Volume 15, Issue 4

2019

1. $\aleph_1$ and the modal $\mu$-calculus

For a regular cardinal $\kappa$, a formula of the modal $\mu$-calculus is $\kappa$-continuous in a variable x if, on every model, its interpretation as a unary function of x is monotone and preserves unions of $\kappa$-directed sets. We define the fragment $C_{\aleph_1}(x)$ of the modal $\mu$-calculus and prove that all the formulas in this fragment are $\aleph_1$-continuous. For each formula $\phi(x)$ of the modal $\mu$-calculus, we construct a formula $\psi(x) \in C_{\aleph_1 }(x)$ such that $\phi(x)$ is $\kappa$-continuous, for some $\kappa$, if and only if $\phi(x)$ is equivalent to $\psi(x)$. Consequently, we prove that (i) the problem whether a formula is $\kappa$-continuous for some $\kappa$ is decidable, (ii) up to equivalence, there are only two fragments determined by continuity at some regular cardinal: the fragment $C_{\aleph_0}(x)$ studied by Fontaine and the fragment $C_{\aleph_1}(x)$. We apply our considerations to the problem of characterizing closure ordinals of formulas of the modal $\mu$-calculus. An ordinal $\alpha$ is the closure ordinal of a formula $\phi(x)$ if its interpretation on every model converges to its least fixed-point in at most $\alpha$ steps and if there is a model where the convergence occurs exactly in $\alpha$ steps. We prove that $\omega_1$, the least uncountable ordinal, is such a closure ordinal. Moreover we prove that closure ordinals are closed under ordinal sum. Thus, any formal expression built from 0, 1, $\omega$, $\omega_1$ by […]

2. Rule Formats for Nominal Process Calculi

The nominal transition systems (NTSs) of Parrow et al. describe the operational semantics of nominal process calculi. We study NTSs in terms of the nominal residual transition systems (NRTSs) that we introduce. We provide rule formats for the specifications of NRTSs that ensure that the associated NRTS is an NTS and apply them to the operational specifications of the early and late pi-calculus. We also explore alternative specifications of the NTSs in which we allow residuals of abstraction sort, and introduce translations between the systems with and without residuals of abstraction sort. Our study stems from the Nominal SOS of Cimini et al. and from earlier works in nominal sets and nominal logic by Gabbay, Pitts and their collaborators.

3. On the enumeration of closures and environments with an application to random generation

Environments and closures are two of the main ingredients of evaluation in lambda-calculus. A closure is a pair consisting of a lambda-term and an environment, whereas an environment is a list of lambda-terms assigned to free variables. In this paper we investigate some dynamic aspects of evaluation in lambda-calculus considering the quantitative, combinatorial properties of environments and closures. Focusing on two classes of environments and closures, namely the so-called plain and closed ones, we consider the problem of their asymptotic counting and effective random generation. We provide an asymptotic approximation of the number of both plain environments and closures of size $n$. Using the associated generating functions, we construct effective samplers for both classes of combinatorial structures. Finally, we discuss the related problem of asymptotic counting and random generation of closed environemnts and closures.

4. On Free $\omega$-Continuous and Regular Ordered Algebras

We study varieties of certain ordered $\Sigma$-algebras with restricted completeness and continuity properties. We give a general characterization of their free algebras in terms of submonads of the monad of $\Sigma$-coterms. Varieties of this form are called \emph{quasi-regular}. For example, we show that if $E$ is a set of inequalities between finite $\Sigma$-terms, and if $\mathcal{V}_\omega$ and $\mathcal{V}_\mathrm{reg}$ denote the varieties of all $\omega$-continuous ordered $\Sigma$-algebras and regular ordered $\Sigma$-algebras satisfying $E$, respectively, then the free $\mathcal{V}_\mathrm{reg}$-algebra $F_\mathrm{reg}(X)$ on generators $X$ is the subalgebra of the corresponding free $\mathcal{V}_\omega$-algebra $F_\omega(X)$ determined by those elements of $F_\omega(X)$ denoted by the regular $\Sigma$-coterms. This is a special case of a more general construction that applies to any quasi-regular family. Examples include the *-continuous Kleene algebras, context-free languages, $\omega$-continuous semirings and $\omega$-continuous idempotent semirings, OI-macro languages, and iteration theories.

5. Scalar and Vectorial mu-calculus with Atoms

We study an extension of modal $\mu$-calculus to sets with atoms and we study its basic properties. Model checking is decidable on orbit-finite structures, and a correspondence to parity games holds. On the other hand, satisfiability becomes undecidable. We also show expressive limitations of atom-enriched $\mu$-calculi, and explain how their expressive power depends on the structure of atoms used, and on the choice between basic or vectorial syntax.

6. On completeness and parametricity in the realizability semantics of System F

We investigate completeness and parametricity for a general class of realizability semantics for System F defined in terms of closure operators over sets of $\lambda$-terms. This class includes most semantics used for normalization theorems, as those arising from Tait's saturated sets and Girard's reducibility candidates. We establish a completeness result for positive types which subsumes those existing in the literature, and we show that closed realizers satisfy parametricity conditions expressed either as invariance with respect to logical relations or as dinaturality. Our results imply that, for positive types, typability, realizability and parametricity are equivalent properties of closed normal $\lambda$-terms.

7. The Dynamic Geometry of Interaction Machine: A Token-Guided Graph Rewriter

In implementing evaluation strategies of the lambda-calculus, both correctness and efficiency of implementation are valid concerns. While the notion of correctness is determined by the evaluation strategy, regarding efficiency there is a larger design space that can be explored, in particular the trade-off between space versus time efficiency. Aiming at a unified framework that would enable the study of this trade-off, we introduce an abstract machine, inspired by Girard's Geometry of Interaction (GoI), a machine combining token passing and graph rewriting. We show soundness and completeness of our abstract machine, called the \emph{Dynamic GoI Machine} (DGoIM), with respect to three evaluations: call-by-need, left-to-right call-by-value, and right-to-left call-by-value. Analysing time cost of its execution classifies the machine as efficient'' in Accattoli's taxonomy of abstract machines.

8. Lifting Coalgebra Modalities and $\mathsf{MELL}$ Model Structure to Eilenberg-Moore Categories

A categorical model of the multiplicative and exponential fragments of intuitionistic linear logic ($\mathsf{MELL}$), known as a \emph{linear category}, is a symmetric monoidal closed category with a monoidal coalgebra modality (also known as a linear exponential comonad). Inspired by Blute and Scott's work on categories of modules of Hopf algebras as models of linear logic, we study categories of algebras of monads (also known as Eilenberg-Moore categories) as models of $\mathsf{MELL}$. We define a $\mathsf{MELL}$ lifting monad on a linear category as a Hopf monad -- in the Brugui{è}res, Lack, and Virelizier sense -- with a special kind of mixed distributive law over the monoidal coalgebra modality. As our main result, we show that the linear category structure lifts to the category of algebras of $\mathsf{MELL}$ lifting monads. We explain how groups in the category of coalgebras of the monoidal coalgebra modality induce $\mathsf{MELL}$ lifting monads and provide a source for such groups from enrichment over abelian groups. Along the way we also define mixed distributive laws of symmetric comonoidal monads over symmetric monoidal comonads and lifting differential category structure.

9. Flow Logic

Flow networks have attracted a lot of research in computer science. Indeed, many questions in numerous application areas can be reduced to questions about flow networks. Many of these applications would benefit from a framework in which one can formally reason about properties of flow networks that go beyond their maximal flow. We introduce Flow Logics: modal logics that treat flow functions as explicit first-order objects and enable the specification of rich properties of flow networks. The syntax of our logic BFL* (Branching Flow Logic) is similar to the syntax of the temporal logic CTL*, except that atomic assertions may be flow propositions, like $> \gamma$ or $\geq \gamma$, for $\gamma \in \mathbb{N}$, which refer to the value of the flow in a vertex, and that first-order quantification can be applied both to paths and to flow functions. We present an exhaustive study of the theoretical and practical aspects of BFL*, as well as extensions and fragments of it. Our extensions include flow quantifications that range over non-integral flow functions or over maximal flow functions, path quantification that ranges over paths along which non-zero flow travels, past operators, and first-order quantification of flow values. We focus on the model-checking problem and show that it is PSPACE-complete, as it is for CTL*. Handling of flow quantifiers, however, increases the complexity in terms of the network to ${\rm P}^{\rm NP}$, even for the LFL and BFL fragments, which are the […]

10. Computing the Width of Non-deterministic Automata

We introduce a measure called width, quantifying the amount of nondeterminism in automata. Width generalises the notion of good-for-games (GFG) automata, that correspond to NFAs of width 1, and where an accepting run can be built on-the-fly on any accepted input. We describe an incremental determinisation construction on NFAs, which can be more efficient than the full powerset determinisation, depending on the width of the input NFA. This construction can be generalised to infinite words, and is particularly well-suited to coBüchi automata. For coBüchi automata, this procedure can be used to compute either a deterministic automaton or a GFG one, and it is algorithmically more efficient in the last case. We show this fact by proving that checking whether a coBüchi automaton is determinisable by pruning is NP-complete. On finite or infinite words, we show that computing the width of an automaton is EXPTIME-complete. This implies EXPTIME-completeness for multipebble simulation games on NFAs.

11. A non-regular language of infinite trees that is recognizable by a sort-wise finite algebra

$\omega$-clones are multi-sorted structures that naturally emerge as algebras for infinite trees, just as $\omega$-semigroups are convenient algebras for infinite words. In the algebraic theory of languages, one hopes that a language is regular if and only if it is recognized by an algebra that is finite in some simple sense. We show that, for infinite trees, the situation is not so simple: there exists an $\omega$-clone that is finite on every sort and finitely generated, but recognizes a non-regular language.

12. Simplified Algorithmic Metatheorems Beyond MSO: Treewidth and Neighborhood Diversity

This paper settles the computational complexity of model checking of several extensions of the monadic second order (MSO) logic on two classes of graphs: graphs of bounded treewidth and graphs of bounded neighborhood diversity. A classical theorem of Courcelle states that any graph property definable in MSO is decidable in linear time on graphs of bounded treewidth. Algorithmic metatheorems like Courcelle's serve to generalize known positive results on various graph classes. We explore and extend three previously studied MSO extensions: global and local cardinality constraints (CardMSO and MSO-LCC) and optimizing the fair objective function (fairMSO). First, we show how these extensions of MSO relate to each other in their expressive power. Furthermore, we highlight a certain "linearity" of some of the newly introduced extensions which turns out to play an important role. Second, we provide parameterized algorithm for the aforementioned structural parameters. On the side of neighborhood diversity, we show that combining the linear variants of local and global cardinality constraints is possible while keeping the linear (FPT) runtime but removing linearity of either makes this impossible. Moreover, we provide a polynomial time (XP) algorithm for the most powerful of studied extensions, i.e. the combination of global and local constraints. Furthermore, we show a polynomial time (XP) algorithm on graphs of bounded treewidth for the same extension. In addition, we […]

13. A Curry-Howard Approach to Church's Synthesis

Church's synthesis problem asks whether there exists a finite-state stream transducer satisfying a given input-output specification. For specifications written in Monadic Second-Order Logic (MSO) over infinite words, Church's synthesis can theoretically be solved algorithmically using automata and games. We revisit Church's synthesis via the Curry-Howard correspondence by introducing SMSO, an intuitionistic variant of MSO over infinite words, which is shown to be sound and complete w.r.t. synthesis thanks to an automata-based realizability model.

14. Definable isomorphism problem

We investigate the isomorphism problem in the setting of definable sets (equivalent to sets with atoms): given two definable relational structures, are they related by a definable isomorphism? Under mild assumptions on the underlying structure of atoms, we prove decidability of the problem. The core result is parameter-elimination: existence of an isomorphism definable with parameters implies existence of an isomorphism definable without parameters.

15. On Functions Weakly Computable by Pushdown Petri Nets and Related Systems

We consider numerical functions weakly computable by grammar-controlled vector addition systems (GVASes, a variant of pushdown Petri nets). GVASes can weakly compute all fast growing functions $F_\alpha$ for $\alpha<\omega^\omega$, hence they are computationally more powerful than standard vector addition systems. On the other hand they cannot weakly compute the inverses $F_\alpha^{-1}$ or indeed any sublinear function. The proof relies on a pumping lemma for runs of GVASes that is of independent interest.

16. Logical and Algebraic Characterizations of Rational Transductions

Rational word languages can be defined by several equivalent means: finite state automata, rational expressions, finite congruences, or monadic second-order (MSO) logic. The robust subclass of aperiodic languages is defined by: counter-free automata, star-free expressions, aperiodic (finite) congruences, or first-order (FO) logic. In particular, their algebraic characterization by aperiodic congruences allows to decide whether a regular language is aperiodic. We lift this decidability result to rational transductions, i.e., word-to-word functions defined by finite state transducers. In this context, logical and algebraic characterizations have also been proposed. Our main result is that one can decide if a rational transduction (given as a transducer) is in a given decidable congruence class. We also establish a transfer result from logic-algebra equivalences over languages to equivalences over transductions. As a consequence, it is decidable if a rational transduction is first-order definable, and we show that this problem is PSPACE-complete.

17. Concurrency and Probability: Removing Confusion, Compositionally

Assigning a satisfactory truly concurrent semantics to Petri nets with confusion and distributed decisions is a long standing problem, especially if one wants to resolve decisions by drawing from some probability distribution. Here we propose a general solution based on a recursive, static decomposition of (occurrence) nets in loci of decision, called structural branching cells (s-cells). Each s-cell exposes a set of alternatives, called transactions. Our solution transforms a given Petri net into another net whose transitions are the transactions of the s-cells and whose places are those of the original net, with some auxiliary structure for bookkeeping. The resulting net is confusion-free, and thus conflicting alternatives can be equipped with probabilistic choices, while nonintersecting alternatives are purely concurrent and their probability distributions are independent. The validity of the construction is witnessed by a tight correspondence with the recursively stopped configurations of Abbes and Benveniste. Some advantages of our approach are that: i) s-cells are defined statically and locally in a compositional way; ii) our resulting nets faithfully account for concurrency.

18. Relational $\star$-Liftings for Differential Privacy

Recent developments in formal verification have identified approximate liftings (also known as approximate couplings) as a clean, compositional abstraction for proving differential privacy. This construction can be defined in two styles. Earlier definitions require the existence of one or more witness distributions, while a recent definition by Sato uses universal quantification over all sets of samples. These notions have each have their own strengths: the universal version is more general than the existential ones, while existential liftings are known to satisfy more precise composition principles. We propose a novel, existential version of approximate lifting, called $\star$-lifting, and show that it is equivalent to Sato's construction for discrete probability measures. Our work unifies all known notions of approximate lifting, yielding cleaner properties, more general constructions, and more precise composition theorems for both styles of lifting, enabling richer proofs of differential privacy. We also clarify the relation between existing definitions of approximate lifting, and consider more general approximate liftings based on $f$-divergences.