We improve some results relative to the state complexity of the multiple catenations described by Gao and Yu. In particular we nearly divide by 2 the size of the alphabet needed for witnesses. We also give some refinements to the algebraic expression of the state complexity, which is especially complex with this operation. We obtain these results by using peculiar DFAs defined by Brzozowski.

We formalize the algorithms computing primitive recursive (PR) functions as the abstract state machines (ASMs) whose running length is computable by a PR function. Then we show that there exists a programming language (implementing only PR functions) by which it is possible to implement any one of the previously defined algorithms for the PR functions in such a way that their complexity is preserved.