arXiv subjects

Mingshuai Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Mingshuai Chen.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Does a Program Yield the Right Distribution? Verifying Probabilistic Programs via Generating Functions

We study discrete probabilistic programs with potentially unbounded looping behaviors over an infinite state space. We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first decidability result for the problem of determining whether such a program generates exactly a specified distribution over its outputs (provided the program terminates almost surely). The class of distributions that can be specified in our formalism consists of standard distributions (geometric, uniform, etc.) and finite convolutions thereof. Our method relies on representing these (possibly infinite-support) distributions as probability generating functions which admit effective arithmetic operations. We have automated our techniques in a tool called prodigy, which supports automatic invariance checking, compositional reasoning of nested loops, and efficient queries on various quantities of to the output distribution, as demonstrated by experiments.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2021

Synthesizing Invariant Barrier Certificates via Difference-of-Convex Programming

A barrier certificate often serves as an inductive invariant that isolates an unsafe region from the reachable set of states, and hence is widely used in proving safety of hybrid systems possibly over the infinite time horizon. We present a novel condition on barrier certificates, termed the invariant barrier-certificate condition, that witnesses unbounded-time safety of differential dynamical systems. The proposed condition is by far the least conservative one on barrier certificates, and can be shown as the weakest possible one to attain inductive invariance. We show that discharging the invariant barrier-certificate condition -- thereby synthesizing invariant barrier certificates -- can be encoded as solving an optimization problem subject to bilinear matrix inequalities (BMIs). We further propose a synthesis algorithm based on difference-of-convex programming, which approaches a local optimum of the BMI problem via solving a series of convex optimization problems. This algorithm is incorporated in a branch-and-bound framework that searches for the global optimum in a divide-and-conquer fashion. We present a weak completeness result of our method, in the sense that a barrier certificate is guaranteed to be found (under some mild assumptions) whenever there exists an inductive invariant (in the form of a given template) that suffices to certify safety of the system. Experimental results on benchmark examples demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2021

Latticed $k$-Induction with an Application to Probabilistic Programs

We revisit two well-established verification techniques, $k$-induction and bounded model checking (BMC), in the more general setting of fixed point theory over complete lattices. Our main theoretical contribution is latticed $k$-induction, which (i) generalizes classical $k$-induction for verifying transition systems, (ii) generalizes Park induction for bounding fixed points of monotonic maps on complete lattices, and (iii) extends from naturals $k$ to transfinite ordinals $κ$, thus yielding $κ$-induction. The lattice-theoretic understanding of $k$-induction and BMC enables us to apply both techniques to the fully automatic verification of infinite-state probabilistic programs. Our prototypical implementation manages to automatically verify non-trivial specifications for probabilistic programs taken from the literature that - using existing techniques - cannot be verified without synthesizing a stronger inductive invariant first.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2020

On Termination of Polynomial Programs with Equality Conditions

We investigate the termination problem of a family of multi-path polynomial programs (MPPs), in which all assignments to program variables are polynomials, and test conditions of loops and conditional statements are polynomial equalities. We show that the set of non-terminating inputs (NTI) of such a program is algorithmically computable, thus leading to the decidability of its termination. To the best of our knowledge, the considered family of MPPs is hitherto the largest one for which termination is decidable. We present an explicit recursive function which is essentially Ackermannian, to compute the maximal length of ascending chains of polynomial ideals under a control function, and thereby obtain a complete answer to the questions raised by Seidenberg. This maximal length facilitates a precise complexity analysis of our algorithms for computing the NTI and deciding termination of MPPs. We extend our method to programs with polynomial guarded commands and show how an incomplete procedure for MPPs with inequality guards can be obtained. An application of our techniques to invariant generation of polynomial programs is further presented.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2020

Unbounded-Time Safety Verification of Stochastic Differential Dynamics

In this paper, we propose a method for bounding the probability that a stochastic differential equation (SDE) system violates a safety specification over the infinite time horizon. SDEs are mathematical models of stochastic processes that capture how states evolve continuously in time. They are widely used in numerous applications such as engineered systems (e.g., modeling how pedestrians move in an intersection), computational finance (e.g., modeling stock option prices), and ecological processes (e.g., population change over time). Previously the safety verification problem has been tackled over finite and infinite time horizons using a diverse set of approaches. The approach in this paper attempts to connect the two views by first identifying a finite time bound, beyond which the probability of a safety violation can be bounded by a negligibly small number. This is achieved by discovering an exponential barrier certificate that proves exponentially converging bounds on the probability of safety violations over time. Once the finite time interval is found, a finite-time verification approach is used to bound the probability of violation over this interval. We demonstrate our approach over a collection of interesting examples from the literature, wherein our approach can be used to find tight bounds on the violation probability of safety properties over the infinite time horizon.

math.DS↗

arXiv2020

Learning One-Clock Timed Automata

We present an algorithm for active learning of deterministic timed automata with a single clock. The algorithm is within the framework of Angluin's $L^*$ algorithm and inspired by existing work on the active learning of symbolic automata. Due to the need of guessing for each transition whether it resets the clock, the algorithm is of exponential complexity in the size of the learned automata. Before presenting this algorithm, we propose a simpler version where the teacher is assumed to be smart in the sense of being able to provide the reset information. We show that this simpler setting yields a polynomial complexity of the learning process. Both of the algorithms are implemented and evaluated on a collection of randomly generated examples. We furthermore demonstrate the simpler algorithm on the functional specification of the TCP protocol.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2019

NIL: Learning Nonlinear Interpolants

Nonlinear interpolants have been shown useful for the verification of programs and hybrid systems in contexts of theorem proving, model checking, abstract interpretation, etc. The underlying synthesis problem, however, is challenging and existing methods have limitations on the form of formulae to be interpolated. We leverage classification techniques with space transformations and kernel tricks as established in the realm of machine learning, and present a counterexample-guided method named NIL for synthesizing polynomial interpolants, thereby yielding a unified framework tackling the interpolation problem for the general quantifier-free theory of nonlinear arithmetic, possibly involving transcendental functions. We prove the soundness of NIL and propose sufficient conditions under which NIL is guaranteed to converge, i.e., the derived sequence of candidate interpolants converges to an actual interpolant, and is complete, namely the algorithm terminates by producing an interpolant if there exists one. The applicability and effectiveness of our technique are demonstrated experimentally on a collection of representative benchmarks from the literature, where in particular, our method suffices to address more interpolation tasks, including those with perturbations in parameters, and in many cases synthesizes simpler interpolants compared with existing approaches.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2016

Interpolation synthesis for quadratic polynomial inequalities and combination with EUF

An algorithm for generating interpolants for formulas which are conjunctions of quadratic polynomial inequalities (both strict and nonstrict) is proposed. The algorithm is based on a key observation that quadratic polynomial inequalities can be linearized if they are concave. A generalization of Motzkin's transposition theorem is proved, which is used to generate an interpolant between two mutually contradictory conjunctions of polynomial inequalities, using semi-definite programming in time complexity $\mathcal{O}(n^3+nm))$, where $n$ is the number of variables and $m$ is the number of inequalities. Using the framework proposed by \cite{SSLMCS2008} for combining interpolants for a combination of quantifier-free theories which have their own interpolation algorithms, a combination algorithm is given for the combined theory of concave quadratic polynomial inequalities and the equality theory over uninterpreted functions symbols (\textit{EUF}). The proposed approach is applicable to all existing abstract domains like \emph{octagon}, \emph{polyhedra}, \emph{ellipsoid} and so on, therefore it can be used to improve the scalability of existing verification techniques for programs and hybrid systems. In addition, we also discuss how to extend our approach to formulas beyond concave quadratic polynomials using Gröbner basis.

cs.LO↗