A Circus of Circuits: Connections Between Decision Diagrams, Circuits, and Automata

TL;DR

This paper introduces and connects decision diagrams, circuits, and automata to provide a comprehensive understanding of Boolean function representations and their relationships in knowledge compilation.

Contribution

It presents an overview of decision diagrams and circuits, and explores their connections to automata, highlighting their roles in knowledge compilation.

Findings

Unified view of Boolean function representations

Connections between circuits, decision diagrams, and automata

Insights into knowledge compilation techniques

Abstract

This document is an introduction to two related formalisms to define Boolean functions: binary decision diagrams, and Boolean circuits. It presents these formalisms and several of their variants studied in the setting of knowledge compilation. Last, it explains how these formalisms can be connected to the notions of automata over words and trees.