129 research outputs found
A Faster-Than Relation for Semi-Markov Decision Processes
When modeling concurrent or cyber-physical systems, non-functional
requirements such as time are important to consider. In order to improve the
timing aspects of a model, it is necessary to have some notion of what it means
for a process to be faster than another, which can guide the stepwise
refinement of the model. To this end we study a faster-than relation for
semi-Markov decision processes and compare it to standard notions for relating
systems. We consider the compositional aspects of this relation, and show that
the faster-than relation is not a precongruence with respect to parallel
composition, hence giving rise to so-called parallel timing anomalies. We take
the first steps toward understanding this problem by identifying decidable
conditions sufficient to avoid parallel timing anomalies in the absence of
non-determinism.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2019, arXiv:2001.0616
Modal Logics for Mobile Processes Revisited
We revisit the logical characterisations of various bisimilarity relations for the finite fragment of the ?-calculus. Our starting point is the early and the late bisimilarity, first defined in the seminal work of Milner, Parrow and Walker, who also proved their characterisations in fragments of a modal logic (which we refer to as the MPW logic). Two important refinements of early and late bisimilarity, called open and quasi-open bisimilarity, respectively, were subsequently proposed by Sangiorgi and Walker. Horne, et. al., showed that open and quasi-bisimilarity are characterised by intuitionistic modal logics: OM (for open bisimilarity) and FM (for quasi-open bisimilarity). In this work, we attempt to unify the logical characterisations of these bisimilarity relations, showing that they can be characterised by different sublogics of a unifying logic. A key insight to this unification derives from a reformulation of the four bisimilarity relations (early, late, open and quasi-open) that uses an explicit name context, and an observation that these relations can be distinguished by the relative scoping of names and their instantiations in the name context. This name context and name substitution then give rise to an accessibility relation in the underlying Kripke semantics of our logic, that is captured logically by an S4-like modal operator. We then show that the MPW, the OM and the FM logics can be embedded into fragments of our unifying classical modal logic. In the case of OM and FM, the embedding uses the fact that intuitionistic implication can be encoded in modal logic S4
Behavioural Preorders on Stochastic Systems - Logical, Topological, and Computational Aspects
Computer systems can be found everywhere: in space, in our homes, in our
cars, in our pockets, and sometimes even in our own bodies. For concerns of
safety, economy, and convenience, it is important that such systems work
correctly. However, it is a notoriously difficult task to ensure that the
software running on computers behaves correctly.
One approach to ease this task is that of model checking, where a model of
the system is made using some mathematical formalism. Requirements expressed in
a formal language can then be verified against the model in order to give
guarantees that the model satisfies the requirements.
For many computer systems, time is an important factor. As such, we need our
formalisms and requirement languages to be able to incorporate real time.
We therefore develop formalisms and algorithms that allow us to compare and
express properties about real-time systems. We first introduce a logical
formalism for reasoning about upper and lower bounds on time, and study the
properties of this formalism, including axiomatisation and algorithms for
checking when a formula is satisfied.
We then consider the question of when a system is faster than another system.
We show that this is a difficult question which can not be answered in general,
but we identify special cases where this question can be answered. We also show
that under this notion of faster-than, a local increase in speed may lead to a
global decrease in speed, and we take step towards avoiding this.
Finally, we consider how to compare the real-time behaviour of systems not
just qualitatively, but also quantitatively. Thus, we are interested in knowing
how much one system is faster or slower than another system. This is done by
introducing a distance between systems. We show how to compute this distance
and that it behaves well with respect to certain properties.Comment: PhD dissertation from Aalborg Universit
Structural computation of alignments of business processes over partial orders
Relating event data and process models is becoming an important element for organizations. This paper presents a novel approach for aligning traces and process models. The approach is based on the structural theory of Petri nets (the marking equation), applied over an unfolding of the initial process model. Given an observed trace, the approach adopts an iterative optimization mechanism on top of the unfolding, computing at each iteration part of the resulting alignment. In contrast to the previous work that is primarily grounded in the marking equation, this approach is guaranteed to provide real solutions, and tries to mimic as much as possible the events observed in the trace. Experiments witness the significance of this approach both in quality and execution time perspectives.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
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