14 research outputs found
Weak Similarity in Higher-Order Mathematical Operational Semantics
Higher-order abstract GSOS is a recent extension of Turi and Plotkin's
framework of Mathematical Operational Semantics to higher-order languages. The
fundamental well-behavedness property of all specifications within the
framework is that coalgebraic strong (bi)similarity on their operational model
is a congruence. In the present work, we establish a corresponding congruence
theorem for weak similarity, which is shown to instantiate to well-known
concepts such as Abramsky's applicative similarity for the lambda-calculus. On
the way, we develop several techniques of independent interest at the level of
abstract categories, including relation liftings of mixed-variance bifunctors
and higher-order GSOS laws, as well as Howe's method
Coalgebra for the working software engineer
Often referred to as ‘the mathematics of dynamical, state-based systems’, Coalgebra claims to provide a compositional and uniform framework to spec ify, analyse and reason about state and behaviour in computing. This paper addresses this claim by discussing why Coalgebra matters for the design of models and logics for computational phenomena. To a great extent, in this domain one is interested in properties that are preserved along the system’s evolution, the so-called ‘business rules’ or system’s invariants, as well as in liveness requirements, stating that e.g. some desirable outcome will be eventually produced. Both classes are examples of modal assertions, i.e. properties that are to be interpreted across a transition system capturing the system’s dynamics. The relevance of modal reasoning in computing is witnessed by the fact that most university syllabi in the area include some incursion into modal logic, in particular in its temporal variants. The novelty is that, as it happens with the notions of transition, behaviour, or observational equivalence, modalities in Coalgebra acquire a shape . That is, they become parametric on whatever type of behaviour, and corresponding coinduction scheme, seems appropriate for addressing the problem at hand. In this context, the paper revisits Coalgebra from a computational perspective, focussing on three topics central to software design: how systems are modelled, how models are composed, and finally, how properties of their behaviours can be expressed and verified.Fuzziness, as a way to express imprecision, or uncertainty, in computation is an important feature in a number of current application scenarios: from hybrid systems interfacing with sensor networks with error boundaries, to knowledge bases collecting data from often non-coincident human experts. Their abstraction in e.g. fuzzy transition systems led to a number of mathematical structures to model this sort of systems and reason about them. This paper adds two more elements to this family: two modal logics, framed as institutions, to reason about fuzzy transition systems and the corresponding processes. This paves the way to the development, in the second part of the paper, of an associated theory of structured specification for fuzzy computational systems
Abstract Congruence Criteria for Weak Bisimilarity
We introduce three general compositionality criteria over operational
semantics and prove that, when all three are satisfied together, they guarantee
weak bisimulation being a congruence. Our work is founded upon Turi and
Plotkin's mathematical operational semantics and the coalgebraic approach to
weak bisimulation by Brengos. We demonstrate each criterion with various
examples of success and failure and establish a formal connection with the
simply WB cool rule format of Bloom and van Glabbeek. In addition, we show that
the three criteria induce lax models in the sense of Bonchi et al
Up-to Techniques for Branching Bisimilarity
Ever since the introduction of behavioral equivalences on processes one has
been searching for efficient proof techniques that accompany those
equivalences. Both strong bisimilarity and weak bisimilarity are accompanied by
an arsenal of up-to techniques: enhancements of their proof methods. For
branching bisimilarity, these results have not been established yet. We show
that a powerful proof technique is sound for branching bisimilarity by
combining the three techniques of up to union, up to expansion and up to
context for Bloom's BB cool format. We then make an initial proposal for
casting the correctness proof of the up to context technique in an abstract
coalgebraic setting, covering branching but also {\eta}, delay and weak
bisimilarity
Behavioural equivalences for timed systems
Timed transition systems are behavioural models that include an explicit
treatment of time flow and are used to formalise the semantics of several
foundational process calculi and automata. Despite their relevance, a general
mathematical characterisation of timed transition systems and their behavioural
theory is still missing. We introduce the first uniform framework for timed
behavioural models that encompasses known behavioural equivalences such as
timed bisimulations, timed language equivalences as well as their weak and
time-abstract counterparts. All these notions of equivalences are naturally
organised by their discriminating power in a spectrum. We prove that this
result does not depend on the type of the systems under scrutiny: it holds for
any generalisation of timed transition system. We instantiate our framework to
timed transition systems and their quantitative extensions such as timed
probabilistic systems
Up-To Techniques for Behavioural Metrics via Fibrations
Up-to techniques are a well-known method for enhancing coinductive proofs of behavioural equivalences. We introduce up-to techniques for behavioural metrics between systems modelled as coalgebras and we provide abstract results to prove their soundness in a compositional way.
In order to obtain a general framework, we need a systematic way to lift functors: we show that the Wasserstein lifting of a functor, introduced in a previous work, corresponds to a change of base in a fibrational sense. This observation enables us to reuse existing results about soundness of up-to techniques in a fibrational setting. We focus on the fibrations of predicates and relations valued in a quantale, for which pseudo-metric spaces are an example. To illustrate our approach we provide an example on distances between regular languages
A general account of coinduction up-to
Bisimulation up-to enhances the coinductive proof method for bisimilarity, providing efficient proof techniques for checking properties of different kinds of systems. We prove the soundness of such techniques in a fibrational setting, building on the seminal work of Hermida and Jacobs. This allows us to systematically obtain up-to techniques not only for bisimilarity but for a large class of coinductive predicates modeled as coalgebras. The fact that bisimulations up to context can be safely used in any language specified by GSOS rules can also be seen as an instance of our framework, using the well-known observation by Turi and Plotkin that such languages form bialgebras. In the second part of the paper, we provide a new categorical treatment of weak bisimilarity on labeled transition systems and we prove the soundness of up-to context for weak bisimulations of systems specified by cool rule formats, as defined by Bloom to ensure congruence of weak bisimilarity. The weak transition systems obtained from such cool rules give rise to lax bialgebras, rather than to bialgebras. Hence, to reach our goal, we extend the categorical framework developed in the first part to an ordered setting
A General Account of Coinduction Up-To
International audienceBisimulation up-to enhances the coinductive proof method for bisimilarity, providing efficient proof techniques for checking properties of different kinds of systems. We prove the soundness of such techniques in a fibrational setting, building on the seminal work of Hermida and Jacobs. This allows us to systematically obtain up-to techniques not only for bisimilarity but for a large class of coinductive predicates modeled as coalgebras. The fact that bisimulations up to context can be safely used in any language specified by GSOS rules can also be seen as an instance of our framework, using the well-known observation by Turi and Plotkin that such languages form bialgebras. In the second part of the paper, we provide a new categorical treatment of weak bisimilarity on labeled transition systems and we prove the soundness of up-to context for weak bisimulations of systems specified by cool rule formats, as defined by Bloom to ensure congruence of weak bisimilarity. The weak transition systems obtained from such cool rules give rise to lax bialgebras, rather than to bialgebras. Hence, to reach our goal, we extend the categorical framework developed in the first part to an ordered setting
Enhanced Coalgebraic Bisimulation
International audienceWe present a systematic study of bisimulation-up-to techniques for coalgebras. This enhances the bisimulation proof method for a large class of state based systems, including labelled transition systems but also stream systems and weighted automata. Our approach allows for compositional reasoning about the soundness of enhancements. Applications include the soundness of bisimulation up to bisimilarity, up to equivalence and up to congruence. All in all, this gives a powerful and modular framework for simplified coinductive proofs of equivalence
Lax Bialgebras and Up-To Techniques for Weak Bisimulations
International audienceUp-to techniques are useful tools for optimising proofs of behavioural equivalence of processes.Bisimulations up-to context can be safely used in any language specified by GSOS rules. Weshowed this result in a previous paper by exploiting the well-known observation by Turi andPlotkin that such languages form bialgebras. In this paper, we prove the soundness of up-tocontextual closure for weak bisimulations of systems specified by cool rule formats, as defined byBloom to ensure congruence of weak bisimilarity. However, the weak transition systems obtainedfrom such cool rules give rise to lax bialgebras, rather than to bialgebras. Hence, to reach ourgoal, we extend our previously developed categorical framework to an ordered setting