242,863 research outputs found
An interactive semantics of logic programming
We apply to logic programming some recently emerging ideas from the field of
reduction-based communicating systems, with the aim of giving evidence of the
hidden interactions and the coordination mechanisms that rule the operational
machinery of such a programming paradigm. The semantic framework we have chosen
for presenting our results is tile logic, which has the advantage of allowing a
uniform treatment of goals and observations and of applying abstract
categorical tools for proving the results. As main contributions, we mention
the finitary presentation of abstract unification, and a concurrent and
coordinated abstract semantics consistent with the most common semantics of
logic programming. Moreover, the compositionality of the tile semantics is
guaranteed by standard results, as it reduces to check that the tile systems
associated to logic programs enjoy the tile decomposition property. An
extension of the approach for handling constraint systems is also discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 24 figure, 3 tables, to appear in the CUP journal of Theory
and Practice of Logic Programmin
Structured Operational Semantics for Graph Rewriting
Process calculi and graph transformation systems provide models of reactive
systems with labelled transition semantics. While the semantics for process
calculi is compositional, this is not the case for graph transformation
systems, in general. Hence, the goal of this article is to obtain a
compositional semantics for graph transformation system in analogy to the
structural operational semantics (SOS) for Milner's Calculus of Communicating
Systems (CCS).
The paper introduces an SOS style axiomatization of the standard labelled
transition semantics for graph transformation systems. The first result is its
equivalence with the so-called Borrowed Context technique. Unfortunately, the
axiomatization is not compositional in the expected manner as no rule captures
"internal" communication of sub-systems. The main result states that such a
rule is derivable if the given graph transformation system enjoys a certain
property, which we call "complementarity of actions". Archetypal examples of
such systems are interaction nets. We also discuss problems that arise if
"complementarity of actions" is violated.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2011, arXiv:1108.014
Communicating answer set programs
Answer set programming i s a form of declarative programming that has proven very successful in succinctly formulating and solving complex problems. Although mechanisms for representing and reasoning with the combined answer set programs of multiple agents have already been proposed, the actual gain in expressivity when adding communication has not been thoroughly studied. We show that allowing simple programs to talk to each other results in the same expressivity as adding negation-as-failure. Furthermore, we show that the ability to focus on one program in a network of simple programs results in the same expressivity as adding disjunction in the head of the rules
Catalytic and communicating Petri nets are Turing complete
In most studies about the expressiveness of Petri nets, the focus has been put either on adding suitable arcs or on assuring that a complete snapshot of the system can be obtained. While the former still complies with the intuition on Petri nets, the second is somehow an orthogonal approach, as Petri nets are distributed in nature. Here, inspired by membrane computing, we study some classes of Petri nets where the distribution is partially kept and which are still Turing complete
Generalized Communicating P Systems Working in Fair Sequential Model
In this article we consider a new derivation mode for generalized
communicating P systems (GCPS) corresponding to the functioning of population
protocols (PP) and based on the sequential derivation mode and a fairness
condition. We show that PP can be seen as a particular variant of GCPS. We also
consider a particular stochastic evolution satisfying the fairness condition
and obtain that it corresponds to the run of a Gillespie's SSA. This permits to
further describe the dynamics of GCPS by a system of ODEs when the population
size goes to the infinity.Comment: Presented at MeCBIC 201
Formal Modeling of Connectionism using Concurrency Theory, an Approach Based on Automata and Model Checking
This paper illustrates a framework for applying formal methods techniques, which are symbolic in nature, to specifying and verifying neural networks, which are sub-symbolic in nature. The paper describes a communicating automata [Bowman & Gomez, 2006] model of neural networks. We also implement the model using timed automata [Alur & Dill, 1994] and then undertake a verification of these models using the model checker Uppaal [Pettersson, 2000] in order to evaluate the performance of learning algorithms. This paper also presents discussion of a number of broad issues concerning cognitive neuroscience and the debate as to whether symbolic processing or connectionism is a suitable representation of cognitive systems. Additionally, the issue of integrating symbolic techniques, such as formal methods, with complex neural networks is discussed. We then argue that symbolic verifications may give theoretically well-founded ways to evaluate and justify neural learning systems in the field of both theoretical research and real world applications
TRACTABLE DATA-FLOW ANALYSIS FOR DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Automated behavior analysis is a valuable technique in the development and maintainence of distributed systems. In this paper, we present a tractable dataflow analysis technique for the detection of unreachable states and actions in distributed systems. The technique follows an approximate approach described by Reif and Smolka, but delivers a more accurate result in assessing unreachable states and actions. The higher accuracy is achieved by the use of two concepts: action dependency and history sets. Although the technique, does not exhaustively detect all possible errors, it detects nontrivial errors with a worst-case complexity quadratic to the system size. It can be automated and applied to systems with arbitrary loops and nondeterministic structures. The technique thus provides practical and tractable behavior analysis for preliminary designs of distributed systems. This makes it an ideal candidate for an interactive checker in software development tools. The technique is illustrated with case studies of a pump control system and an erroneous distributed program. Results from a prototype implementation are presented
Safety verification of asynchronous pushdown systems with shaped stacks
In this paper, we study the program-point reachability problem of concurrent
pushdown systems that communicate via unbounded and unordered message buffers.
Our goal is to relax the common restriction that messages can only be retrieved
by a pushdown process when its stack is empty. We use the notion of partially
commutative context-free grammars to describe a new class of asynchronously
communicating pushdown systems with a mild shape constraint on the stacks for
which the program-point coverability problem remains decidable. Stacks that fit
the shape constraint may reach arbitrary heights; further a process may execute
any communication action (be it process creation, message send or retrieval)
whether or not its stack is empty. This class extends previous computational
models studied in the context of asynchronous programs, and enables the safety
verification of a large class of message passing programs
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