A Galois connection between Turing jumps and limits

Limit computable functions can be characterized by Turing jumps on the input side or limits on the output side. As a monad of this pair of adjoint operations we obtain a problem that characterizes the low functions and dually to this another problem that characterizes the functions that are computable relative to the halting problem. Correspondingly, these two classes are the largest classes of functions that can be pre or post composed to limit computable functions without leaving the class of limit computable functions. We transfer these observations to the lattice of represented spaces where it leads to a formal Galois connection. We also formulate a version of this result for computable metric spaces. Limit computability and computability relative to the halting problem are notions that coincide for points and sequences, but even restricted to continuous functions the former class is strictly larger than the latter. On computable metric spaces we can characterize the functions that are computable relative to the halting problem as those functions that are limit computable with a modulus of continuity that is computable relative to the halting problem. As a consequence of this result we obtain, for instance, that Lipschitz continuous functions that are limit computable are automatically computable relative to the halting problem. We also discuss 1-generic points as the canonical points of continuity of limit computable functions, and we prove that restricted to these points limit computable functions are computable relative to the halting problem. Finally, we demonstrate how these results can be applied in computable analysis

Implementation relations for testing through asynchronous channels

This paper concerns testing from an input output transition system (IOTS) model of a system under test that interacts with its environment through asynchronous first in first out (FIFO) channels. It explores methods for analysing an IOTS without modelling the channels. If IOTS M produces sequence $\sigma$ then, since communications are asynchronous, output can be delayed and so a different sequence might be observed. Thus M defines a language Tr(M) of sequences that can be observed when interacting with M through FIFO channels. We define implementation relations and equivalences in terms of Tr(M): an implementation relation says how IOTS N must relate to IOTS M in order for N to be a correct implementation of M. It is important to use an appropriate implementation relation since otherwise the verdict from a test run might be incorrect and because it influences test generation. It is undecidable whether IOTS N conforms to IOTS M and so also whether there is a test case that can distinguish between two IOTSs. We also investigate the situation in which we have a finite automaton P and either wish to know whether $Tr(M) \cap L(P)$ is empty or whether Tr(M) \cap \tr(P) is empty and prove that these are undecidable. In addition, we give conditions under which conformance and intersection are decidable.This work was partially supported by EPSRC grant EP/G04354X/1:The Birth, Life and Death of Semantic Mutants

Verification of PCP-Related Computational Reductions in Coq

We formally verify several computational reductions concerning the Post correspondence problem (PCP) using the proof assistant Coq. Our verifications include a reduction of a string rewriting problem generalising the halting problem for Turing machines to PCP, and reductions of PCP to the intersection problem and the palindrome problem for context-free grammars. Interestingly, rigorous correctness proofs for some of the reductions are missing in the literature