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Simulations for Event-Clock Automata
Authors: S Akshay ; Paul Gastin ; R Govind ; B Srivathsan.


Event-clock automata (ECA) are a well-known semantic subclass of timed automata (TA) which enjoy admirable theoretical properties, e.g., determinizability, and are practically useful to capture timed specifications. However, unlike for timed automata, there exist no implementations for checking non-emptiness of event-clock automata. As ECAs contain special prophecy clocks that guess and maintain the time to the next occurrence of specific events, they cannot be seen as a syntactic subclass of TA. Therefore, implementations for TA cannot be directly used for ECAs, and moreover the translation of an ECA to a semantically equivalent TA is expensive. Another reason for the lack of ECA implementations is the difficulty in adapting zone-based algorithms, critical in the timed automata setting, to the event-clock automata setting. This difficulty was studied by Geeraerts et al. in 2011, where the authors proposed a zone enumeration procedure that uses zone extrapolations for finiteness. In this article, we propose a different zone-based algorithm to solve the reachability problem for event-clock automata, using simulations for finiteness. A surprising consequence of our result is that for event-predicting automata, the subclass of event-clock automata that only use prophecy clocks, we obtain finiteness even without any simulations. For general event-clock automata, our new algorithm exploits the G-simulation framework, which is the coarsest known simulation relation in timed […]


Published on July 2, 2024
On the Satisfiability of Local First-Order Logics with Data


We study first-order logic over unordered structures whose elements carry a finite number of data values from an infinite domain. Data values can be compared wrt.\ equality. As the satisfiability problem for this logic is undecidable in general, we introduce a family of local fragments. They restrict quantification to the neighbourhood of a given reference point that is bounded by some radius. Our first main result establishes decidability of the satisfiability problem for the local radius-1 fragment in presence of one "diagonal relation". On the other hand, extending the radius leads to undecidability. In a second part, we provide the precise decidability and complexity landscape of the satisfiability problem for the existential fragments of local logic, which are parameterized by the number of data values carried by each element and the radius of the considered neighbourhoods. Altogether, we draw a landscape of formalisms that are suitable for the specification of systems with data and open up new avenues for future research.


Published on July 2, 2024
Robust non-computability of dynamical systems and computability of robust dynamical systems


In this paper, we examine the relationship between the stability of the dynamical system $x^{\prime}=f(x)$ and the computability of its basins of attraction. We present a computable $C^{\infty}$ system $x^{\prime}=f(x)$ that possesses a computable and stable equilibrium point, yet whose basin of attraction is robustly non-computable in a neighborhood of $f$ in the sense that both the equilibrium point and the non-computability of its associated basin of attraction persist when $f$ is slightly perturbed. This indicates that local stability near a stable equilibrium point alone is insufficient to guarantee the computability of its basin of attraction. However, we also demonstrate that the basins of attraction associated with a structurally stable - globally stable (robust) - planar system defined on a compact set are computable. Our findings suggest that the global stability of a system and the compactness of the domain play a pivotal role in determining the computability of its basins of attraction.


Published on June 26, 2024
$\text{TT}^{\Box}_{\mathcal C}$: a Family of Extensional Type Theories with Effectful Realizers of Continuity
Authors: Liron Cohen ; Vincent Rahli.


$\text{TT}^{\Box}_{{\mathcal C}}$ is a generic family of effectful, extensional type theories with a forcing interpretation parameterized by modalities. This paper identifies a subclass of $\text{TT}^{\Box}_{{\mathcal C}}$ theories that internally realizes continuity principles through stateful computations, such as reference cells. The principle of continuity is a seminal property that holds for a number of intuitionistic theories such as System T. Roughly speaking, it states that functions on real numbers only need approximations of these numbers to compute. Generally, continuity principles have been justified using semantical arguments, but it is known that the modulus of continuity of functions can be computed using effectful computations such as exceptions or reference cells. In this paper, the modulus of continuity of the functionals on the Baire space is directly computed using the stateful computations enabled internally in the theory.


Published on June 26, 2024
Semantics, Specification Logic, and Hoare Logic of Exact Real Computation


We propose a simple imperative programming language, ERC, that features arbitrary real numbers as primitive data type, exactly. Equipped with a denotational semantics, ERC provides a formal programming language-theoretic foundation to the algorithmic processing of real numbers. In order to capture multi-valuedness, which is well-known to be essential to real number computation, we use a Plotkin powerdomain and make our programming language semantics computable and complete: all and only real functions computable in computable analysis can be realized in ERC. The base programming language supports real arithmetic as well as implicit limits; expansions support additional primitive operations (such as a user-defined exponential function). By restricting integers to Presburger arithmetic and real coercion to the `precision' embedding $\mathbb{Z}\ni p\mapsto 2^p\in\mathbb{R}$, we arrive at a first-order theory which we prove to be decidable and model-complete. Based on said logic as specification language for preconditions and postconditions, we extend Hoare logic to a sound (w.r.t. the denotational semantics) and expressive system for deriving correct total correctness specifications. Various examples demonstrate the practicality and convenience of our language and the extended Hoare logic.


Published on June 24, 2024

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Logical Methods in Computer Science is an open-access journal, covered by SCOPUS, DBLPWeb of Science, Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt. The journal is a member of the Free Journal Network. All journal content is licensed under a Creative Commons license.