716 research outputs found
An Event Structure Model for Probabilistic Concurrent Kleene Algebra
We give a new true-concurrent model for probabilistic concurrent Kleene
algebra. The model is based on probabilistic event structures, which combines
ideas from Katoen's work on probabilistic concurrency and Varacca's
probabilistic prime event structures. The event structures are compared with a
true-concurrent version of Segala's probabilistic simulation. Finally, the
algebraic properties of the model are summarised to the extent that they can be
used to derive techniques such as probabilistic rely/guarantee inference rules.Comment: Submitted and accepted for LPAR19 (2013
Testing Reactive Probabilistic Processes
We define a testing equivalence in the spirit of De Nicola and Hennessy for
reactive probabilistic processes, i.e. for processes where the internal
nondeterminism is due to random behaviour. We characterize the testing
equivalence in terms of ready-traces. From the characterization it follows that
the equivalence is insensitive to the exact moment in time in which an internal
probabilistic choice occurs, which is inherent from the original testing
equivalence of De Nicola and Hennessy. We also show decidability of the testing
equivalence for finite systems for which the complete model may not be known
Probabilistic Rely-guarantee Calculus
Jones' rely-guarantee calculus for shared variable concurrency is extended to
include probabilistic behaviours. We use an algebraic approach which combines
and adapts probabilistic Kleene algebras with concurrent Kleene algebra.
Soundness of the algebra is shown relative to a general probabilistic event
structure semantics. The main contribution of this paper is a collection of
rely-guarantee rules built on top of that semantics. In particular, we show how
to obtain bounds on probabilities by deriving rely-guarantee rules within the
true-concurrent denotational semantics. The use of these rules is illustrated
by a detailed verification of a simple probabilistic concurrent program: a
faulty Eratosthenes sieve.Comment: Preprint submitted to TCS-QAP
Ranking and Repulsing Supermartingales for Reachability in Probabilistic Programs
Computing reachability probabilities is a fundamental problem in the analysis
of probabilistic programs. This paper aims at a comprehensive and comparative
account on various martingale-based methods for over- and under-approximating
reachability probabilities. Based on the existing works that stretch across
different communities (formal verification, control theory, etc.), we offer a
unifying account. In particular, we emphasize the role of order-theoretic fixed
points---a classic topic in computer science---in the analysis of probabilistic
programs. This leads us to two new martingale-based techniques, too. We give
rigorous proofs for their soundness and completeness. We also make an
experimental comparison using our implementation of template-based synthesis
algorithms for those martingales
Computable decision making on the reals and other spaces via partiality and nondeterminism
Though many safety-critical software systems use floating point to represent
real-world input and output, programmers usually have idealized versions in
mind that compute with real numbers. Significant deviations from the ideal can
cause errors and jeopardize safety. Some programming systems implement exact
real arithmetic, which resolves this matter but complicates others, such as
decision making. In these systems, it is impossible to compute (total and
deterministic) discrete decisions based on connected spaces such as
. We present programming-language semantics based on constructive
topology with variants allowing nondeterminism and/or partiality. Either
nondeterminism or partiality suffices to allow computable decision making on
connected spaces such as . We then introduce pattern matching on
spaces, a language construct for creating programs on spaces, generalizing
pattern matching in functional programming, where patterns need not represent
decidable predicates and also may overlap or be inexhaustive, giving rise to
nondeterminism or partiality, respectively. Nondeterminism and/or partiality
also yield formal logics for constructing approximate decision procedures. We
implemented these constructs in the Marshall language for exact real
arithmetic.Comment: This is an extended version of a paper due to appear in the
proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS) in
July 201
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