156,405 research outputs found
A Convenient Category for Higher-Order Probability Theory
Higher-order probabilistic programming languages allow programmers to write
sophisticated models in machine learning and statistics in a succinct and
structured way, but step outside the standard measure-theoretic formalization
of probability theory. Programs may use both higher-order functions and
continuous distributions, or even define a probability distribution on
functions. But standard probability theory does not handle higher-order
functions well: the category of measurable spaces is not cartesian closed.
Here we introduce quasi-Borel spaces. We show that these spaces: form a new
formalization of probability theory replacing measurable spaces; form a
cartesian closed category and so support higher-order functions; form a
well-pointed category and so support good proof principles for equational
reasoning; and support continuous probability distributions. We demonstrate the
use of quasi-Borel spaces for higher-order functions and probability by:
showing that a well-known construction of probability theory involving random
functions gains a cleaner expression; and generalizing de Finetti's theorem,
that is a crucial theorem in probability theory, to quasi-Borel spaces
Formal verification of higher-order probabilistic programs
Probabilistic programming provides a convenient lingua franca for writing
succinct and rigorous descriptions of probabilistic models and inference tasks.
Several probabilistic programming languages, including Anglican, Church or
Hakaru, derive their expressiveness from a powerful combination of continuous
distributions, conditioning, and higher-order functions. Although very
important for practical applications, these combined features raise fundamental
challenges for program semantics and verification. Several recent works offer
promising answers to these challenges, but their primary focus is on semantical
issues.
In this paper, we take a step further and we develop a set of program logics,
named PPV, for proving properties of programs written in an expressive
probabilistic higher-order language with continuous distributions and operators
for conditioning distributions by real-valued functions. Pleasingly, our
program logics retain the comfortable reasoning style of informal proofs thanks
to carefully selected axiomatizations of key results from probability theory.
The versatility of our logics is illustrated through the formal verification of
several intricate examples from statistics, probabilistic inference, and
machine learning. We further show the expressiveness of our logics by giving
sound embeddings of existing logics. In particular, we do this in a parametric
way by showing how the semantics idea of (unary and relational) TT-lifting can
be internalized in our logics. The soundness of PPV follows by interpreting
programs and assertions in quasi-Borel spaces (QBS), a recently proposed
variant of Borel spaces with a good structure for interpreting higher order
probabilistic programs
The Power of Convex Algebras
Probabilistic automata (PA) combine probability and nondeterminism. They can
be given different semantics, like strong bisimilarity, convex bisimilarity, or
(more recently) distribution bisimilarity. The latter is based on the view of
PA as transformers of probability distributions, also called belief states, and
promotes distributions to first-class citizens.
We give a coalgebraic account of the latter semantics, and explain the
genesis of the belief-state transformer from a PA. To do so, we make explicit
the convex algebraic structure present in PA and identify belief-state
transformers as transition systems with state space that carries a convex
algebra. As a consequence of our abstract approach, we can give a sound proof
technique which we call bisimulation up-to convex hull.Comment: Full (extended) version of a CONCUR 2017 paper, to be submitted to
LMC
A semantical approach to equilibria and rationality
Game theoretic equilibria are mathematical expressions of rationality.
Rational agents are used to model not only humans and their software
representatives, but also organisms, populations, species and genes,
interacting with each other and with the environment. Rational behaviors are
achieved not only through conscious reasoning, but also through spontaneous
stabilization at equilibrium points.
Formal theories of rationality are usually guided by informal intuitions,
which are acquired by observing some concrete economic, biological, or network
processes. Treating such processes as instances of computation, we reconstruct
and refine some basic notions of equilibrium and rationality from the some
basic structures of computation.
It is, of course, well known that equilibria arise as fixed points; the point
is that semantics of computation of fixed points seems to be providing novel
methods, algebraic and coalgebraic, for reasoning about them.Comment: 18 pages; Proceedings of CALCO 200
Chasing diagrams in cryptography
Cryptography is a theory of secret functions. Category theory is a general
theory of functions. Cryptography has reached a stage where its structures
often take several pages to define, and its formulas sometimes run from page to
page. Category theory has some complicated definitions as well, but one of its
specialties is taming the flood of structure. Cryptography seems to be in need
of high level methods, whereas category theory always needs concrete
applications. So why is there no categorical cryptography? One reason may be
that the foundations of modern cryptography are built from probabilistic
polynomial-time Turing machines, and category theory does not have a good
handle on such things. On the other hand, such foundational problems might be
the very reason why cryptographic constructions often resemble low level
machine programming. I present some preliminary explorations towards
categorical cryptography. It turns out that some of the main security concepts
are easily characterized through the categorical technique of *diagram
chasing*, which was first used Lambek's seminal `Lecture Notes on Rings and
Modules'.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures; to appear in: 'Categories in Logic, Language and
Physics. Festschrift on the occasion of Jim Lambek's 90th birthday', Claudia
Casadio, Bob Coecke, Michael Moortgat, and Philip Scott (editors); this
version: fixed typos found by kind reader
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