1. on regular expressions. A theorem in formal language theory proposed by Stephen Kleene and stating that a language is definable by a regular expression if and only if it is recognized by a finite-state automaton. A regular expression equivalent to a finite-state automaton can be found by solving a set of simultaneous linear equations (see Arden’s rule, linear grammar). Regular expressions were first used to characterize the power of certain neural networks.
2. on fixed points. See fixed-point theorem.