1,181 research outputs found
Near-Optimal Scheduling for LTL with Future Discounting
We study the search problem for optimal schedulers for the linear temporal
logic (LTL) with future discounting. The logic, introduced by Almagor, Boker
and Kupferman, is a quantitative variant of LTL in which an event in the far
future has only discounted contribution to a truth value (that is a real number
in the unit interval [0, 1]). The precise problem we study---it naturally
arises e.g. in search for a scheduler that recovers from an internal error
state as soon as possible---is the following: given a Kripke frame, a formula
and a number in [0, 1] called a margin, find a path of the Kripke frame that is
optimal with respect to the formula up to the prescribed margin (a truly
optimal path may not exist). We present an algorithm for the problem; it works
even in the extended setting with propositional quality operators, a setting
where (threshold) model-checking is known to be undecidable
Varieties of Cognitive Integration
Extended cognition theorists argue that cognitive processes constitutively depend on resources that are neither organically composed, nor located inside the bodily boundaries of the agent, provided certain conditions on the integration of those processes into the agent’s cognitive architecture are met. Epistemologists, however, worry that in so far as such cognitively integrated processes are epistemically relevant, agents could thus come to enjoy an untoward explosion of knowledge. This paper develops and defends an approach to cognitive integration—cluster-model functionalism—which finds application in both domains of inquiry, and which meets the challenge posed by putative cases of cognitive or epistemic bloat
Pure Nash Equilibria in Concurrent Deterministic Games
We study pure-strategy Nash equilibria in multi-player concurrent
deterministic games, for a variety of preference relations. We provide a novel
construction, called the suspect game, which transforms a multi-player
concurrent game into a two-player turn-based game which turns Nash equilibria
into winning strategies (for some objective that depends on the preference
relations of the players in the original game). We use that transformation to
design algorithms for computing Nash equilibria in finite games, which in most
cases have optimal worst-case complexity, for large classes of preference
relations. This includes the purely qualitative framework, where each player
has a single omega-regular objective that she wants to satisfy, but also the
larger class of semi-quantitative objectives, where each player has several
omega-regular objectives equipped with a preorder (for instance, a player may
want to satisfy all her objectives, or to maximise the number of objectives
that she achieves.)Comment: 72 page
Finite-State Abstractions for Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic
Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic (PCTL) is the established temporal
logic for probabilistic verification of discrete-time Markov chains. Probabilistic
model checking is a technique that verifies or refutes whether a property
specified in this logic holds in a Markov chain. But Markov chains are often
infinite or too large for this technique to apply. A standard solution to
this problem is to convert the Markov chain to an abstract model and to
model check that abstract model. The problem this thesis therefore studies
is whether or when such finite abstractions of Markov chains for model
checking PCTL exist.
This thesis makes the following contributions. We identify a sizeable fragment
of PCTL for which 3-valued Markov chains can serve as finite abstractions;
this fragment is maximal for those abstractions and subsumes many
practically relevant specifications including, e.g., reachability. We also develop
game-theoretic foundations for the semantics of PCTL over Markov
chains by capturing the standard PCTL semantics via a two-player games.
These games, finally, inspire a notion of p-automata, which accept entire
Markov chains. We show that p-automata subsume PCTL and Markov
chains; that their languages of Markov chains have pleasant closure properties;
and that the complexity of deciding acceptance matches that of probabilistic
model checking for p-automata representing PCTL formulae. In addition,
we offer a simulation between p-automata that under-approximates
language containment. These results then allow us to show that p-automata
comprise a solution to the problem studied in this thesis
Fixpoint Games on Continuous Lattices
Many analysis and verifications tasks, such as static program analyses and
model-checking for temporal logics reduce to the solution of systems of
equations over suitable lattices. Inspired by recent work on lattice-theoretic
progress measures, we develop a game-theoretical approach to the solution of
systems of monotone equations over lattices, where for each single equation
either the least or greatest solution is taken. A simple parity game, referred
to as fixpoint game, is defined that provides a correct and complete
characterisation of the solution of equation systems over continuous lattices,
a quite general class of lattices widely used in semantics. For powerset
lattices the fixpoint game is intimately connected with classical parity games
for -calculus model-checking, whose solution can exploit as a key tool
Jurdzi\'nski's small progress measures. We show how the notion of progress
measure can be naturally generalised to fixpoint games over continuous lattices
and we prove the existence of small progress measures. Our results lead to a
constructive formulation of progress measures as (least) fixpoints. We refine
this characterisation by introducing the notion of selection that allows one to
constrain the plays in the parity game, enabling an effective (and possibly
efficient) solution of the game, and thus of the associated verification
problem. We also propose a logic for specifying the moves of the existential
player that can be used to systematically derive simplified equations for
efficiently computing progress measures. We discuss potential applications to
the model-checking of latticed -calculi and to the solution of fixpoint
equations systems over the reals
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