Initial Draft of a Possible Declarative Semantics for the Language

This article introduces a preliminary declarative semantics for a subset of the language Xcerpt (so-called grouping-stratifiable programs) in form of a classical (Tarski style) model theory, adapted to the specific requirements of Xcerpt’s constructs (e.g. the various aspects of incompleteness in query terms, grouping constructs in rule heads, etc.). Most importantly, the model theory uses term simulation as a replacement for term equality to handle incomplete term specifications, and an extended notion of substitutions in order to properly convey the semantics of grouping constructs. Based upon this model theory, a fixpoint semantics is also described, leading to a first notion of forward chaining evaluation of Xcerpt program

Fair Testing

In this paper we present a solution to the long-standing problem of characterising the coarsest liveness-preserving pre-congruence with respect to a full (TCSP-inspired) process algebra. In fact, we present two distinct characterisations, which give rise to the same relation: an operational one based on a De Nicola-Hennessy-like testing modality which we call should-testing, and a denotational one based on a refined notion of failures. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the should-testing pre-congruence is that it abstracts from divergences in the same way as Milner¿s observation congruence, and as a consequence is strictly coarser than observation congruence. In other words, should-testing has a built-in fairness assumption. This is in itself a property long sought-after; it is in notable contrast to the well-known must-testing of De Nicola and Hennessy (denotationally characterised by a combination of failures and divergences), which treats divergence as catrastrophic and hence is incompatible with observation congruence. Due to these characteristics, should-testing supports modular reasoning and allows to use the proof techniques of observation congruence, but also supports additional laws and techniques. Moreover, we show decidability of should-testing (on the basis of the denotational characterisation). Finally, we demonstrate its advantages by the application to a number of examples, including a scheduling problem, a version of the Alternating Bit-protocol, and fair lossy communication channel

Matrices of forests, analysis of networks, and ranking problems

The matrices of spanning rooted forests are studied as a tool for analysing the structure of networks and measuring their properties. The problems of revealing the basic bicomponents, measuring vertex proximity, and ranking from preference relations / sports competitions are considered. It is shown that the vertex accessibility measure based on spanning forests has a number of desirable properties. An interpretation for the stochastic matrix of out-forests in terms of information dissemination is given.Comment: 8 pages. This article draws heavily from arXiv:math/0508171. Published in Proceedings of the First International Conference on Information Technology and Quantitative Management (ITQM 2013). This version contains some corrections and addition

H\"older Regularity of Geometric Subdivision Schemes

We present a framework for analyzing non-linear $\mathbb{R}^d$-valued subdivision schemes which are geometric in the sense that they commute with similarities in $\mathbb{R}^d$. It admits to establish $C^{1,\alpha}$-regularity for arbitrary schemes of this type, and $C^{2,\alpha}$-regularity for an important subset thereof, which includes all real-valued schemes. Our results are constructive in the sense that they can be verified explicitly for any scheme and any given set of initial data by a universal procedure. This procedure can be executed automatically and rigorously by a computer when using interval arithmetics.Comment: 31 pages, 1 figur