50 research outputs found
A Counting Logic for Structure Transition Systems
Quantitative questions such as "what is the maximum number of tokens
in a place of a Petri net?" or "what is the maximal reachable height
of the stack of a pushdown automaton?" play a significant role in
understanding models of computation. To study such problems in a
systematic way, we introduce structure transition systems on which
one can define logics that mix temporal expressions (e.g. reachability) with properties of a state (e.g. the height of the stack). We propose a counting logic Qmu[#MSO] which allows to express questions like the ones above, and also many boundedness problems studied so far. We show that Qmu[#MSO] has good algorithmic properties, in particular we generalize two standard methods in model checking, decomposition on trees and model checking through parity games, to this quantitative logic. These properties are used to prove decidability of Qmu[#MSO] on tree-producing pushdown systems, a generalization of both pushdown systems and regular tree grammars
Unboundedness and downward closures of higher-order pushdown automata
We show the diagonal problem for higher-order pushdown automata (HOPDA), and
hence the simultaneous unboundedness problem, is decidable. From recent work by
Zetzsche this means that we can construct the downward closure of the set of
words accepted by a given HOPDA. This also means we can construct the downward
closure of the Parikh image of a HOPDA. Both of these consequences play an
important role in verifying concurrent higher-order programs expressed as HOPDA
or safe higher-order recursion schemes
Playing Games in the Baire Space
We solve a generalized version of Church's Synthesis Problem where a play is
given by a sequence of natural numbers rather than a sequence of bits; so a
play is an element of the Baire space rather than of the Cantor space. Two
players Input and Output choose natural numbers in alternation to generate a
play. We present a natural model of automata ("N-memory automata") equipped
with the parity acceptance condition, and we introduce also the corresponding
model of "N-memory transducers". We show that solvability of games specified by
N-memory automata (i.e., existence of a winning strategy for player Output) is
decidable, and that in this case an N-memory transducer can be constructed that
implements a winning strategy for player Output.Comment: In Proceedings Cassting'16/SynCoP'16, arXiv:1608.0017
Degrees of Lookahead in Regular Infinite Games
We study variants of regular infinite games where the strict alternation of
moves between the two players is subject to modifications. The second player
may postpone a move for a finite number of steps, or, in other words, exploit
in his strategy some lookahead on the moves of the opponent. This captures
situations in distributed systems, e.g. when buffers are present in
communication or when signal transmission between components is deferred. We
distinguish strategies with different degrees of lookahead, among them being
the continuous and the bounded lookahead strategies. In the first case the
lookahead is of finite possibly unbounded size, whereas in the second case it
is of bounded size. We show that for regular infinite games the solvability by
continuous strategies is decidable, and that a continuous strategy can always
be reduced to one of bounded lookahead. Moreover, this lookahead is at most
doubly exponential in the size of a given parity automaton recognizing the
winning condition. We also show that the result fails for non-regular
gamesxwhere the winning condition is given by a context-free omega-language.Comment: LMCS submissio
Model checking Branching-Time Properties of Multi-Pushdown Systems is Hard
We address the model checking problem for shared memory concurrent programs
modeled as multi-pushdown systems. We consider here boolean programs with a
finite number of threads and recursive procedures. It is well-known that the
model checking problem is undecidable for this class of programs. In this
paper, we investigate the decidability and the complexity of this problem under
the assumption of bounded context-switching defined by Qadeer and Rehof, and of
phase-boundedness proposed by La Torre et al. On the model checking of such
systems against temporal logics and in particular branching time logics such as
the modal -calculus or CTL has received little attention. It is known that
parity games, which are closely related to the modal -calculus, are
decidable for the class of bounded-phase systems (and hence for bounded-context
switching as well), but with non-elementary complexity (Seth). A natural
question is whether this high complexity is inevitable and what are the ways to
get around it. This paper addresses these questions and unfortunately, and
somewhat surprisingly, it shows that branching model checking for MPDSs is
inherently an hard problem with no easy solution. We show that parity games on
MPDS under phase-bounding restriction is non-elementary. Our main result shows
that model checking a context bounded MPDS against a simple fragment of
CTL, consisting of formulas that whose temporal operators come from the set
{\EF, \EX}, has a non-elementary lower bound
Positional Determinacy of Games with Infinitely Many Priorities
We study two-player games of infinite duration that are played on finite or
infinite game graphs. A winning strategy for such a game is positional if it
only depends on the current position, and not on the history of the play. A
game is positionally determined if, from each position, one of the two players
has a positional winning strategy.
The theory of such games is well studied for winning conditions that are
defined in terms of a mapping that assigns to each position a priority from a
finite set. Specifically, in Muller games the winner of a play is determined by
the set of those priorities that have been seen infinitely often; an important
special case are parity games where the least (or greatest) priority occurring
infinitely often determines the winner. It is well-known that parity games are
positionally determined whereas Muller games are determined via finite-memory
strategies.
In this paper, we extend this theory to the case of games with infinitely
many priorities. Such games arise in several application areas, for instance in
pushdown games with winning conditions depending on stack contents.
For parity games there are several generalisations to the case of infinitely
many priorities. While max-parity games over omega or min-parity games over
larger ordinals than omega require strategies with infinite memory, we can
prove that min-parity games with priorities in omega are positionally
determined. Indeed, it turns out that the min-parity condition over omega is
the only infinitary Muller condition that guarantees positional determinacy on
all game graphs
How Good Is a Strategy in a Game with Nature?
International audienceWe consider games with two antagonistic players — Éloïse (modelling a program) and Abélard (modelling a byzantine environment) — and a third, unpredictable and uncontrollable player, that we call Nature. Motivated by the fact that the usual probabilistic semantics very quickly leads to undecidability when considering either infinite game graphs or imperfect information, we propose two alternative semantics that leads to decidability where the probabilistic one fails: one based on counting and one based on topology