734 research outputs found
Node Labels in Local Decision
The role of unique node identifiers in network computing is well understood
as far as symmetry breaking is concerned. However, the unique identifiers also
leak information about the computing environment - in particular, they provide
some nodes with information related to the size of the network. It was recently
proved that in the context of local decision, there are some decision problems
such that (1) they cannot be solved without unique identifiers, and (2) unique
node identifiers leak a sufficient amount of information such that the problem
becomes solvable (PODC 2013).
In this work we give study what is the minimal amount of information that we
need to leak from the environment to the nodes in order to solve local decision
problems. Our key results are related to scalar oracles that, for any given
, provide a multiset of labels; then the adversary assigns the
labels to the nodes in the network. This is a direct generalisation of the
usual assumption of unique node identifiers. We give a complete
characterisation of the weakest oracle that leaks at least as much information
as the unique identifiers.
Our main result is the following dichotomy: we classify scalar oracles as
large and small, depending on their asymptotic behaviour, and show that (1) any
large oracle is at least as powerful as the unique identifiers in the context
of local decision problems, while (2) for any small oracle there are local
decision problems that still benefit from unique identifiers.Comment: Conference version to appear in the proceedings of SIROCCO 201
Termination Detection of Local Computations
Contrary to the sequential world, the processes involved in a distributed
system do not necessarily know when a computation is globally finished. This
paper investigates the problem of the detection of the termination of local
computations. We define four types of termination detection: no detection,
detection of the local termination, detection by a distributed observer,
detection of the global termination. We give a complete characterisation
(except in the local termination detection case where a partial one is given)
for each of this termination detection and show that they define a strict
hierarchy. These results emphasise the difference between computability of a
distributed task and termination detection. Furthermore, these
characterisations encompass all standard criteria that are usually formulated :
topological restriction (tree, rings, or triangu- lated networks ...),
topological knowledge (size, diameter ...), and local knowledge to distinguish
nodes (identities, sense of direction). These results are now presented as
corollaries of generalising theorems. As a very special and important case, the
techniques are also applied to the election problem. Though given in the model
of local computations, these results can give qualitative insight for similar
results in other standard models. The necessary conditions involve graphs
covering and quasi-covering; the sufficient conditions (constructive local
computations) are based upon an enumeration algorithm of Mazurkiewicz and a
stable properties detection algorithm of Szymanski, Shi and Prywes
Anonymous Graph Exploration with Binoculars
International audienceWe investigate the exploration of networks by a mobile agent. It is long known that, without global information about the graph, it is not possible to make the agent halts after the exploration except if the graph is a tree. We therefore endow the agent with binoculars, a sensing device that can show the local structure of the environment at a constant distance of the agent current location.We show that, with binoculars, it is possible to explore and halt in a large class of non-tree networks. We give a complete characterization of the class of networks that can be explored using binoculars using standard notions of discrete topology. This class is much larger than the class of trees: it contains in particular chordal graphs, plane triangulations and triangulations of the projective plane. Our characterization is constructive, we present an Exploration algorithm that is universal; this algorithm explores any network explorable with binoculars, and never halts in non-explorable networks
A Survey on Continuous Time Computations
We provide an overview of theories of continuous time computation. These
theories allow us to understand both the hardness of questions related to
continuous time dynamical systems and the computational power of continuous
time analog models. We survey the existing models, summarizing results, and
point to relevant references in the literature
How Many Cooks Spoil the Soup?
In this work, we study the following basic question: "How much parallelism
does a distributed task permit?" Our definition of parallelism (or symmetry)
here is not in terms of speed, but in terms of identical roles that processes
have at the same time in the execution. We initiate this study in population
protocols, a very simple model that not only allows for a straightforward
definition of what a role is, but also encloses the challenge of isolating the
properties that are due to the protocol from those that are due to the
adversary scheduler, who controls the interactions between the processes. We
(i) give a partial characterization of the set of predicates on input
assignments that can be stably computed with maximum symmetry, i.e.,
, where is the minimum multiplicity of a state in
the initial configuration, and (ii) we turn our attention to the remaining
predicates and prove a strong impossibility result for the parity predicate:
the inherent symmetry of any protocol that stably computes it is upper bounded
by a constant that depends on the size of the protocol.Comment: 19 page
COMPUTER SIMULATION AND COMPUTABILITY OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
The ability to simulate a biological organism by employing a computer is related to the
ability of the computer to calculate the behavior of such a dynamical system, or the "computability" of the system.* However, the two questions of computability and simulation are not equivalent. Since the question of computability can be given a precise answer in terms of recursive functions, automata theory and dynamical systems, it will be appropriate to consider it first. The more elusive question of adequate simulation of biological systems by a computer will be then addressed and a possible connection between the two answers given will be considered. A conjecture is formulated that suggests the possibility of employing an algebraic-topological, "quantum" computer (Baianu, 1971b)
for analogous and symbolic simulations of biological systems that may include chaotic processes that are not, in genral, either recursively or digitally computable. Depending on the biological network being modelled, such as the Human Genome/Cell Interactome or a trillion-cell Cognitive Neural Network system, the appropriate logical structure for such simulations might be either the Quantum MV-Logic (QMV) discussed in recent publications (Chiara, 2004, and references cited therein)or Lukasiewicz Logic Algebras that were shown to be isomorphic to MV-logic algebras (Georgescu et al, 2001)
Some recent developments on Shannon's General Purpose Analog Computer
This paper revisits one of the rst models of analog computation, the
General Purpose Analog Computer (GPAC). In particular, we restrict our
attention to the improved model presented in [11] and we show that it
can be further re ned. With this we prove the following: (i) the previous
model can be simpli ed; (ii) it admits extensions having close connec-
tions with the class of smooth continuous time dynamical systems. As a
consequence, we conclude that some of these extensions achieve Turing
universality. Finally, it is shown that if we introduce a new notion of
computability for the GPAC, based on ideas from computable analysis,
then one can compute transcendentally transcendental functions such as
the Gamma function or Riemann's Zeta function
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