3,723 research outputs found
IST Austria Technical Report
We consider two-player stochastic games played on a finite state space for an infinite num- ber of rounds. The games are concurrent: in each round, the two players (player 1 and player 2) choose their moves independently and simultaneously; the current state and the two moves determine a probability distribution over the successor states. We also consider the important special case of turn-based stochastic games where players make moves in turns, rather than concurrently. We study concurrent games with ω-regular winning conditions specified as parity objectives. The value for player 1 for a parity objective is the maximal probability with which the player can guarantee the satisfaction of the objective against all strategies of the opponent. We study the problem of continuity and robustness of the value function in concurrent and turn-based stochastic parity games with respect to imprecision in the transition probabilities. We present quantitative bounds on the difference of the value function (in terms of the imprecision of the transition probabilities) and show the value continuity for structurally equivalent concurrent games (two games are structurally equivalent if the support of the transition func- tion is same and the probabilities differ). We also show robustness of optimal strategies for structurally equivalent turn-based stochastic parity games. Finally we show that the value continuity property breaks without the structurally equivalent assumption (even for Markov chains) and show that our quantitative bound is asymptotically optimal. Hence our results are tight (the assumption is both necessary and sufficient) and optimal (our quantitative bound is asymptotically optimal)
Approximating the Value of Energy-Parity Objectives in Simple Stochastic Games
We consider simple stochastic games G with energy-parity objectives, a combination of quantitative rewards with a qualitative parity condition. The Maximizer tries to avoid running out of energy while simultaneously satisfying a parity condition.
We present an algorithm to approximate the value of a given configuration in 2-NEXPTIME. Moreover, ?-optimal strategies for either player require at most O(2-EXP(|G|)?log(1/?)) memory modes
IST Austria Technical Report
The theory of graph games is the foundation for modeling and synthesizing reactive processes. In the synthesis of stochastic processes, we use 2-1/2-player games where some transitions of the game graph are controlled by two adversarial players, the System and the Environment, and the other transitions are determined probabilistically. We consider 2-1/2-player games where the objective of the System is the conjunction of a qualitative objective (specified as a parity condition) and a quantitative objective (specified as a mean-payoff condition). We establish that the problem of deciding whether the System can ensure that the probability to satisfy the mean-payoff parity objective is at least a given threshold is in NP ∩ coNP, matching the best known bound in the special case of 2-player games (where all transitions are deterministic) with only parity objectives, or with only mean-payoff objectives. We present an algorithm running
in time O(d · n^{2d}·MeanGame) to compute the set of almost-sure winning states from which the objective
can be ensured with probability 1, where n is the number of states of the game, d the number of priorities
of the parity objective, and MeanGame is the complexity to compute the set of almost-sure winning states
in 2-1/2-player mean-payoff games. Our results are useful in the synthesis of stochastic reactive systems
with both functional requirement (given as a qualitative objective) and performance requirement (given
as a quantitative objective)
Simple Stochastic Games with Almost-Sure Energy-Parity Objectives are in NP and coNP
We study stochastic games with energy-parity objectives, which combine
quantitative rewards with a qualitative -regular condition: The
maximizer aims to avoid running out of energy while simultaneously satisfying a
parity condition. We show that the corresponding almost-sure problem, i.e.,
checking whether there exists a maximizer strategy that achieves the
energy-parity objective with probability when starting at a given energy
level , is decidable and in . The same holds for checking if
such a exists and if a given is minimal
Synthesising Strategy Improvement and Recursive Algorithms for Solving 2.5 Player Parity Games
2.5 player parity games combine the challenges posed by 2.5 player
reachability games and the qualitative analysis of parity games. These two
types of problems are best approached with different types of algorithms:
strategy improvement algorithms for 2.5 player reachability games and recursive
algorithms for the qualitative analysis of parity games. We present a method
that - in contrast to existing techniques - tackles both aspects with the best
suited approach and works exclusively on the 2.5 player game itself. The
resulting technique is powerful enough to handle games with several million
states
On the equivalence of game and denotational semantics for the probabilistic mu-calculus
The probabilistic (or quantitative) modal mu-calculus is a fixed-point logic
de- signed for expressing properties of probabilistic labeled transition
systems (PLTS). Two semantics have been studied for this logic, both assigning
to every process state a value in the interval [0,1] representing the
probability that the property expressed by the formula holds at the state. One
semantics is denotational and the other is a game semantics, specified in terms
of two-player stochastic games. The two semantics have been proved to coincide
on all finite PLTS's, but the equivalence of the two semantics on arbitrary
models has been open in literature. In this paper we prove that the equivalence
indeed holds for arbitrary infinite models, and thus our result strengthens the
fruitful connection between denotational and game semantics. Our proof adapts
the unraveling or unfolding method, a general proof technique for proving
result of parity games by induction on their complexity
Decision Problems for Nash Equilibria in Stochastic Games
We analyse the computational complexity of finding Nash equilibria in
stochastic multiplayer games with -regular objectives. While the
existence of an equilibrium whose payoff falls into a certain interval may be
undecidable, we single out several decidable restrictions of the problem.
First, restricting the search space to stationary, or pure stationary,
equilibria results in problems that are typically contained in PSPACE and NP,
respectively. Second, we show that the existence of an equilibrium with a
binary payoff (i.e. an equilibrium where each player either wins or loses with
probability 1) is decidable. We also establish that the existence of a Nash
equilibrium with a certain binary payoff entails the existence of an
equilibrium with the same payoff in pure, finite-state strategies.Comment: 22 pages, revised versio
Obligation Blackwell Games and p-Automata
We recently introduced p-automata, automata that read discrete-time Markov
chains. We used turn-based stochastic parity games to define acceptance of
Markov chains by a subclass of p-automata. Definition of acceptance required a
cumbersome and complicated reduction to a series of turn-based stochastic
parity games. The reduction could not support acceptance by general p-automata,
which was left undefined as there was no notion of games that supported it.
Here we generalize two-player games by adding a structural acceptance
condition called obligations. Obligations are orthogonal to the linear winning
conditions that define winning. Obligations are a declaration that player 0 can
achieve a certain value from a configuration. If the obligation is met, the
value of that configuration for player 0 is 1.
One cannot define value in obligation games by the standard mechanism of
considering the measure of winning paths on a Markov chain and taking the
supremum of the infimum of all strategies. Mainly because obligations need
definition even for Markov chains and the nature of obligations has the flavor
of an infinite nesting of supremum and infimum operators. We define value via a
reduction to turn-based games similar to Martin's proof of determinacy of
Blackwell games with Borel objectives. Based on this definition, we show that
games are determined. We show that for Markov chains with Borel objectives and
obligations, and finite turn-based stochastic parity games with obligations
there exists an alternative and simpler characterization of the value function.
Based on this simpler definition we give an exponential time algorithm to
analyze finite turn-based stochastic parity games with obligations. Finally, we
show that obligation games provide the necessary framework for reasoning about
p-automata and that they generalize the previous definition
Probabilistic modal {\mu}-calculus with independent product
The probabilistic modal {\mu}-calculus is a fixed-point logic designed for
expressing properties of probabilistic labeled transition systems (PLTS's). Two
equivalent semantics have been studied for this logic, both assigning to each
state a value in the interval [0,1] representing the probability that the
property expressed by the formula holds at the state. One semantics is
denotational and the other is a game semantics, specified in terms of
two-player stochastic parity games. A shortcoming of the probabilistic modal
{\mu}-calculus is the lack of expressiveness required to encode other important
temporal logics for PLTS's such as Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic (PCTL).
To address this limitation we extend the logic with a new pair of operators:
independent product and coproduct. The resulting logic, called probabilistic
modal {\mu}-calculus with independent product, can encode many properties of
interest and subsumes the qualitative fragment of PCTL. The main contribution
of this paper is the definition of an appropriate game semantics for this
extended probabilistic {\mu}-calculus. This relies on the definition of a new
class of games which generalize standard two-player stochastic (parity) games
by allowing a play to be split into concurrent subplays, each continuing their
evolution independently. Our main technical result is the equivalence of the
two semantics. The proof is carried out in ZFC set theory extended with
Martin's Axiom at an uncountable cardinal
Model Checking Games for the Quantitative mu-Calculus
We investigate quantitative extensions of modal logic and the modal
mu-calculus, and study the question whether the tight connection between logic
and games can be lifted from the qualitative logics to their quantitative
counterparts. It turns out that, if the quantitative mu-calculus is defined in
an appropriate way respecting the duality properties between the logical
operators, then its model checking problem can indeed be characterised by a
quantitative variant of parity games. However, these quantitative games have
quite different properties than their classical counterparts, in particular
they are, in general, not positionally determined. The correspondence between
the logic and the games goes both ways: the value of a formula on a
quantitative transition system coincides with the value of the associated
quantitative game, and conversely, the values of quantitative parity games are
definable in the quantitative mu-calculus
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