A Type Inference Algorithm for Secure Ambients

We consider a type discipline for the Ambient Calculus that associates ambients with security levels and constrains them to be traversed by or opened in ambients of higher security clearance only. We present a bottom-up algorithm that, given an untyped process $P$, computes a minimal set of constraints on security levels such that all actions during runs of $P$ are performed without violating the security level priorities. Such an algorithm appears to be a prerequisite to use type systems to ensure security properties in the web scenario

An Algebraic Framework for Compositional Program Analysis

The purpose of a program analysis is to compute an abstract meaning for a program which approximates its dynamic behaviour. A compositional program analysis accomplishes this task with a divide-and-conquer strategy: the meaning of a program is computed by dividing it into sub-programs, computing their meaning, and then combining the results. Compositional program analyses are desirable because they can yield scalable (and easily parallelizable) program analyses. This paper presents algebraic framework for designing, implementing, and proving the correctness of compositional program analyses. A program analysis in our framework defined by an algebraic structure equipped with sequencing, choice, and iteration operations. From the analysis design perspective, a particularly interesting consequence of this is that the meaning of a loop is computed by applying the iteration operator to the loop body. This style of compositional loop analysis can yield interesting ways of computing loop invariants that cannot be defined iteratively. We identify a class of algorithms, the so-called path-expression algorithms [Tarjan1981,Scholz2007], which can be used to efficiently implement analyses in our framework. Lastly, we develop a theory for proving the correctness of an analysis by establishing an approximation relationship between an algebra defining a concrete semantics and an algebra defining an analysis.Comment: 15 page

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 $\mathbf A$ there is a polynomial time algorithm that decides if an equation over $\mathbf A$ 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

Coinduction up to in a fibrational setting

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 modelled as coalgebras. By tuning the parameters of our framework, we obtain novel techniques for unary predicates and nominal automata, a variant of the GSOS rule format for similarity, and a new categorical treatment of weak bisimilarity

PSPACE Bounds for Rank-1 Modal Logics

For lack of general algorithmic methods that apply to wide classes of logics, establishing a complexity bound for a given modal logic is often a laborious task. The present work is a step towards a general theory of the complexity of modal logics. Our main result is that all rank-1 logics enjoy a shallow model property and thus are, under mild assumptions on the format of their axiomatisation, in PSPACE. This leads to a unified derivation of tight PSPACE-bounds for a number of logics including K, KD, coalition logic, graded modal logic, majority logic, and probabilistic modal logic. Our generic algorithm moreover finds tableau proofs that witness pleasant proof-theoretic properties including a weak subformula property. This generality is made possible by a coalgebraic semantics, which conveniently abstracts from the details of a given model class and thus allows covering a broad range of logics in a uniform way