11 research outputs found
What Can Be Verified Locally?
We are considering distributed network computing, in which computing entities are connected by a network modeled as a connected graph. These entities are located at the nodes of the graph, and they exchange information by message-passing along its edges. In this context, we are adopting the classical framework for local distributed decision, in which nodes must collectively decide whether their network configuration satisfies some given boolean predicate, by having each node interacting with the nodes in its vicinity only. A network configuration is accepted if and only if every node individually accepts. It is folklore that not every Turing-decidable network property (e.g., whether the network is planar) can be decided locally whenever the computing entities are Turing machines (TM). On the other hand, it is known that every Turing-decidable network property can be decided locally if nodes are running non-deterministic Turing machines (NTM). However, this holds only if the nodes have the ability to guess the identities of the nodes currently in the network. That is, for different sets of identities assigned to the nodes, the correct guesses of the nodes might be different. If one asks the nodes to use the same guess in the same network configuration even with different identity assignments, i.e., to perform identity-oblivious guesses, then it is known that not every Turing-decidable network property can be decided locally.
In this paper, we show that every Turing-decidable network property can be decided locally if nodes are running alternating Turing machines (ATM), and this holds even if nodes are bounded to perform identity-oblivious guesses. More specifically, we show that, for every network property, there is a local algorithm for ATMs, with at most 2 alternations, that decides that property. To this aim, we define a hierarchy of classes of decision tasks where the lowest level contains tasks solvable with TMs, the first level those solvable with NTMs, and level k contains those tasks solvable with ATMs with k alternations. We characterize the entire hierarchy, and show that it collapses in the second level. In addition, we show separation results between the classes of network properties that are locally decidable with TMs, NTMs, and ATMs. Finally, we establish the existence of completeness results for each of these classes, using novel notions of local reduction
Distributed Detection of Cycles
Distributed property testing in networks has been introduced by Brakerski and
Patt-Shamir (2011), with the objective of detecting the presence of large dense
sub-networks in a distributed manner. Recently, Censor-Hillel et al. (2016)
have shown how to detect 3-cycles in a constant number of rounds by a
distributed algorithm. In a follow up work, Fraigniaud et al. (2016) have shown
how to detect 4-cycles in a constant number of rounds as well. However, the
techniques in these latter works were shown not to generalize to larger cycles
with . In this paper, we completely settle the problem of cycle
detection, by establishing the following result. For every , there
exists a distributed property testing algorithm for -freeness, performing
in a constant number of rounds. All these results hold in the classical CONGEST
model for distributed network computing. Our algorithm is 1-sided error. Its
round-complexity is where is the property
testing parameter measuring the gap between legal and illegal instances
Towards a complexity theory for the congested clique
The congested clique model of distributed computing has been receiving
attention as a model for densely connected distributed systems. While there has
been significant progress on the side of upper bounds, we have very little in
terms of lower bounds for the congested clique; indeed, it is now know that
proving explicit congested clique lower bounds is as difficult as proving
circuit lower bounds.
In this work, we use various more traditional complexity-theoretic tools to
build a clearer picture of the complexity landscape of the congested clique:
-- Nondeterminism and beyond: We introduce the nondeterministic congested
clique model (analogous to NP) and show that there is a natural canonical
problem family that captures all problems solvable in constant time with
nondeterministic algorithms. We further generalise these notions by introducing
the constant-round decision hierarchy (analogous to the polynomial hierarchy).
-- Non-constructive lower bounds: We lift the prior non-uniform counting
arguments to a general technique for proving non-constructive uniform lower
bounds for the congested clique. In particular, we prove a time hierarchy
theorem for the congested clique, showing that there are decision problems of
essentially all complexities, both in the deterministic and nondeterministic
settings.
-- Fine-grained complexity: We map out relationships between various natural
problems in the congested clique model, arguing that a reduction-based
complexity theory currently gives us a fairly good picture of the complexity
landscape of the congested clique
Survey of Distributed Decision
We survey the recent distributed computing literature on checking whether a
given distributed system configuration satisfies a given boolean predicate,
i.e., whether the configuration is legal or illegal w.r.t. that predicate. We
consider classical distributed computing environments, including mostly
synchronous fault-free network computing (LOCAL and CONGEST models), but also
asynchronous crash-prone shared-memory computing (WAIT-FREE model), and mobile
computing (FSYNC model)
Introduction to local certification
A distributed graph algorithm is basically an algorithm where every node of a
graph can look at its neighborhood at some distance in the graph and chose its
output. As distributed environment are subject to faults, an important issue is
to be able to check that the output is correct, or in general that the network
is in proper configuration with respect to some predicate. One would like this
checking to be very local, to avoid using too much resources. Unfortunately
most predicates cannot be checked this way, and that is where certification
comes into play. Local certification (also known as proof-labeling schemes,
locally checkable proofs or distributed verification) consists in assigning
labels to the nodes, that certify that the configuration is correct. There are
several point of view on this topic: it can be seen as a part of
self-stabilizing algorithms, as labeling problem, or as a non-deterministic
distributed decision.
This paper is an introduction to the domain of local certification, giving an
overview of the history, the techniques and the current research directions.Comment: Last update: minor editin
The Hardness of Local Certification of Finite-State Dynamics
Finite-State Dynamics (FSD) is one of the simplest and constrained
distributed systems. An FSD is defined by an -node network, with each node
maintaining an internal state selected from a finite set. At each time-step,
these nodes synchronously update their internal states based solely on the
states of their neighboring nodes.
Rather than focusing on specific types of local functions, in this article,
our primary focus is on the problem of determining the maximum time required
for an FSD to reach a stable global state. This global state can be seen as the
acceptance state or as the output of a distributed computation. For fixed
and , we define the problem , which consists of
deciding if a -state FSD converges in at most time-steps.
Our main focus is to study the problem from the
perspective of distributed certification, with a focus on the model of
proof-labeling schemes (PLS). First, we study the problem
on arbitrary graphs and show that every PLS has certificates of size
(up to logarithmic factors). Then, we turn to the restriction of
the problem on graphs of maximum degree . Roughly, we show that the
problem admits a PLS with certificates of size , while every PLS
requires certificates of size at least on graphs of maximum
degree 3
Local Certification of Majority Dynamics
In majority voting dynamics, a group of agents in a social network are
asked for their preferred candidate in a future election between two possible
choices. At each time step, a new poll is taken, and each agent adjusts their
vote according to the majority opinion of their network neighbors. After
time steps, the candidate with the majority of votes is the leading contender
in the election. In general, it is very hard to predict who will be the leading
candidate after a large number of time-steps.
We study, from the perspective of local certification, the problem of
predicting the leading candidate after a certain number of time-steps, which we
call Election-Prediction. We show that in graphs with sub-exponential growth
Election-Prediction admits a proof labeling scheme of size . We also find non-trivial upper bounds for graphs with a bounded degree, in
which the size of the certificates are sub-linear in .
Furthermore, we explore lower bounds for the unrestricted case, showing that
locally checkable proofs for Election-Prediction on arbitrary -node graphs
have certificates on bits. Finally, we show that our upper bounds
are tight even for graphs of constant growth
Deciding and verifying network properties locally with few output bits
International audienceGiven a boolean predicate on labeled networks (e.g., the network is acyclic, or the network is properly colored, etc.), deciding in a distributed manner whether a given labeled network satisfies that predicate typically consists, in the standard setting, of every node inspecting its close neighborhood, and outputting a boolean verdict, such that the network satisfies the predicate if and only if all nodes output true. In this paper, we investigate a more general notion of distributed decision in which every node is allowed to output a constant number of bits, which are gathered by a central authority emitting a global boolean verdict based on these outputs, such that the network satisfies the predicate if and only if this global verdict equals true. We analyze the power and limitations of this extended notion of distributed decision