Determinization of B\"uchi Automata: Unifying the Approaches of Safra and Muller-Schupp

Determinization of B\"uchi automata is a long-known difficult problem and after the seminal result of Safra, who developed the first asymptotically optimal construction from B\"uchi into Rabin automata, much work went into improving, simplifying or avoiding Safra's construction. A different, less known determinization construction was derived by Muller and Schupp and appears to be unrelated to Safra's construction on the first sight. In this paper we propose a new meta-construction from nondeterministic B\"uchi to deterministic parity automata which strictly subsumes both the construction of Safra and the construction of Muller and Schupp. It is based on a correspondence between structures that are encoded in the macrostates of the determinization procedures - Safra trees on one hand, and levels of the split-tree, which underlies the Muller and Schupp construction, on the other. Our construction allows for combining the mentioned constructions and opens up new directions for the development of heuristics.Comment: Full version of ICALP 2019 pape

Proof Systems for the Modal μ\mu-Calculus Obtained by Determinizing Automata

Automata operating on infinite objects feature prominently in the theory of the modal $\mu$-calculus. One such application concerns the tableau games introduced by Niwi\'{n}ski & Walukiewicz, of which the winning condition for infinite plays can be naturally checked by a nondeterministic parity stream automaton. Inspired by work of Jungteerapanich and Stirling we show how determinization constructions of this automaton may be used to directly obtain proof systems for the $\mu$-calculus. More concretely, we introduce a binary tree construction for determinizing nondeterministic parity stream automata. Using this construction we define the annotated cyclic proof system $\mathsf{BT}$, where formulas are annotated by tuples of binary strings. Soundness and Completeness of this system follow almost immediately from the correctness of the determinization method

Alternative Automata-based Approaches to Probabilistic Model Checking

In this thesis we focus on new methods for probabilistic model checking (PMC) with linear temporal logic (LTL). The standard approach translates an LTL formula into a deterministic ω-automaton with a double-exponential blow up. There are approaches for Markov chain analysis against LTL with exponential runtime, which motivates the search for non-deterministic automata with restricted forms of non-determinism that make them suitable for PMC. For MDPs, the approach via deterministic automata matches the double-exponential lower bound, but a practical application might benefit from approaches via non-deterministic automata. We first investigate good-for-games (GFG) automata. In GFG automata one can resolve the non-determinism for a finite prefix without knowing the infinite suffix and still obtain an accepting run for an accepted word. We explain that GFG automata are well-suited for MDP analysis on a theoretic level, but our experiments show that GFG automata cannot compete with deterministic automata. We have also researched another form of pseudo-determinism, namely unambiguity, where for every accepted word there is exactly one accepting run. We present a polynomial-time approach for PMC of Markov chains against specifications given by an unambiguous Büchi automaton (UBA). Its two key elements are the identification whether the induced probability is positive, and if so, the identification of a state set inducing probability 1. Additionally, we examine the new symbolic Muller acceptance described in the Hanoi Omega Automata Format, which we call Emerson-Lei acceptance. It is a positive Boolean formula over unconditional fairness constraints. We present a construction of small deterministic automata using Emerson-Lei acceptance. Deciding, whether an MDP has a positive maximal probability to satisfy an Emerson-Lei acceptance, is NP-complete. This fact has triggered a DPLL-based algorithm for deciding positiveness

Efficient Automata Techniques and Their Applications

Tato práce se zabývá vývojem efektivních technik pro konečné automaty a jejich aplikace. Zejména se věnujeme konečným automatům použitých pří detekci útoků v síťovém provozu a automatům v rozhodovacích procedurách a verifikaci. V první části práce navrhujeme techniky přibližné redukce nedeterministických automatů, které snižují spotřebu zdrojů v hardwarově akcelerovaném zkoumání obsahu paketů. Druhá část práce je je věnována automatům v rozhodovacích procedurách, zejména slabé monadické logice druhého řádů k následníků (WSkS) a teorie nad řetězci. Navrhujeme novou rozhodovací proceduru pro WS2S založenou na automatových termech, umožňující efektivně prořezávat stavový prostor. Dále studujeme techniky předzpracování WSkS formulí za účelem snížení velikosti konstruovaných automatů. Automaty jsme také aplikovali v rozhodovací proceduře teorie nad řetězci pro efektivní reprezentaci důkazového stromu. V poslední části práce potom navrhujeme optimalizace rank-based komplementace Buchiho automatů, které snižuje počet generovaných stavů během konstrukce komplementu.This thesis develops efficient techniques for finite automata and their applications. In particular, we focus on finite automata in network intrusion detection and automata in decision procedures and verification. In the first part of the thesis, we propose techniques of approximate reduction of nondeterministic automata decreasing consumption of resources of hardware-accelerated deep packet inspection. The second part is devoted to automata in decision procedures, in particular, to weak monadic second-order logic of k successors (WSkS) and the theory of strings. We propose a novel decision procedure for WS2S based on automata terms allowing one to effectively prune the state space. Further, we study techniques of WSkS formulae preprocessing intended to reduce the sizes of constructed intermediate automata. Moreover, we employ automata in a decision procedure of the theory of strings for efficient handling of the proof graph. The last part of the thesis then proposes optimizations in rank-based Buchi automata complementation reducing the number of generated states during the construction.

Topological Complexity of Sets Defined by Automata and Formulas

In this thesis we consider languages of infinite words or trees defined by automata of various types or formulas of various logics. We ask about the highest possible position in the Borel or the projective hierarchy inhabited by sets defined in a given formalism. The answer to this question is called the topological complexity of the formalism.It is shown that the topological complexity of Monadic Second Order Logic extended with the unbounding quantifier (introduced by Bojańczyk to express some asymptotic properties) over ω-words is the whole projective hierarchy. We also give the exact topological complexities of related classes of languages recognized by nondeterministic ωB-, ωS- and ωBS-automata studied by Bojańczyk and Colcombet, and a lower complexity bound for an alternating variant of ωBS-automata.We present the series of results concerning bi-unambiguous languages of infinite trees, i.e. languages recognized by unambiguous parity tree automata whose complements are also recognized by unambiguous parity automata. We give an example of a bi-unambiguous tree language G that is analytic-complete. We present an operation σ on tree languages with the property that σ(L) is topologically harder than any language in the sigma-algebra generated by the languages continuously reducible to L. If the operation is applied to a bi-unambiguous language than the result is also bi-unambiguous. We then show that the application of the operation can be iterated to obtain harder and harder languages. We also define another operation that enables a limit step iteration. Using the operations we are able to construct a sequence of bi-unambiguous languages of increasing topological complexity, of length at least ω square.W niniejszej rozprawie rozważane są języki nieskończonych słów lub drzew definiowane poprzez automaty różnych typów lub formuły różnych logik. Pytamy o najwyższą możliwą pozycję w hierarchii borelowskiej lub rzutowej zajmowaną przez zbiory definiowane w danym formalizmie. Odpowiedź na to pytanie jest nazywana złożonością topologiczną formalizmu.Przedstawiony został dowód, że złożonością topologiczną Logiki Monadycznej Drugiego Rzędu rozszerzonej o kwantyfikator Unbounding (wprowadzony przez Bojańczyka w celu umożliwienia wyrażania własności asymptotycznych) na słowach nieskończonych jest cała hierarchia rzutowa. Obliczone zostały również złożoności topologiczne klas języków rozpoznawanych przez niedeterministyczne ωB-, ωS- i ωBS-automaty rozważane przez Bojańczyka i Colcombet'a, oraz zostało podane dolne ograniczenie złożoności wariantu alternującego ωBS-automatów.Zaprezentowane zostały wyniki dotyczące języków podwójnie jednoznacznych, tzn. języków rozpoznawanych przez jednoznaczne automaty parzystości na drzewach, których dopełnienia również są rozpoznawane przez jednoznaczne automaty parzystości. Podany został przykład podwójnie jednoznacznego języka drzew G, który jest analityczny-zupełny. Została wprowadzona operacja σ na językach drzew taka, że język σ(L) jest topologicznie bardziej złożony niż jakikolwiek język należący do sigma-algebry generowanej przez języki redukujące się w sposób ciągły do języka L. W wyniku zastosowania powyższej operacji do języka podwójnie jednoznacznego otrzymujemy język podwójnie jednoznaczny. Zostało pokazane, że kolejne iteracje aplikacji powyższej operacji dają coraz bardziej złożone języki. Została również wprowadzona druga operacja, która umożliwia krok graniczny iteracji. Używając obydwu powyższych operacji można skonstruować ciąg długości ω kwadrat złożony z języków podwójnie jednoznacznych o coraz większej złożoności

Regular Methods for Operator Precedence Languages

The operator precedence languages (OPLs) represent the largest known subclass of the context-free languages which enjoys all desirable closure and decidability properties. This includes the decidability of language inclusion, which is the ultimate verification problem. Operator precedence grammars, automata, and logics have been investigated and used, for example, to verify programs with arithmetic expressions and exceptions (both of which are deterministic pushdown but lie outside the scope of the visibly pushdown languages). In this paper, we complete the picture and give, for the first time, an algebraic characterization of the class of OPLs in the form of a syntactic congruence that has finitely many equivalence classes exactly for the operator precedence languages. This is a generalization of the celebrated Myhill-Nerode theorem for the regular languages to OPLs. As one of the consequences, we show that universality and language inclusion for nondeterministic operator precedence automata can be solved by an antichain algorithm. Antichain algorithms avoid determinization and complementation through an explicit subset construction, by leveraging a quasi-order on words, which allows the pruning of the search space for counterexample words without sacrificing completeness. Antichain algorithms can be implemented symbolically, and these implementations are today the best-performing algorithms in practice for the inclusion of finite automata. We give a generic construction of the quasi-order needed for antichain algorithms from a finite syntactic congruence. This yields the first antichain algorithm for OPLs, an algorithm that solves the ExpTime-hard language inclusion problem for OPLs in exponential time

Contributions to multi-view modeling and the multi-view consistency problem for infinitary languages and discrete systems

The modeling of most large and complex systems, such as embedded, cyber-physical, or distributed systems, necessarily involves many designers. The multiple stakeholders carry their own perspectives of the system under development in order to meet a variety of objectives, and hence they derive their own models for the same system. This practice is known as multiview modeling, where the distinct models of a system are called views. Inevitably, the separate views are related, and possible overlaps may give rise to inconsistencies. Checking for multiview consistency is key to multi-view modeling approaches, especially when a global model for the system is absent, and can only be synthesized from the views. The present thesis provides an overview of the representative related work in multi-view modeling, and contributes to the formal study of multi-view modeling and the multi-view consistency problem for views and systems described as sets of behaviors. In particular, two distinct settings are investigated, namely, infinitary languages, and discrete systems. In the former research, a system and its views are described by mixed automata, which accept both finite and infinite words, and the corresponding infinitary languages. The views are obtained from the system by projections of an alphabet of events (system domain) onto a subalphabet (view domain), while inverse projections are used in the other direction. A systematic study is provided for mixed automata, and their languages are proved to be closed under union, intersection, complementation, projection, and inverse projection. In the sequel, these results are used in order to solve the multi-view consistency problem in the infinitary language setting. The second research introduces the notion of periodic sampling abstraction functions, and investigates the multi-view consistency problem for symbolic discrete systems with respect to these functions. Apart from periodic samplings, inverse periodic samplings are also introduced, and the closure of discrete systems under these operations is investigated. Then, three variations of the multi-view consistency problem are considered, and their relations are discussed. Moreover, an algorithm is provided for detecting view inconsistencies. The algorithm is sound but it may fail to detect all inconsistencies, as it relies on a state-based reachability, and inconsistencies may also involve the transition structure of the system

Uniformization Problems for Synchronizations of Automatic Relations on Words

A uniformization of a binary relation is a function that is contained in the relation and has the same domain as the relation. The synthesis problem asks for effective uniformization for classes of relations and functions that can be implemented in a specific way. We consider the synthesis problem for automatic relations over finite words (also called regular or synchronized rational relations) by functions implemented by specific classes of sequential transducers. It is known that the problem "Given an automatic relation, does it have a uniformization by a subsequential transducer?" is decidable in the two variants where the uniformization can either be implemented by an arbitrary subsequential transducer or it has to be implemented by a synchronous transducer. We introduce a new variant of this problem in which the allowed input/output behavior of the subsequential transducer is specified by a set of synchronizations and prove decidability for a specific class of synchronizations

Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2022, which was held during April 2-7, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 46 full papers and 4 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 159 submissions. The proceedings also contain 16 tool papers of the affiliated competition SV-Comp and 1 paper consisting of the competition report. TACAS is a forum for researchers, developers, and users interested in rigorously based tools and algorithms for the construction and analysis of systems. The conference aims to bridge the gaps between different communities with this common interest and to support them in their quest to improve the utility, reliability, exibility, and efficiency of tools and algorithms for building computer-controlled systems