925 research outputs found
Reasoning about transfinite sequences
We introduce a family of temporal logics to specify the behavior of systems
with Zeno behaviors. We extend linear-time temporal logic LTL to authorize
models admitting Zeno sequences of actions and quantitative temporal operators
indexed by ordinals replace the standard next-time and until future-time
operators. Our aim is to control such systems by designing controllers that
safely work on -sequences but interact synchronously with the system in
order to restrict their behaviors. We show that the satisfiability problem for
the logics working on -sequences is EXPSPACE-complete when the
integers are represented in binary, and PSPACE-complete with a unary
representation. To do so, we substantially extend standard results about LTL by
introducing a new class of succinct ordinal automata that can encode the
interaction between the different quantitative temporal operators.Comment: 38 page
Timed pushdown automata revisited
This paper contains two results on timed extensions of pushdown automata
(PDA). As our first result we prove that the model of dense-timed PDA of
Abdulla et al. collapses: it is expressively equivalent to dense-timed PDA with
timeless stack. Motivated by this result, we advocate the framework of
first-order definable PDA, a specialization of PDA in sets with atoms, as the
right setting to define and investigate timed extensions of PDA. The general
model obtained in this way is Turing complete. As our second result we prove
NEXPTIME upper complexity bound for the non-emptiness problem for an expressive
subclass. As a byproduct, we obtain a tight EXPTIME complexity bound for a more
restrictive subclass of PDA with timeless stack, thus subsuming the complexity
bound known for dense-timed PDA.Comment: full technical report of LICS'15 pape
On Measuring Non-Recursive Trade-Offs
We investigate the phenomenon of non-recursive trade-offs between
descriptional systems in an abstract fashion. We aim at categorizing
non-recursive trade-offs by bounds on their growth rate, and show how to deduce
such bounds in general. We also identify criteria which, in the spirit of
abstract language theory, allow us to deduce non-recursive tradeoffs from
effective closure properties of language families on the one hand, and
differences in the decidability status of basic decision problems on the other.
We develop a qualitative classification of non-recursive trade-offs in order to
obtain a better understanding of this very fundamental behaviour of
descriptional systems
Two-variable Logic with Counting and a Linear Order
We study the finite satisfiability problem for the two-variable fragment of
first-order logic extended with counting quantifiers (C2) and interpreted over
linearly ordered structures. We show that the problem is undecidable in the
case of two linear orders (in the presence of two other binary symbols). In the
case of one linear order it is NEXPTIME-complete, even in the presence of the
successor relation. Surprisingly, the complexity of the problem explodes when
we add one binary symbol more: C2 with one linear order and in the presence of
other binary predicate symbols is equivalent, under elementary reductions, to
the emptiness problem for multicounter automata
History-Register Automata
Programs with dynamic allocation are able to create and use an unbounded
number of fresh resources, such as references, objects, files, etc. We propose
History-Register Automata (HRA), a new automata-theoretic formalism for
modelling such programs. HRAs extend the expressiveness of previous approaches
and bring us to the limits of decidability for reachability checks. The
distinctive feature of our machines is their use of unbounded memory sets
(histories) where input symbols can be selectively stored and compared with
symbols to follow. In addition, stored symbols can be consumed or deleted by
reset. We show that the combination of consumption and reset capabilities
renders the automata powerful enough to imitate counter machines, and yields
closure under all regular operations apart from complementation. We moreover
examine weaker notions of HRAs which strike different balances between
expressiveness and effectiveness.Comment: LMCS (improved version of FoSSaCS
Reachability Analysis of Communicating Pushdown Systems
The reachability analysis of recursive programs that communicate
asynchronously over reliable FIFO channels calls for restrictions to ensure
decidability. Our first result characterizes communication topologies with a
decidable reachability problem restricted to eager runs (i.e., runs where
messages are either received immediately after being sent, or never received).
The problem is EXPTIME-complete in the decidable case. The second result is a
doubly exponential time algorithm for bounded context analysis in this setting,
together with a matching lower bound. Both results extend and improve previous
work from La Torre et al
A Perfect Model for Bounded Verification
A class of languages C is perfect if it is closed under Boolean operations
and the emptiness problem is decidable. Perfect language classes are the basis
for the automata-theoretic approach to model checking: a system is correct if
the language generated by the system is disjoint from the language of bad
traces. Regular languages are perfect, but because the disjointness problem for
CFLs is undecidable, no class containing the CFLs can be perfect.
In practice, verification problems for language classes that are not perfect
are often under-approximated by checking if the property holds for all
behaviors of the system belonging to a fixed subset. A general way to specify a
subset of behaviors is by using bounded languages (languages of the form w1*
... wk* for fixed words w1,...,wk). A class of languages C is perfect modulo
bounded languages if it is closed under Boolean operations relative to every
bounded language, and if the emptiness problem is decidable relative to every
bounded language.
We consider finding perfect classes of languages modulo bounded languages. We
show that the class of languages accepted by multi-head pushdown automata are
perfect modulo bounded languages, and characterize the complexities of decision
problems. We also show that bounded languages form a maximal class for which
perfection is obtained. We show that computations of several known models of
systems, such as recursive multi-threaded programs, recursive counter machines,
and communicating finite-state machines can be encoded as multi-head pushdown
automata, giving uniform and optimal underapproximation algorithms modulo
bounded languages.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
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