260,597 research outputs found
Game Refinement Relations and Metrics
We consider two-player games played over finite state spaces for an infinite
number of rounds. At each state, the players simultaneously choose moves; the
moves determine a successor state. It is often advantageous for players to
choose probability distributions over moves, rather than single moves. Given a
goal, for example, reach a target state, the question of winning is thus a
probabilistic one: what is the maximal probability of winning from a given
state?
On these game structures, two fundamental notions are those of equivalences
and metrics. Given a set of winning conditions, two states are equivalent if
the players can win the same games with the same probability from both states.
Metrics provide a bound on the difference in the probabilities of winning
across states, capturing a quantitative notion of state similarity.
We introduce equivalences and metrics for two-player game structures, and we
show that they characterize the difference in probability of winning games
whose goals are expressed in the quantitative mu-calculus. The quantitative
mu-calculus can express a large set of goals, including reachability, safety,
and omega-regular properties. Thus, we claim that our relations and metrics
provide the canonical extensions to games, of the classical notion of
bisimulation for transition systems. We develop our results both for
equivalences and metrics, which generalize bisimulation, and for asymmetrical
versions, which generalize simulation
Solving Odd-Fair Parity Games
This paper discusses the problem of efficiently solving parity games where
player Odd has to obey an additional 'strong transition fairness constraint' on
its vertices -- given that a player Odd vertex is visited infinitely often,
a particular subset of the outgoing edges (called live edges) of has to be
taken infinitely often. Such games, which we call 'Odd-fair parity games',
naturally arise from abstractions of cyber-physical systems for planning and
control.
In this paper, we present a new Zielonka-type algorithm for solving Odd-fair
parity games. This algorithm not only shares 'the same worst-case time
complexity' as Zielonka's algorithm for (normal) parity games but also
preserves the algorithmic advantage Zielonka's algorithm possesses over other
parity solvers with exponential time complexity.
We additionally introduce a formalization of Odd player winning strategies in
such games, which were unexplored previous to this work. This formalization
serves dual purposes: firstly, it enables us to prove our Zielonka-type
algorithm; secondly, it stands as a noteworthy contribution in its own right,
augmenting our understanding of additional fairness assumptions in two-player
games.Comment: To be published in FSTTCS 202
Optimal transformations of Muller conditions
In this paper, we are interested in automata over infinite words and infinite
duration games, that we view as general transition systems. We study
transformations of systems using a Muller condition into ones using a parity
condition, extending Zielonka's construction. We introduce the alternating
cycle decomposition transformation, and we prove a strong optimality result:
for any given deterministic Muller automaton, the obtained parity automaton is
minimal both in size and number of priorities among those automata admitting a
morphism into the original Muller automaton.
We give two applications. The first is an improvement in the process of
determinisation of B\"uchi automata into parity automata by Piterman and
Schewe. The second is to present characterisations on the possibility of
relabelling automata with different acceptance conditions
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
Model Checking the Quantitative mu-Calculus on Linear Hybrid Systems
We study the model-checking problem for a quantitative extension of the modal
mu-calculus on a class of hybrid systems. Qualitative model checking has been
proved decidable and implemented for several classes of systems, but this is
not the case for quantitative questions that arise naturally in this context.
Recently, quantitative formalisms that subsume classical temporal logics and
allow the measurement of interesting quantitative phenomena were introduced. We
show how a powerful quantitative logic, the quantitative mu-calculus, can be
model checked with arbitrary precision on initialised linear hybrid systems. To
this end, we develop new techniques for the discretisation of continuous state
spaces based on a special class of strategies in model-checking games and
present a reduction to a class of counter parity games.Comment: LMCS submissio
Petri Games: Synthesis of Distributed Systems with Causal Memory
We present a new multiplayer game model for the interaction and the flow of
information in a distributed system. The players are tokens on a Petri net. As
long as the players move in independent parts of the net, they do not know of
each other; when they synchronize at a joint transition, each player gets
informed of the causal history of the other player. We show that for Petri
games with a single environment player and an arbitrary bounded number of
system players, deciding the existence of a safety strategy for the system
players is EXPTIME-complete.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2014, arXiv:1408.556
Liveness of Randomised Parameterised Systems under Arbitrary Schedulers (Technical Report)
We consider the problem of verifying liveness for systems with a finite, but
unbounded, number of processes, commonly known as parameterised systems.
Typical examples of such systems include distributed protocols (e.g. for the
dining philosopher problem). Unlike the case of verifying safety, proving
liveness is still considered extremely challenging, especially in the presence
of randomness in the system. In this paper we consider liveness under arbitrary
(including unfair) schedulers, which is often considered a desirable property
in the literature of self-stabilising systems. We introduce an automatic method
of proving liveness for randomised parameterised systems under arbitrary
schedulers. Viewing liveness as a two-player reachability game (between
Scheduler and Process), our method is a CEGAR approach that synthesises a
progress relation for Process that can be symbolically represented as a
finite-state automaton. The method is incremental and exploits both
Angluin-style L*-learning and SAT-solvers. Our experiments show that our
algorithm is able to prove liveness automatically for well-known randomised
distributed protocols, including Lehmann-Rabin Randomised Dining Philosopher
Protocol and randomised self-stabilising protocols (such as the Israeli-Jalfon
Protocol). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first fully-automatic
method that can prove liveness for randomised protocols.Comment: Full version of CAV'16 pape
Two-population replicator dynamics and number of Nash equilibria in random matrix games
We study the connection between the evolutionary replicator dynamics and the
number of Nash equilibria in large random bi-matrix games. Using techniques of
disordered systems theory we compute the statistical properties of both, the
fixed points of the dynamics and the Nash equilibria. Except for the special
case of zero-sum games one finds a transition as a function of the so-called
co-operation pressure between a phase in which there is a unique stable fixed
point of the dynamics coinciding with a unique Nash equilibrium, and an
unstable phase in which there are exponentially many Nash equilibria with
statistical properties different from the stationary state of the replicator
equations. Our analytical results are confirmed by numerical simulations of the
replicator dynamics, and by explicit enumeration of Nash equilibria.Comment: 9 pages, 2x2 figure
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