On the applications of multiplicity automata in learning

The learnability of multiplicity automata has attracted a lot of attention, mainly because of its implications on the learnability of several classes of DNF formulae. The authors further study the learnability of multiplicity automata. The starting point is a known theorem from automata theory relating the number of states in a minimal multiplicity automaton for a function f to the rank of a certain matrix F. With this theorem in hand they obtain the following results: a new simple algorithm for learning multiplicity automata with a better query complexity. As a result, they improve the complexity for all classes that use the algorithms of Bergadano and Varricchio (1994) and Ohnishi et al. (1994) and also obtain the best query complexity for several classes known to be learnable by other methods such as decision trees and polynomials over GF(2). They prove the learnability of some new classes that were not known to be learnable before. Most notably, the class of polynomials over finite fields, the class of bounded-degree polynomials over infinite fields, the class of XOR of terms, and a certain class of decision trees. While multiplicity automata were shown to be useful to prove the learnability of some subclasses of DNF formulae and various other classes, they study the limitations of this method. They prove that this method cannot be used to resolve the learnability of some other open problems such as the learnability of general DNF formulae or even K-term DNF for k=/spl omega/ (log n) or satisfy-s DNF formulae for s=/spl omega/(1). These results are proven by exhibiting functions in the above classes that require multiplicity automata with superpolynomial number of states.