Abstract
Several models of automata are available that operate unranked trees. Two well-known examples are the stepwise unranked tree automaton (suta) and the parallel unranked tree automaton (puta). By adding a weight, taken from some semiring, to every transition we generalise these two qualitative automata models to quantitative models, thereby obtaining weighted stepwise unranked tree automata (wsuta) and weighted parallel unranked tree automata (wputa); the qualitative automata models are reobtained by choosing the BOOLEAN semiring. The weighted versions have applications in natural language processing, XML-based data management and quantitative information retrieval. We address the minimisation problem of wsuta and wputa by using (forward and backward) bisimulations and we prove the following results: (1) for every wsuta an equivalent forward (resp. backward) bisimulation minimal wsuta can be computed in time O(mn) where n is the number of states and m is the number of transitions of the given wsuta; (2) the same result is proved for wputa instead of wsuta; (3) if the semiring is additive cancellative or the BOOLEAN semiring, then the bound can be improved to O(mlog n) for both wsuta and wputa; (4) for every deterministic puta we can compute a minimal equivalent deterministic puta in time O(mlog n); (5) the automata models wsuta, wputa, and weighted unranked tree automaton have the same computational power.