Application of the principal partition and principal lattice of partitions of a graph to the problem of decomposition of a finite state machine

The authors relate the principal partition of a graph G to the problem of finite state machine (FSM) decomposition by modeling the FSM as a state transition graph (STG) and using the underlying graph of its STG. They obtain efficient algorithms to decompose a FSM by relating the principal partition to the more general notion of the principal lattice of partitions of an appropriately defined submodular function.<>