Showing papers on "Pushdown automaton published in 2016"

Reasoning about Recursive Probabilistic Programs

Abstract: This paper presents a wp--style calculus for obtaining expectations on the outcomes of (mutually) recursive probabilistic programs. We provide several proof rules to derive one-- and two--sided bounds for such expectations, and show the soundness of our wp--calculus with respect to a probabilistic pushdown automaton semantics. We also give a wp--style calculus for obtaining bounds on the expected runtime of recursive programs that can be used to determine the (possibly infinite) time until termination of such programs.

Parameterized Verification of Asynchronous Shared-Memory Systems

Abstract: We characterize the complexity of the safety verification problem for parameterized systems consisting of a leader process and arbitrarily many anonymous and identical contributors. Processes communicate through a shared, bounded-value register. While each operation on the register is atomic, there is no synchronization primitive to execute a sequence of operations atomically.We analyze the complexity of the safety verification problem when processes are modeled by finite-state machines, pushdown machines, and Turing machines. The problem is coNP-complete when all processes are finite-state machines, and is PSPACE-complete when they are pushdown machines. The complexity remains coNP-complete when each Turing machine is allowed boundedly many interactions with the register. Our proofs use combinatorial characterizations of computations in the model, and in the case of pushdown systems, some language-theoretic constructions of independent interest. Our results are surprising, because parameterized verification problems on slight variations of our model are known to be undecidable. For example, the problem is undecidable for finite-state machines operating with synchronization primitives, and already for two communicating pushdown machines. Thus, our results show that a robust, decidable class can be obtained under the assumptions of anonymity and asynchrony.

Unboundedness and downward closures of higher-order pushdown automata

Abstract: We show the diagonal problem for higher-order pushdown automata (HOPDA), and hence the simultaneous unboundedness problem, is decidable. From recent work by Zetzsche this means that we can construct the downward closure of the set of words accepted by a given HOPDA. This also means we can construct the downward closure of the Parikh image of a HOPDA. Both of these consequences play an important role in verifying concurrent higher-order programs expressed as HOPDA or safe higher-order recursion schemes.

Scope-Bounded Pushdown Languages

Abstract: We study the formal language theory of multistack pushdown automata (MPA) restricted to computations where a symbol can be popped from a stack S only if it was pushed within a bounded number of contexts of S (scoped MPA). We show that scoped MPA are indeed a robust model of computation, by focusing on the corresponding theory of visibly MPA (MVPA). We prove the equivalence of the deterministic and nondeterministic versions and show that scope-bounded computations of an n-stack MVPA can be simulated, rearranging the input word, by using only one stack. These results have some interesting consequences, such as, the closure under complement, the decidability of universality, inclusion and equality, and the effective semilinearity of the Parikh image (Parikh's theorem). As a further contribution, we give a logical characterization and compare the expressiveness of the scope-bounded restriction with other MVPA classes from the literature. To the best of our knowledge, scoped MVPA languages form the largest class of formal languages accepted by MPA that enjoys all the above nice properties.

The Diagonal Problem for Higher-Order Recursion Schemes is Decidable

Abstract: A non-deterministic recursion scheme recognizes a language of finite trees. This very expressive model can simulate, among others, higher-order pushdown automata with collapse. We show decidability of the diagonal problem for schemes. This result has several interesting consequences. In particular, it gives an algorithm that computes the downward closure of languages of words recognized by schemes. In turn, this has immediate application to separability problems and reachability analysis of concurrent systems.

Simply typed fixpoint calculus and collapsible pushdown automata

Abstract: Simply typed λ-calculus with fixpoint combinators, λY-calculus, offers an interesting method for approximating program semantics. The Bohm tree of a λY-term represents the meaning of the program up to the meaning of built-in constants. It is much easier to reason about properties of such trees than properties of interpreted programs. Moreover, some interesting properties of programs are already expressible on the level of these trees. Collapsible pushdown automata (CPDA) give another way of generating the same class of trees as λY-terms. We clarify the relationship between the two models. In particular, we present two relatively simple translations from λY-terms to CPDA using Krivine machines as an intermediate step. The latter are general machines for describing computation of the weak head normal form in the λ-calculus. They provide the notions of closure and environment that facilitate reasoning about computation.

The Diagonal Problem for Higher-Order Recursion Schemes is Decidable

Abstract: A non-deterministic recursion scheme recognizes a language of fi-nite trees. This very expressive model can simulate, among others, higher-order pushdown automata with collapse. We show decidability of the diagonal problem for schemes. This result has several interesting consequences. In particular, it gives an algorithm that computes the downward closure of languages of words recognized by schemes. In turn, this has immediate application to separability problems and reachability analysis of concurrent systems.Categories and Subject Descriptors 500 [Theory of computation]: Grammars and context-free languages; 500 [Theory of computation]: Tree languages; 500 [Theory of computation]: Regular languages

A Logical Characterization for Dense-Time Visibly Pushdown Automata

Abstract: Two of the most celebrated results that effectively exploit visual representation to give logical characterization and decidable model-checking include visibly pushdown automata (VPA) by Alur and Madhusudan and event-clock automata (ECA) by Alur, Fix and Henzinger. VPA and ECA—by making the call-return edges visible and by making the clock-reset operation visible, respectively—recover decidability for the verification problem for pushdown automata implementation against visibly pushdown automata specification and timed automata implementation against event-clock timed automata specification, respectively. In this work we combine and extend these two works to introduce dense-time visibly pushdown automata that make both the call-return as well as resets visible. We present MSO logic characterization of these automata and prove the decidability of the emptiness problem for these automata paving way for verification problem for dense-timed pushdown automata against dense-timed visibly pushdown automata specification.

Fuzzy state grammar and fuzzy deep pushdown automaton

Abstract: Motivated by the concept of fuzzy finite automata and fuzzy pushdown automata, we investigate a novel fuzzy state grammars and fuzzy deep pushdown automata concept. This concept represents a natural extension of contemporary state grammar and deep pushdown automaton, making them more robust in terms of imprecision, errors, and uncertainty. It has been proved that we can construct fuzzy deep pushdown automata from fuzzy state grammars and vice-versa. Furthermore, it has been proved that if fuzzy deep pushdown automaton Mfd is constructed from fuzzy state grammar Gfs then L(Mfd) = L(Gfs). In other words, for any string α ∈ � ∗ , μ(α; α ∈ L(Gfs)) = μ(α; α ∈ L(Mfd)) where μ denotes the membership of a string.

The complexity of downward closure comparisons

Abstract: The downward closure of a language is the set of all (not necessarily contiguous) subwords of its members It is well-known that the downward closure of every language is regular Moreover, recent results show that downward closures are computable for quite powerful system models One advantage of abstracting a language by its downward closure is that then equivalence and inclusion become decidable In this work, we study the complexity of these two problems More precisely, we consider the following decision problems: Given languages $K$ and $L$ from classes $\mathcal{C}$ and $\mathcal{D}$, respectively, does the downward closure of $K$ include (equal) that of $L$? These problems are investigated for finite automata, one-counter automata, context-free grammars, and reversal-bounded counter automata For each combination, we prove a completeness result either for fixed or for arbitrary alphabets Moreover, for Petri net languages, we show that both problems are Ackermann-hard and for higher-order pushdown automata of order~$k$, we prove hardness for complements of nondeterministic $k$-fold exponential time

Reasoning about Recursive Probabilistic Programs

Abstract: This paper presents a wp-style calculus for obtaining expectations on the outcomes of (mutually) recursive probabilistic programs. We provide several proof rules to derive one-- and two--sided bounds for such expectations, and show the soundness of our wp-calculus with respect to a probabilistic pushdown automaton semantics. We also give a wp-style calculus for obtaining bounds on the expected runtime of recursive programs that can be used to determine the (possibly infinite) time until termination of such programs.

Colored Nested Words

Abstract: Nested words allow modeling of linear and hierarchical structure in data, and nested word automata are special kinds of pushdown automata whose push/pop actions are directed by the hierarchical structure in the input nested word. The resulting class of regular languages of nested words has many appealing theoretical properties, and has found many applications, including model checking of procedural programs. In the nested word model, the hierarchical matching of open- and close- tags must be properly nested, and this is not the case, for instance, in program executions in presence of exceptions. This limitation of nested words narrows its model checking applications to programs with no exceptions.

Invisible Pushdown Languages

Abstract: Context-free languages allow one to express data with hierarchical structure, at the cost of losing some of the useful properties of languages recognized by finite automata on words. However, it is possible to restore some of these properties by making the structure of the tree visible, such as is done by visibly pushdown languages, or finite automata on trees. In this paper, we show that the structure given by such approaches remains invisible when it is read by a finite automaton (on word). In particular, we show that separability with a regular language is undecidable for visibly pushdown languages, just as it is undecidable for general context-free languages.

Cayley Automatic Representations of Wreath Products

Abstract: We construct the representations of Cayley graphs of wreath products using finite automata, pushdown automata and nested stack automata. These representations are in accordance with the notion of Cayley automatic groups introduced by Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov and its extensions introduced by Elder and Taback. We obtain the upper and lower bounds for a length of an element of a wreath product in terms of the representations constructed.

Streaming Property Testing of Visibly Pushdown Languages

Abstract: In the context of formal language recognition, we demonstrate the superiority of streaming property testers against streaming algorithms and property testers, when they are not combined. Initiated by Feigenbaum et al., a streaming property tester is a streaming algorithm recognizing a language under the property testing approximation: it must distinguish inputs of the language from those that are e-far from it, while using the smallest possible memory (rather than limiting its number of input queries). Our main result is a streaming e-property tester for visibly pushdown languages (Vpl) with memory space poly((log n)/e). Our construction is done in three steps. First, we simulate a visibly pushdown automaton in one pass using a stack of small height but whose items can be of linear size. In a second step, those items are replaced by small sketches. Those sketches rely on a notion of suffix-sampling we introduce. This sampling is the key idea for taking benefit of both streaming algorithms and property testers in the third step. Indeed, the last step relies on a (non-streaming) property tester for weighted regular languages based on a previous tester by Alon et al. This tester can directly be used for streaming testing special cases of instances of Vpl that are already hard for both streaming algorithms and property testers. We then use it to decide the correctness of completed items, given their sketches, before removing them from the stack.

New Results on the Minimum Amount of Useful Space

Abstract: We present several new results on minimal space requirements to recognize a nonregular language: (i) realtime nondeterministic Turing machines can recognize a nonregular unary language within weak log log n space, (ii) log log n is a tight space lower bound for accepting general nonregular languages on weak realtime pushdown automata, (iii) there exist unary nonregular languages accepted by realtime alternating one-counter automata within weak log n space, (iv) there exist nonregular languages accepted by two-way deterministic pushdown automata within strong log log n space, and, (v) there exist unary nonregular languages accepted by two-way one-counter automata using quantum and classical states with middle log n space and bounded error.

Visibly Pushdown Automata and Transducers with Counters

Abstract: We generalize the models of visibly pushdown automata (VPDAs) and visibly pushdown transducers (VPDTs) by equipping them with reversal-bounded counters. We show that some of the results for VPDAs and VPDTs (e.g., closure under intersection and decidability of emptiness for VPDA languages) carry over to the generalized models, but other results (e.g., determinization and closure under complementation) do not carry over, in general. We define a model that combines the desirable features of a VPDA and reversal-bounded counters, called 2phase VPCM, and show that the deterministic and nondeterministic versions are equivalent and that the family of languages they define is closed under Boolean operations and has decidable emptiness, infiniteness, disjointness, containment, and equivalence problems. We also investigate the finite-ambiguity and finite-valuedness problems concerning these devices.

Weighted Symbolic Automata with Data Storage

Abstract: We introduce weighted symbolic automata with data storage, which combine and generalize the concepts of automata with storage types, weighted automata, and symbolic automata. By defining two particular data storages, we show that this combination is rich enough to capture symbolic visibly pushdown automata and weighted timed automata. We introduce a weighted MSO-logic and prove a Buchi-Elgot-Trakhtenbrot theorem, i.e., the new logic and the new automaton model are expressively equivalent.

The Complexity of Downward Closure Comparisons

Abstract: The downward closure of a language is the set of all (not necessarily contiguous) subwords of its members. It is well-known that the downward closure of every language is regular. Moreover, recent results show that downward closures are computable for quite powerful system models. One advantage of abstracting a language by its downward closure is that then equivalence and inclusion become decidable. In this work, we study the complexity of these two problems. More precisely, we consider the following decision problems: Given languages K and L from classes C and D, respectively, does the downward closure of K include (equal) that of L? These problems are investigated for finite automata, one-counter automata, context-free grammars, and reversal-bounded counter automata. For each combination, we prove a completeness result either for fixed or for arbitrary alphabets. Moreover, for Petri net languages, we show that both problems are Ackermann-hard and for higher-order pushdown automata of order k, we prove hardness for complements of nondeterministic k-fold exponential time.

Visibly Linear Dynamic Logic

Abstract: We introduce Visibly Linear Dynamic Logic (VLDL), which extends Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) by temporal operators that are guarded by visibly pushdown languages over finite words. In VLDL one can, e.g., express that a function resets a variable to its original value after its execution, even in the presence of an unbounded number of intermediate recursive calls. We prove that VLDL describes exactly the omega-visibly pushdown languages. Thus it is strictly more expressive than LTL and able to express recursive properties of programs with unbounded call stacks. The main technical contribution of this work is a translation of VLDL into omega-visibly pushdown automata of exponential size via one-way alternating jumping automata. This translation yields exponential-time algorithms for satisfiability, validity, and model checking. We also show that visibly pushdown games with VLDL winning conditions are solvable in triply-exponential time.We prove all these problems to be complete for their respective complexity classes.

Abstraction Refinement and Antichains for Trace Inclusion of Infinite State Systems

Abstract: A data automaton is a finite automaton equipped with variables counters or registers ranging over infinite data domains. A trace of a data automaton is an alternating sequence of alphabet symbols and values taken by the counters during an execution of the automaton. The problem addressed in this paper is the inclusion between the sets of traces data languages recognized by such automata. Since the problem is undecidable in general, we give a semi-algorithm based on abstraction refinement, which is proved to be sound and complete modulo termination. Due to the undecidability of the trace inclusion problem, our procedure is not guaranteed to terminate. We have implemented our technique in ai¾?prototype tool and show promising results on several non-trivial examples.

Diagnosis in Infinite-State Probabilistic Systems

Abstract: In a recent work, we introduced four variants of diagnosability (FA, IA, FF, IF) in (finite) probabilistic systems (pLTS) depending whether one considers (1) finite or infinite runs and (2) faulty or all runs We studied their relationship and established that the corresponding decision problems are PSPACE-complete A key ingredient of the decision procedures was a characterisation of diagnosability by the fact that a random run almost surely lies in an open set whose specification only depends on the qualitative behaviour of the pLTS Here we investigate similar issues for infinite pLTS We first show that this characterisation still holds for FF-diagnosability but with a G-delta set instead of an open set and also for IF- and IA-diagnosability when pLTS are finitely branching We also prove that surprisingly FA-diagnosability cannot be characterised in this way even in the finitely branching case Then we apply our characterisations for a partially observable probabilistic extension of visibly pushdown automata (POpVPA), yielding EXPSPACE procedures for solving diagnosability problems In addition, we establish some computational lower bounds and show that slight extensions of POpVPA lead to undecidability

Boosting Reversible Pushdown Machines by Preprocessing

Abstract: It is well known that reversible finite automata do not accept all regular languages and that reversible pushdown automata do not accept all deterministic context-free languages. It is of significant interest both from a practical and theoretical point of view to close these gaps. We here extend these reversible models by a preprocessing unit which is basically a reversible injective and length-preserving sequential transducer. It turns out that preprocessing the input using such weak devices increases the computational power of reversible deterministic finite automata to the acceptance of all regular languages, whereas for reversible pushdown automata the accepted family of languages lies strictly in between the reversible deterministic context-free languages and the real-time deterministic context-free languages. Moreover, it is shown that the computational power of both types of machines is not changed by allowing the preprocessing sequential transducer to work irreversibly. Finally, we examine the closure properties of the family of languages accepted by such machines.

Supervisory control synthesis for deterministic context free specification languages

Abstract: This paper describes two steps in the generalization of supervisory control theory to situations where the specification is modeled by a deterministic context free language (DCFL). First, it summarizes a conceptual iterative algorithm from Schneider et al. (2014) solving the supervisory control problem for language models. This algorithm involves two basic iterative functions. Second, the main part of this paper presents an implementable algorithm realizing one of these functions, namely the calculation of the largest controllable marked sublanguage of a given DCFL. This algorithm least restrictively removes controllability problems in a deterministic pushdown automaton realizing this DCFL.

A General Modular Synthesis Problem for Pushdown Systems

Abstract: The modular synthesis from a library of components Lms asks to compose a recursive state machine satisfying a given specification, by modularly controlling a finite set of component instances taken from the library. It combines and subsumes two synthesis problems studied in the literature: the synthesis from libraries of recursive components and the modular strategy synthesis. We consider standard specifications as reachability and safety expressed by finite automata, and visibly pushdown automata specifications, and show that for all these classes of specifications the Lms problem is EXPTIME-complete.