138 research outputs found
Behavioural equivalences for timed systems
Timed transition systems are behavioural models that include an explicit
treatment of time flow and are used to formalise the semantics of several
foundational process calculi and automata. Despite their relevance, a general
mathematical characterisation of timed transition systems and their behavioural
theory is still missing. We introduce the first uniform framework for timed
behavioural models that encompasses known behavioural equivalences such as
timed bisimulations, timed language equivalences as well as their weak and
time-abstract counterparts. All these notions of equivalences are naturally
organised by their discriminating power in a spectrum. We prove that this
result does not depend on the type of the systems under scrutiny: it holds for
any generalisation of timed transition system. We instantiate our framework to
timed transition systems and their quantitative extensions such as timed
probabilistic systems
Probabilistic Bisimulation: Naturally on Distributions
In contrast to the usual understanding of probabilistic systems as stochastic
processes, recently these systems have also been regarded as transformers of
probabilities. In this paper, we give a natural definition of strong
bisimulation for probabilistic systems corresponding to this view that treats
probability distributions as first-class citizens. Our definition applies in
the same way to discrete systems as well as to systems with uncountable state
and action spaces. Several examples demonstrate that our definition refines the
understanding of behavioural equivalences of probabilistic systems. In
particular, it solves a long-standing open problem concerning the
representation of memoryless continuous time by memory-full continuous time.
Finally, we give algorithms for computing this bisimulation not only for finite
but also for classes of uncountably infinite systems
A Uniform Framework for Timed Automata
Timed automata, and machines alike, currently lack a general mathematical characterisation. In this paper we provide a uniform coalgebraic understanding of these devices. This framework encompasses known behavioural equivalences for timed automata and paves the way for the extension of these notions to new timed behaviours and for the instantiation of established results from the coalgebraic theory as well. Key to this work is the use of lax functors for they allow us to model time flow as a context property and hence offer a general and expressive setting where to study timed systems: the index category encodes "how step sequences form executions" (e.g. whether steps duration get accumulated or kept distinct) whereas the base category encodes "step nature and composition" (e.g. non-determinism and labels). Finally, we develop the notion of general saturation for lax functors and show how equivalences of interest for timed behaviours are instances of this notion. This characterisation allows us to reason about the expressiveness of said notions within a uniform framework and organise them in a spectrum independent from the behavioural aspects encoded in the base category
A Definition Scheme for Quantitative Bisimulation
FuTS, state-to-function transition systems are generalizations of labeled
transition systems and of familiar notions of quantitative semantical models as
continuous-time Markov chains, interactive Markov chains, and Markov automata.
A general scheme for the definition of a notion of strong bisimulation
associated with a FuTS is proposed. It is shown that this notion of
bisimulation for a FuTS coincides with the coalgebraic notion of behavioral
equivalence associated to the functor on Set given by the type of the FuTS. For
a series of concrete quantitative semantical models the notion of bisimulation
as reported in the literature is proven to coincide with the notion of
quantitative bisimulation obtained from the scheme. The comparison includes
models with orthogonal behaviour, like interactive Markov chains, and with
multiple levels of behavior, like Markov automata. As a consequence of the
general result relating FuTS bisimulation and behavioral equivalence we obtain,
in a systematic way, a coalgebraic underpinning of all quantitative
bisimulations discussed.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2015, arXiv:1509.0816
GSOS for non-deterministic processes with quantitative aspects
Recently, some general frameworks have been proposed as unifying theories for
processes combining non-determinism with quantitative aspects (such as
probabilistic or stochastically timed executions), aiming to provide general
results and tools. This paper provides two contributions in this respect.
First, we present a general GSOS specification format (and a corresponding
notion of bisimulation) for non-deterministic processes with quantitative
aspects. These specifications define labelled transition systems according to
the ULTraS model, an extension of the usual LTSs where the transition relation
associates any source state and transition label with state reachability weight
functions (like, e.g., probability distributions). This format, hence called
Weight Function SOS (WFSOS), covers many known systems and their bisimulations
(e.g. PEPA, TIPP, PCSP) and GSOS formats (e.g. GSOS, Weighted GSOS,
Segala-GSOS, among others).
The second contribution is a characterization of these systems as coalgebras
of a class of functors, parametric on the weight structure. This result allows
us to prove soundness of the WFSOS specification format, and that
bisimilarities induced by these specifications are always congruences.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2014, arXiv:1406.156
Bisimulation for Labelled Markov Processes
AbstractIn this paper we introduce a new class of labelled transition systems—labelled Markov processes— and define bisimulation for them. Labelled Markov processes are probabilistic labelled transition systems where the state space is not necessarily discrete. We assume that the state space is a certain type of common metric space called an analytic space. We show that our definition of probabilistic bisimulation generalizes the Larsen–Skou definition given for discrete systems. The formalism and mathematics is substantially different from the usual treatment of probabilistic process algebra. The main technical contribution of the paper is a logical characterization of probabilistic bisimulation. This study revealed some unexpected results, even for discrete probabilistic systems. •Bisimulation can be characterized by a very weak modal logic. The most striking feature is that one has no negation or any kind of negative proposition.•We do not need any finite branching assumption, yet there is no need of infinitary conjunction.
We also show how to construct the maximal autobisimulation on a system. In the finite state case, this is just a state minimization construction. The proofs that we give are of an entirely different character than the typical proofs of these results. They use quite subtle facts about analytic spaces and appear, at first sight, to be entirely nonconstructive. Yet one can give an algorithm for deciding bisimilarity of finite state systems which constructs a formula that witnesses the failure of bisimulation
Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency
This paper retraces, collects, and summarises contributions of the authors --- in collaboration with others --- on the theme of Petri nets and their categorical relationships to other models of concurrency
- …