2,360 research outputs found
Fair Simulation for Nondeterministic and Probabilistic Buechi Automata: a Coalgebraic Perspective
Notions of simulation, among other uses, provide a computationally tractable
and sound (but not necessarily complete) proof method for language inclusion.
They have been comprehensively studied by Lynch and Vaandrager for
nondeterministic and timed systems; for B\"{u}chi automata the notion of fair
simulation has been introduced by Henzinger, Kupferman and Rajamani. We
contribute to a generalization of fair simulation in two different directions:
one for nondeterministic tree automata previously studied by Bomhard; and the
other for probabilistic word automata with finite state spaces, both under the
B\"{u}chi acceptance condition. The former nondeterministic definition is
formulated in terms of systems of fixed-point equations, hence is readily
translated to parity games and is then amenable to Jurdzi\'{n}ski's algorithm;
the latter probabilistic definition bears a strong ranking-function flavor.
These two different-looking definitions are derived from one source, namely our
coalgebraic modeling of B\"{u}chi automata. Based on these coalgebraic
observations, we also prove their soundness: a simulation indeed witnesses
language inclusion
The Origins of Computational Mechanics: A Brief Intellectual History and Several Clarifications
The principle goal of computational mechanics is to define pattern and
structure so that the organization of complex systems can be detected and
quantified. Computational mechanics developed from efforts in the 1970s and
early 1980s to identify strange attractors as the mechanism driving weak fluid
turbulence via the method of reconstructing attractor geometry from measurement
time series and in the mid-1980s to estimate equations of motion directly from
complex time series. In providing a mathematical and operational definition of
structure it addressed weaknesses of these early approaches to discovering
patterns in natural systems.
Since then, computational mechanics has led to a range of results from
theoretical physics and nonlinear mathematics to diverse applications---from
closed-form analysis of Markov and non-Markov stochastic processes that are
ergodic or nonergodic and their measures of information and intrinsic
computation to complex materials and deterministic chaos and intelligence in
Maxwellian demons to quantum compression of classical processes and the
evolution of computation and language.
This brief review clarifies several misunderstandings and addresses concerns
recently raised regarding early works in the field (1980s). We show that
misguided evaluations of the contributions of computational mechanics are
groundless and stem from a lack of familiarity with its basic goals and from a
failure to consider its historical context. For all practical purposes, its
modern methods and results largely supersede the early works. This not only
renders recent criticism moot and shows the solid ground on which computational
mechanics stands but, most importantly, shows the significant progress achieved
over three decades and points to the many intriguing and outstanding challenges
in understanding the computational nature of complex dynamic systems.Comment: 11 pages, 123 citations;
http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~cmg/compmech/pubs/cmr.ht
Proper Functors and Fixed Points for Finite Behaviour
The rational fixed point of a set functor is well-known to capture the
behaviour of finite coalgebras. In this paper we consider functors on algebraic
categories. For them the rational fixed point may no longer be fully abstract,
i.e. a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Inspired by \'Esik and Maletti's
notion of a proper semiring, we introduce the notion of a proper functor. We
show that for proper functors the rational fixed point is determined as the
colimit of all coalgebras with a free finitely generated algebra as carrier and
it is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Moreover, we prove that a functor
is proper if and only if that colimit is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra.
These results serve as technical tools for soundness and completeness proofs
for coalgebraic regular expression calculi, e.g. for weighted automata
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