arXiv subjects

Eric Goubault

Publications and source records attributed to Eric Goubault.

46 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Computing the vertices of tropical polyhedra using directed hypergraphs

We establish a characterization of the vertices of a tropical polyhedron defined as the intersection of finitely many half-spaces. We show that a point is a vertex if, and only if, a directed hypergraph, constructed from the subdifferentials of the active constraints at this point, admits a unique strongly connected component that is maximal with respect to the reachability relation (all the other strongly connected components have access to it). This property can be checked in almost linear-time. This allows us to develop a tropical analogue of the classical double description method, which computes a minimal internal representation (in terms of vertices) of a polyhedron defined externally (by half-spaces or hyperplanes). We provide theoretical worst case complexity bounds and report extensive experimental tests performed using the library TPLib, showing that this method outperforms the other existing approaches.

math.CO↗

arXiv2012

Formal Relationships Between Geometrical and Classical Models for Concurrency

A wide variety of models for concurrent programs has been proposed during the past decades, each one focusing on various aspects of computations: trace equivalence, causality between events, conflicts and schedules due to resource accesses, etc. More recently, models with a geometrical flavor have been introduced, based on the notion of cubical set. These models are very rich and expressive since they can represent commutation between any bunch of events, thus generalizing the principle of true concurrency. While they seem to be very promising - because they make possible the use of techniques from algebraic topology in order to study concurrent computations - they have not yet been precisely related to the previous models, and the purpose of this paper is to fill this gap. In particular, we describe an adjunction between Petri nets and cubical sets which extends the previously known adjunction between Petri nets and asynchronous transition systems by Nielsen and Winskel.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2012

Trace Spaces: an Efficient New Technique for State-Space Reduction

State-space reduction techniques, used primarily in model-checkers, all rely on the idea that some actions are independent, hence could be taken in any (respective) order while put in parallel, without changing the semantics. It is thus not necessary to consider all execution paths in the interleaving semantics of a concurrent program, but rather some equivalence classes. The purpose of this paper is to describe a new algorithm to compute such equivalence classes, and a representative per class, which is based on ideas originating in algebraic topology. We introduce a geometric semantics of concurrent languages, where programs are interpreted as directed topological spaces, and study its properties in order to devise an algorithm for computing dihomotopy classes of execution paths. In particular, our algorithm is able to compute a control-flow graph for concurrent programs, possibly containing loops, which is "as reduced as possible" in the sense that it generates traces modulo equivalence. A preliminary implementation was achieved, showing promising results towards efficient methods to analyze concurrent programs, with very promising results compared to partial-order reduction techniques.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2012

Coupling policy iteration with semi-definite relaxation to compute accurate numerical invariants in static analysis

We introduce a new domain for finding precise numerical invariants of programs by abstract interpretation. This domain, which consists of level sets of non-linear functions, generalizes the domain of linear "templates" introduced by Manna, Sankaranarayanan, and Sipma. In the case of quadratic templates, we use Shor's semi-definite relaxation to derive computable yet precise abstractions of semantic functionals, and we show that the abstract fixpoint equation can be solved accurately by coupling policy iteration and semi-definite programming. We demonstrate the interest of our approach on a series of examples (filters, integration schemes) including a degenerate one (symplectic scheme).

cs.LO↗

arXiv2011

Covering space theory for directed topology

The state space of a machine admits the structure of time. For example, the geometric realization of a precubical set, a generalization of an unlabeled asynchronous transition system, admits a "local preorder" encoding control flow. In the case where time does not loop, the "locally preordered" state space splits into causally distinct components. The set of such components often gives a computable invariant of machine behavior. In the general case, no such meaningful partition could exist. However, as we show in this note, the locally preordered geometric realization of a precubical set admits a "locally monotone" covering from a state space in which time does not loop. Thus we hope to extend geometric techniques in static program analysis to looping processes.

math.AT↗

arXiv2010

A Logical Product Approach to Zonotope Intersection

We define and study a new abstract domain which is a fine-grained combination of zonotopes with polyhedric domains such as the interval, octagon, linear templates or polyhedron domain. While abstract transfer functions are still rather inexpensive and accurate even for interpreting non-linear computations, we are able to also interpret tests (i.e. intersections) efficiently. This fixes a known drawback of zonotopic methods, as used for reachability analysis for hybrid sys- tems as well as for invariant generation in abstract interpretation: intersection of zonotopes are not always zonotopes, and there is not even a best zonotopic over-approximation of the intersection. We describe some examples and an im- plementation of our method in the APRON library, and discuss some further in- teresting combinations of zonotopes with non-linear or non-convex domains such as quadratic templates and maxplus polyhedra.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2010

The tropical double description method

We develop a tropical analogue of the classical double description method allowing one to compute an internal representation (in terms of vertices) of a polyhedron defined externally (by inequalities). The heart of the tropical algorithm is a characterization of the extreme points of a polyhedron in terms of a system of constraints which define it. We show that checking the extremality of a point reduces to checking whether there is only one minimal strongly connected component in an hypergraph. The latter problem can be solved in almost linear time, which allows us to eliminate quickly redundant generators. We report extensive tests (including benchmarks from an application to static analysis) showing that the method outperforms experimentally the previous ones by orders of magnitude. The present tools also lead to worst case bounds which improve the ones provided by previous methods.

cs.CG↗

arXiv2009

A zonotopic framework for functional abstractions

This article formalizes an abstraction of input/output relations, based on parameterized zonotopes, which we call affine sets. We describe the abstract transfer functions and prove their correctness, which allows the generation of accurate numerical invariants. Other applications range from compositional reasoning to proofs of user-defined complex invariants and test case generation.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2008

Perturbed affine arithmetic for invariant computation in numerical program analysis

We completely describe a new domain for abstract interpretation of numerical programs. Fixpoint iteration in this domain is proved to converge to finite precise invariants for (at least) the class of stable linear recursive filters of any order. Good evidence shows it behaves well also for some non-linear schemes. The result, and the structure of the domain, rely on an interesting interplay between order and topology.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2002

Topological Deformation of Higher Dimensional Automata

A local po-space is a gluing of topological spaces which are equipped with a closed partial ordering representing the time flow. They are used as a formalization of higher dimensional automata which model concurrent systems in computer science. It is known that there are two distinct notions of deformation of higher dimensional automata, ``spatial'' and ``temporal'', leaving invariant computer scientific properties like presence or absence of deadlocks. Unfortunately, the formalization of these notions is still unknown in the general case of local po-spaces. We introduce here a particular kind of local po-space, the ``globular CW-complexes'', for which we formalize these notions of deformations and which are sufficient to formalize higher dimensional automata. After localizing the category of globular CW-complexes by spatial and temporal deformations, we get a category (the category of dihomotopy types) whose objects up to isomorphism represent exactly the higher dimensional automata up to deformation. Thus globular CW-complexes provide a rigorous mathematical foundation to study from an algebraic topology point of view higher dimensional automata and concurrent computations.

math.AT↗