77,176 research outputs found
Counterfactuals and Explanatory Pluralism
Recent literature on non-causal explanation raises the question as to whether explanatory monism, the thesis that all explanations submit to the same analysis, is true. The leading monist proposal holds that all explanations support change-relating counterfactuals. We provide several objections to this monist position. 1Introduction2Change-Relating Monism's Three Problems3Dependency and Monism: Unhappy Together4Another Challenge: Counterfactual Incidentalism4.1High-grade necessity4.2Unity in diversity5Conclusio
Using ACL2 to Verify Loop Pipelining in Behavioral Synthesis
Behavioral synthesis involves compiling an Electronic System-Level (ESL)
design into its Register-Transfer Level (RTL) implementation. Loop pipelining
is one of the most critical and complex transformations employed in behavioral
synthesis. Certifying the loop pipelining algorithm is challenging because
there is a huge semantic gap between the input sequential design and the output
pipelined implementation making it infeasible to verify their equivalence with
automated sequential equivalence checking techniques. We discuss our ongoing
effort using ACL2 to certify loop pipelining transformation. The completion of
the proof is work in progress. However, some of the insights developed so far
may already be of value to the ACL2 community. In particular, we discuss the
key invariant we formalized, which is very different from that used in most
pipeline proofs. We discuss the needs for this invariant, its formalization in
ACL2, and our envisioned proof using the invariant. We also discuss some
trade-offs, challenges, and insights developed in course of the project.Comment: In Proceedings ACL2 2014, arXiv:1406.123
Effective Choice and Boundedness Principles in Computable Analysis
In this paper we study a new approach to classify mathematical theorems
according to their computational content. Basically, we are asking the question
which theorems can be continuously or computably transferred into each other?
For this purpose theorems are considered via their realizers which are
operations with certain input and output data. The technical tool to express
continuous or computable relations between such operations is Weihrauch
reducibility and the partially ordered degree structure induced by it. We have
identified certain choice principles which are cornerstones among Weihrauch
degrees and it turns out that certain core theorems in analysis can be
classified naturally in this structure. In particular, we study theorems such
as the Intermediate Value Theorem, the Baire Category Theorem, the Banach
Inverse Mapping Theorem and others. We also explore how existing
classifications of the Hahn-Banach Theorem and Weak K"onig's Lemma fit into
this picture. We compare the results of our classification with existing
classifications in constructive and reverse mathematics and we claim that in a
certain sense our classification is finer and sheds some new light on the
computational content of the respective theorems. We develop a number of
separation techniques based on a new parallelization principle, on certain
invariance properties of Weihrauch reducibility, on the Low Basis Theorem of
Jockusch and Soare and based on the Baire Category Theorem. Finally, we present
a number of metatheorems that allow to derive upper bounds for the
classification of the Weihrauch degree of many theorems and we discuss the
Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem as an example
Classical simulation complexity of extended Clifford circuits
Clifford gates are a winsome class of quantum operations combining
mathematical elegance with physical significance. The Gottesman-Knill theorem
asserts that Clifford computations can be classically efficiently simulated but
this is true only in a suitably restricted setting. Here we consider Clifford
computations with a variety of additional ingredients: (a) strong vs. weak
simulation, (b) inputs being computational basis states vs. general product
states, (c) adaptive vs. non-adaptive choices of gates for circuits involving
intermediate measurements, (d) single line outputs vs. multi-line outputs. We
consider the classical simulation complexity of all combinations of these
ingredients and show that many are not classically efficiently simulatable
(subject to common complexity assumptions such as P not equal to NP). Our
results reveal a surprising proximity of classical to quantum computing power
viz. a class of classically simulatable quantum circuits which yields universal
quantum computation if extended by a purely classical additional ingredient
that does not extend the class of quantum processes occurring.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur
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