliary space by definition (up to the head position). We construct a tape machine that achieves this task with constant delay between consecutive outputs, so that the machine implements a so-called skew-tolerant quasi-Gray code. We then construct a more involved tape machine that implements a Gray code. A deque machine stores the current binary word on a double-ended queue of length ℓ, and stores a constant-size internal state. It works as a tape machine, except that it modifies the content of the deque by performing push and pop operations on the endpoints. Hence again a deque machine uses constant auxiliary space by definition. We construct deque machines that enumerate all words of {0,1}ℓ with constant-delay. The main technical challenge in this model is to correctly detect when enumeration has finished.

Query evaluation over probabilistic databases is notoriously intractable – not only in combined complexity, but often in data complexity as well. This motivates the study of approximation algorithms, and particularly of combined FPRASes, with runtime polynomial in both the query and instance size. In this paper, we focus on tuple-independent probabilistic databases over binary signatures, i.e., probabilistic graphs, and study when we can devise combined FPRASes for probabilistic query evaluation. We settle the complexity of this problem for a variety of query and instance classes, by proving both approximability results and (conditional) inapproximability results doubled with (unconditional) DNNF provenance circuit size lower bounds. This allows us to deduce many corollaries of possible independent interest. For example, we show how the results of Arenas et al. on counting fixed-length strings accepted by an NFA imply the existence of an FPRAS for the two-terminal network reliability problem on directed acyclic graphs: this was an open problem until now. We also show that one cannot extend a recent result of van Bremen and Meel that gives a combined FPRAS for self-join-free conjunctive queries of bounded hypertree width on probabilistic databases: neither the bounded-hypertree-width condition nor the self-join-freeness hypothesis can be relaxed. We last show how our methods can give insights on the evaluation and approximability of regular path queries (RPQs) on probabilistic graphs in the data complexity perspective, showing in particular that some of them are (conditionally) inapproximable.

We study the cutwidth measure on graphs and ways to bound the cutwidth of a graph by partitioning its vertices. We consider bounds expressed as a function of two quantities: on the one hand, the maximal cutwidth y of the subgraphs induced by the classes of the partition, and on the other hand, the cutwidth x of the quotient multigraph obtained by merging each class to a single vertex. We consider in particular the decomposition of directed graphs into strongly connected components (SCCs): in this case, y is the maximal cutwidth of an SCC, and x is the cutwidth of the directed acyclic condensation multigraph. We show that the cutwidth of a graph is always in O(x + y), specifically it can be upper bounded by 1.5x + y. We also show a lower bound justifying that the constant 1.5 cannot be improved in general.

The class of local languages is a well-known subclass of the regular languages that admits many equivalent characterizations. In this short note we establish the PSPACE-completeness of the problem of determining, given as input a nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) A, whether the language recognized by A is local or not. This contrasts with the case of deterministic finite automata (DFA), for which the problem is known to be in PTIME.

In this note, we study two rewrite rules on hypergraphs, called edge-domination and node-domination, and show that they are confluent. These rules are rather natural and commonly used before computing the minimum hitting sets of a hy pergraph. Intuitively, edge-domination allows us to remove hyperedges that are supersets of another hyperedge, and node-domination allows us to remove nodes whose incident hyperedges are a subset of that of another node. We show that these rules are confluent up to isomorphism, i.e., if we apply any sequences of edge domination and node-domination rules, then the resulting hypergraphs can be made isomorphic via more rule applications. This in particular implies the existence of a unique minimal hypergraph, up to isomorphism.

Graphs have emerged as a foundation for a variety of applications, including capturing factual knowledge, semantic data integration, social networks, and informing machine learning algorithms. Formalising properties of the data and ensuring data quality requires describing schemas of such graphs. Driven by diverse applications, the Semantic Web and database communities developed not only different graph data models-RDF and property graphs-but also different graph schema languages-SHACL, ShEx, and PG-Schema. Each language has its unique approach to defining constraints and validating graph data, leaving potential users in the dark about their commonalities and differences. In this paper, we provide concise formal definitions of the core components of these languages, employ a uniform framework to facilitate a comprehensive comparison between them, and identify a common set of functionalities, shedding light on both overlapping and distinctive features.

Vizitig is the first platform for real-time exploration and querying of DNA and RNA sequence graphs across many samples, unifying visualization, metadata, and flexible search. It integrates raw and reference-based data, handles complex variation, and provides a human-readable query language with scalable graph loading. Vizitig enables fast, reproducible analysis in both pangenomics and pantranscriptomics.

We present an elementary branch and bound algorithm with a simple analysis of why it achieves worstcase optimality for join queries on classes of databases defined respectively by cardinality or acyclic degree constraints. We then show that if one is given a reasonable way for recursively estimating upper bounds on the number of answers of the join queries, our algorithm can be turned into algorithm for uniformly sampling answers with expected running time Õ(UP/OUT) where UP is the upper bound, OUT is the actual number of answers and Õ(•) ignores polylogarithmic factors. Our approach recovers recent results on worstcase optimal join algorithm and sampling in a modular, clean and elementary way.

We study the problem of finding, in a directed graph, an st-walk of length r mod q which is edge-minimum, i.e., uses the smallest number of distinct edges. Despite the vast literature on paths and cycles with modularity constraints, to the best of our knowledge we are the first to study this problem. Our main result is a polynomial-time algorithm that solves this task when r and q are constants. We also show how our proof technique gives an algorithm to solve a generalization of the well-known Directed Steiner Network problem, in which connections between endpoint pairs are required to satisfy modularity constraints on their length. Our algorithm is polynomial when the number of endpoint pairs and the modularity constraints on the pairs are constants.

We study the dynamic membership problem for regular tree languages under relabeling updates: we fix an alphabet Σ and a regular tree language L over Σ (expressed, e.g., as a tree automaton), we are given a tree T with labels in Σ, and we must maintain the information of whether the tree T belongs to L while handling relabeling updates that change the labels of individual nodes in T. Our first contribution is to show that this problem admits an O(log n / log log n) algorithm for any fixed regular tree language, improving over known O(log n) algorithms. This generalizes the known O(log n / log log n) upper bound over words, and it matches the lower bound of Ω(log n / log log n) from dynamic membership to some word languages and from the existential marked ancestor problem. Our second contribution is to introduce a class of regular languages, dubbed almost-commutative tree languages, and show that dynamic membership to such languages under relabeling updates can be decided in constant time per update. Almost-commutative languages generalize both commutative languages and finite languages: they are the analogue for trees of the ZG languages enjoying constant-time dynamic membership over words. Our main technical contribution is to show that this class is conditionally optimal when we assume that the alphabet features a neutral letter, i.e., a letter that has no effect on membership to the language. More precisely, we show that any regular tree language with a neutral letter which is not almost-commutative cannot be maintained in constant time under the assumption that the prefix-U1 problem from [Antoine Amarilli et al., 2021] also does not admit a constant-time algorithm.

The resilience problem for a query and an input set or bag database is to compute the minimum number of facts to remove from the database to make the query false. In this paper, we study how to compute the resilience of Regular Path Queries (RPQs) over graph databases. Our goal is to characterize the regular languages \(L\) for which it is tractable to compute the resilience of the existentially-quantified RPQ built from \(L\). We show that computing the resilience in this sense is tractable (even in combined complexity) for all RPQs defined from so-called local languages. By contrast, we show hardness in data complexity for RPQs defined from the following language classes (after reducing the languages to eliminate redundant words): all finite languages featuring a word containing a repeated letter, and all languages featuring a specific kind of counterexample to being local (which we call four-legged languages). The latter include in particular all languages that are not star-free. Our results also imply hardness for all non-local languages with a so-called neutral letter. We also highlight some remaining obstacles towards a full dichotomy. In particular, for the RPQ \(abc|be\), resilience is tractable but the only PTIME algorithm that we know uses submodular function optimization.

It is well-known that checking whether a given string w matches a given regular expression r can be done in quadratic time O(|w|⋅ |r|) and that this cannot be improved to a truly subquadratic running time of O((|w|⋅ |r|)^{1-ε}) assuming the strong exponential time hypothesis (SETH). We study a different matching paradigm where we ask instead whether w has a subsequence that matches r, and show that regex matching in this sense can be solved in linear time O(|w| + |r|). Further, the same holds if we ask for a supersequence. We show that the quantitative variants where we want to compute a longest or shortest subsequence or supersequence of w that matches r can be solved in O(|w|⋅ |r|), i. e., asymptotically no worse than classical regex matching; and we show that O(|w| + |r|) is conditionally not possible for these problems. We also investigate these questions with respect to other natural string relations like the infix, prefix, left-extension or extension relation instead of the subsequence and supersequence relation. We further study the complexity of the universal problem where we ask if all subsequences (or supersequences, infixes, prefixes, left-extensions or extensions) of an input string satisfy a given regular expression.