42,577 research outputs found
Satisfiability in multi-valued circuits
Satisfiability of Boolean circuits is among the most known and important
problems in theoretical computer science. This problem is NP-complete in
general but becomes polynomial time when restricted either to monotone gates or
linear gates. We go outside Boolean realm and consider circuits built of any
fixed set of gates on an arbitrary large finite domain. From the complexity
point of view this is strictly connected with the problems of solving equations
(or systems of equations) over finite algebras.
The research reported in this work was motivated by a desire to know for
which finite algebras there is a polynomial time algorithm that
decides if an equation over has a solution. We are also looking for
polynomial time algorithms that decide if two circuits over a finite algebra
compute the same function. Although we have not managed to solve these problems
in the most general setting we have obtained such a characterization for a very
broad class of algebras from congruence modular varieties. This class includes
most known and well-studied algebras such as groups, rings, modules (and their
generalizations like quasigroups, loops, near-rings, nonassociative rings, Lie
algebras), lattices (and their extensions like Boolean algebras, Heyting
algebras or other algebras connected with multi-valued logics including
MV-algebras).
This paper seems to be the first systematic study of the computational
complexity of satisfiability of non-Boolean circuits and solving equations over
finite algebras. The characterization results provided by the paper is given in
terms of nice structural properties of algebras for which the problems are
solvable in polynomial time.Comment: 50 page
Quantum Algorithms for Boolean Equation Solving and Quantum Algebraic Attack on Cryptosystems
Decision of whether a Boolean equation system has a solution is an NPC
problem and finding a solution is NP hard. In this paper, we present a quantum
algorithm to decide whether a Boolean equation system FS has a solution and
compute one if FS does have solutions with any given success probability. The
runtime complexity of the algorithm is polynomial in the size of FS and the
condition number of FS. As a consequence, we give a polynomial-time quantum
algorithm for solving Boolean equation systems if their condition numbers are
small, say polynomial in the size of FS. We apply our quantum algorithm for
solving Boolean equations to the cryptanalysis of several important
cryptosystems: the stream cipher Trivum, the block cipher AES, the hash
function SHA-3/Keccak, and the multivariate public key cryptosystems, and show
that they are secure under quantum algebraic attack only if the condition
numbers of the corresponding equation systems are large. This leads to a new
criterion for designing cryptosystems that can against the attack of quantum
computers: their corresponding equation systems must have large condition
numbers
Invariant Generation through Strategy Iteration in Succinctly Represented Control Flow Graphs
We consider the problem of computing numerical invariants of programs, for
instance bounds on the values of numerical program variables. More
specifically, we study the problem of performing static analysis by abstract
interpretation using template linear constraint domains. Such invariants can be
obtained by Kleene iterations that are, in order to guarantee termination,
accelerated by widening operators. In many cases, however, applying this form
of extrapolation leads to invariants that are weaker than the strongest
inductive invariant that can be expressed within the abstract domain in use.
Another well-known source of imprecision of traditional abstract interpretation
techniques stems from their use of join operators at merge nodes in the control
flow graph. The mentioned weaknesses may prevent these methods from proving
safety properties. The technique we develop in this article addresses both of
these issues: contrary to Kleene iterations accelerated by widening operators,
it is guaranteed to yield the strongest inductive invariant that can be
expressed within the template linear constraint domain in use. It also eschews
join operators by distinguishing all paths of loop-free code segments. Formally
speaking, our technique computes the least fixpoint within a given template
linear constraint domain of a transition relation that is succinctly expressed
as an existentially quantified linear real arithmetic formula. In contrast to
previously published techniques that rely on quantifier elimination, our
algorithm is proved to have optimal complexity: we prove that the decision
problem associated with our fixpoint problem is in the second level of the
polynomial-time hierarchy.Comment: 35 pages, conference version published at ESOP 2011, this version is
a CoRR version of our submission to Logical Methods in Computer Scienc
On Algorithms and Complexity for Sets with Cardinality Constraints
Typestate systems ensure many desirable properties of imperative programs,
including initialization of object fields and correct use of stateful library
interfaces. Abstract sets with cardinality constraints naturally generalize
typestate properties: relationships between the typestates of objects can be
expressed as subset and disjointness relations on sets, and elements of sets
can be represented as sets of cardinality one. Motivated by these applications,
this paper presents new algorithms and new complexity results for constraints
on sets and their cardinalities. We study several classes of constraints and
demonstrate a trade-off between their expressive power and their complexity.
Our first result concerns a quantifier-free fragment of Boolean Algebra with
Presburger Arithmetic. We give a nondeterministic polynomial-time algorithm for
reducing the satisfiability of sets with symbolic cardinalities to constraints
on constant cardinalities, and give a polynomial-space algorithm for the
resulting problem.
In a quest for more efficient fragments, we identify several subclasses of
sets with cardinality constraints whose satisfiability is NP-hard. Finally, we
identify a class of constraints that has polynomial-time satisfiability and
entailment problems and can serve as a foundation for efficient program
analysis.Comment: 20 pages. 12 figure
Tricritical Points in Random Combinatorics: the (2+p)-SAT case
The (2+p)-Satisfiability (SAT) problem interpolates between different classes
of complexity theory and is believed to be of basic interest in understanding
the onset of typical case complexity in random combinatorics. In this paper, a
tricritical point in the phase diagram of the random -SAT problem is
analytically computed using the replica approach and found to lie in the range
. These bounds on are in agreement with previous
numerical simulations and rigorous results.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX, to appear in J.Phys.
Boolean Delay Equations: A simple way of looking at complex systems
Boolean Delay Equations (BDEs) are semi-discrete dynamical models with
Boolean-valued variables that evolve in continuous time. Systems of BDEs can be
classified into conservative or dissipative, in a manner that parallels the
classification of ordinary or partial differential equations. Solutions to
certain conservative BDEs exhibit growth of complexity in time. They represent
therewith metaphors for biological evolution or human history. Dissipative BDEs
are structurally stable and exhibit multiple equilibria and limit cycles, as
well as more complex, fractal solution sets, such as Devil's staircases and
``fractal sunbursts``. All known solutions of dissipative BDEs have stationary
variance. BDE systems of this type, both free and forced, have been used as
highly idealized models of climate change on interannual, interdecadal and
paleoclimatic time scales. BDEs are also being used as flexible, highly
efficient models of colliding cascades in earthquake modeling and prediction,
as well as in genetics. In this paper we review the theory of systems of BDEs
and illustrate their applications to climatic and solid earth problems. The
former have used small systems of BDEs, while the latter have used large
networks of BDEs. We moreover introduce BDEs with an infinite number of
variables distributed in space (``partial BDEs``) and discuss connections with
other types of dynamical systems, including cellular automata and Boolean
networks. This research-and-review paper concludes with a set of open
questions.Comment: Latex, 67 pages with 15 eps figures. Revised version, in particular
the discussion on partial BDEs is updated and enlarge
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