Model Checking Synchronized Products of Infinite Transition Systems

Formal verification using the model checking paradigm has to deal with two aspects: The system models are structured, often as products of components, and the specification logic has to be expressive enough to allow the formalization of reachability properties. The present paper is a study on what can be achieved for infinite transition systems under these premises. As models we consider products of infinite transition systems with different synchronization constraints. We introduce finitely synchronized transition systems, i.e. product systems which contain only finitely many (parameterized) synchronized transitions, and show that the decidability of FO(R), first-order logic extended by reachability predicates, of the product system can be reduced to the decidability of FO(R) of the components. This result is optimal in the following sense: (1) If we allow semifinite synchronization, i.e. just in one component infinitely many transitions are synchronized, the FO(R)-theory of the product system is in general undecidable. (2) We cannot extend the expressive power of the logic under consideration. Already a weak extension of first-order logic with transitive closure, where we restrict the transitive closure operators to arity one and nesting depth two, is undecidable for an asynchronous (and hence finitely synchronized) product, namely for the infinite grid.Comment: 18 page

Model checking synchronized products of infinite transition systems

Abstract. Formal verification using the model checking paradigm has to deal with two aspects: The system models are structured, often as products of components, and the specification logic has to be expressive enough to allow the formalization of reachability properties. The present paper is a study on what can be achieved for infinite transition systems under these premises. As models we consider products of infinite transition systems with different synchronization constraints. We introduce finitely synchronized transition systems, i.e. product systems which contain only finitely many (parameterized) synchronized transitions, and show that the decidability of FO(R), first-order logic extended by reachability predicates, of the product system can be reduced to the decidability of FO(R) of the components. This result is optimal in the following sense: (1) If we allow semifinite synchronization, i.e. just in one component infinitely many transitions are synchronized, the FO(R)-theory of the product system is in general undecidable. (2) We cannot extend the expressive power of the logic under consideration. Already a weak extension of firstorder logic with transitive closure, where we restrict the transitive closure operators to arity one and nesting depth two, is undecidable for an asynchronous (and hence finitely synchronized) product, namely for the infinite grid. 1

The First-Order Theory of Ground Tree Rewrite Graphs

We prove that the complexity of the uniform first-order theory of ground tree rewrite graphs is in ATIME(2^{2^{poly(n)}},O(n)). Providing a matching lower bound, we show that there is some fixed ground tree rewrite graph whose first-order theory is hard for ATIME(2^{2^{poly(n)}},poly(n)) with respect to logspace reductions. Finally, we prove that there exists a fixed ground tree rewrite graph together with a single unary predicate in form of a regular tree language such that the resulting structure has a non-elementary first-order theory.Comment: accepted for Logical Methods in Computer Scienc

On Descriptive Complexity, Language Complexity, and GB

We introduce $L^2_{K,P}$, a monadic second-order language for reasoning about trees which characterizes the strongly Context-Free Languages in the sense that a set of finite trees is definable in $L^2_{K,P}$ iff it is (modulo a projection) a Local Set---the set of derivation trees generated by a CFG. This provides a flexible approach to establishing language-theoretic complexity results for formalisms that are based on systems of well-formedness constraints on trees. We demonstrate this technique by sketching two such results for Government and Binding Theory. First, we show that {\em free-indexation\/}, the mechanism assumed to mediate a variety of agreement and binding relationships in GB, is not definable in $L^2_{K,P}$ and therefore not enforcible by CFGs. Second, we show how, in spite of this limitation, a reasonably complete GB account of English can be defined in $L^2_{K,P}$. Consequently, the language licensed by that account is strongly context-free. We illustrate some of the issues involved in establishing this result by looking at the definition, in $L^2_{K,P}$, of chains. The limitations of this definition provide some insight into the types of natural linguistic principles that correspond to higher levels of language complexity. We close with some speculation on the possible significance of these results for generative linguistics.Comment: To appear in Specifying Syntactic Structures, papers from the Logic, Structures, and Syntax workshop, Amsterdam, Sept. 1994. LaTeX source with nine included postscript figure

A Logic of Reachable Patterns in Linked Data-Structures

We define a new decidable logic for expressing and checking invariants of programs that manipulate dynamically-allocated objects via pointers and destructive pointer updates. The main feature of this logic is the ability to limit the neighborhood of a node that is reachable via a regular expression from a designated node. The logic is closed under boolean operations (entailment, negation) and has a finite model property. The key technical result is the proof of decidability. We show how to express precondition, postconditions, and loop invariants for some interesting programs. It is also possible to express properties such as disjointness of data-structures, and low-level heap mutations. Moreover, our logic can express properties of arbitrary data-structures and of an arbitrary number of pointer fields. The latter provides a way to naturally specify postconditions that relate the fields on entry to a procedure to the fields on exit. Therefore, it is possible to use the logic to automatically prove partial correctness of programs performing low-level heap mutations

Computational Processes and Incompleteness

We introduce a formal definition of Wolfram's notion of computational process based on cellular automata, a physics-like model of computation. There is a natural classification of these processes into decidable, intermediate and complete. It is shown that in the context of standard finite injury priority arguments one cannot establish the existence of an intermediate computational process

Parameterized Model-Checking for Timed-Systems with Conjunctive Guards (Extended Version)

In this work we extend the Emerson and Kahlon's cutoff theorems for process skeletons with conjunctive guards to Parameterized Networks of Timed Automata, i.e. systems obtained by an \emph{apriori} unknown number of Timed Automata instantiated from a finite set $U_1, \dots, U_n$ of Timed Automata templates. In this way we aim at giving a tool to universally verify software systems where an unknown number of software components (i.e. processes) interact with continuous time temporal constraints. It is often the case, indeed, that distributed algorithms show an heterogeneous nature, combining dynamic aspects with real-time aspects. In the paper we will also show how to model check a protocol that uses special variables storing identifiers of the participating processes (i.e. PIDs) in Timed Automata with conjunctive guards. This is non-trivial, since solutions to the parameterized verification problem often relies on the processes to be symmetric, i.e. indistinguishable. On the other side, many popular distributed algorithms make use of PIDs and thus cannot directly apply those solutions

Collapsible Pushdown Graphs of Level 2 are Tree-Automatic

We show that graphs generated by collapsible pushdown systems of level 2 are tree-automatic. Even when we allow $\epsilon$-contractions and add a reachability predicate (with regular constraints) for pairs of configurations, the structures remain tree-automatic. Hence, their FO theories are decidable, even when expanded by a reachability predicate. As a corollary, we obtain the tree-automaticity of the second level of the Caucal-hierarchy.Comment: 12 pages Accepted for STACS 201

An Optimal Decision Procedure for MPNL over the Integers

Interval temporal logics provide a natural framework for qualitative and quantitative temporal reason- ing over interval structures, where the truth of formulae is defined over intervals rather than points. In this paper, we study the complexity of the satisfiability problem for Metric Propositional Neigh- borhood Logic (MPNL). MPNL features two modalities to access intervals "to the left" and "to the right" of the current one, respectively, plus an infinite set of length constraints. MPNL, interpreted over the naturals, has been recently shown to be decidable by a doubly exponential procedure. We improve such a result by proving that MPNL is actually EXPSPACE-complete (even when length constraints are encoded in binary), when interpreted over finite structures, the naturals, and the in- tegers, by developing an EXPSPACE decision procedure for MPNL over the integers, which can be easily tailored to finite linear orders and the naturals (EXPSPACE-hardness was already known).Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081