arXiv subjects

Paolo Baldan

Publications and source records attributed to Paolo Baldan.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Program Logic for Abstract (Hyper)Properties

We introduce APPL (Abstract Program Property Logic), a unifying Hoare-style logic that subsumes standard Hoare logic, incorrectness logic, and several variants of Hyper Hoare logic. APPL provides a principled foundation for abstract program logics parameterised by an abstract domain, encompassing both existing and novel abstractions of properties and hyperproperties. The logic is grounded in a semantic framework where the meaning of commands is first defined on a lattice basis and then extended to the full lattice via additivity. Crucially, nondeterministic choice is interpreted by a monoidal operator that need not be idempotent nor coincide with the lattice join. This flexibility allows the framework to capture collecting semantics, various classes of abstract semantics, and hypersemantics. The APPL proof system is sound, and it is relatively complete whenever the property language is sufficiently expressive. When the property language is restricted to an abstract domain, the result is a sound abstract deduction system based on best correct approximations. Relative completeness with respect to a corresponding abstract semantics is recovered provided the abstract domain is complete, in the sense of abstract interpretation, for the monoidal operator.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2026

Computing Fixpoints of Learned Functions: Chaotic Iteration and Simple Stochastic Games

The problem of determining the (least) fixpoint of (higher-dimensional) functions over the non-negative reals frequently occurs when dealing with systems endowed with a quantitative semantics. We focus on the situation in which the functions of interest are not known precisely but can only be approximated. As a first contribution we generalize an iteration scheme called dampened Mann iteration, recently introduced in the literature. The improved scheme relaxes previous constraints on parameter sequences, allowing learning rates to converge to zero or not converge at all. While seemingly minor, this flexibility is essential to enable the implementation of chaotic iterations, where only a subset of components is updated in each step, allowing to tackle higher-dimensional problems. Additionally, by allowing learning rates to converge to zero, we can relax conditions on the convergence speed of function approximations, making the method more adaptable to various scenarios. We also show that dampened Mann iteration applies immediately to compute the expected payoff in various probabilistic models, including simple stochastic games, not covered by previous work.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2025

A Monoidal View on Fixpoint Checks

Fixpoints are ubiquitous in computer science as they play a central role in providing a meaning to recursive and cyclic definitions. Bisimilarity, behavioural metrics, termination probabilities for Markov chains and stochastic games are defined in terms of least or greatest fixpoints. Here we show that our recent work which proposes a technique for checking whether the fixpoint of a function is the least (or the largest) admits a natural categorical interpretation in terms of gs-monoidal categories. The technique is based on a construction that maps a function to a suitable approximation. We study the compositionality properties of this mapping and show that under some restrictions it can naturally be interpreted as a (lax) gs-monoidal functor. This guides the development of a tool, called UDEfix that allows us to build functions (and their approximations) like a circuit out of basic building blocks and subsequently perform the fixpoints checks. We also show that a slight generalisation of the theory allows one to treat a new relevant case study: coalgebraic behavioural metrics based on Wasserstein liftings.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2025

Approximating Fixpoints of Approximated Functions

Fixpoints are ubiquitous in computer science and when dealing with quantitative semantics and verification one often considers least fixpoints of (higher-dimensional) functions over the non-negative reals. We show how to approximate the least fixpoint of such functions, focusing on the case in which they are not known precisely, but represented by a sequence of approximating functions that converge to them. We concentrate on monotone and non-expansive functions, for which uniqueness of fixpoints is not guaranteed and standard fixpoint iteration schemes might get stuck at a fixpoint that is not the least. Our main contribution is the identification of an iteration scheme, a variation of Mann iteration with a dampening factor, which, under suitable conditions, is shown to guarantee convergence to the least fixpoint of the function of interest. We then argue that these results are relevant in the context of model-based reinforcement learning for Markov decision processes, showing how the proposed iteration scheme instantiates and allows us to derive convergence to the optimal expected return. More generally, we show that our results can be used to iterate to the least fixpoint almost surely for systems where the function of interest can be approximated with given probabilistic error bounds, as it happens for probabilistic systems, such as simple stochastic games, which can be explored via sampling.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2025

Model Checking as Program Verification by Abstract Interpretation (Extended Version)

Abstract interpretation offers a powerful toolset for static analysis, tackling precision, complexity and state-explosion issues. In the literature, state partitioning abstractions based on (bi)simulation and property-preserving state relations have been successfully applied to abstract model checking. Here, we pursue a different track in which model checking is seen as an instance of program verification. To this purpose, we introduce a suitable language-called MOKA (for MOdel checking as abstract interpretation of Kleene Algebras)-which is used to encode temporal formulae as programs. In particular, we show that (universal fragments of) temporal logics, such as ACTL or, more generally, universal mu-calculus can be transformed into MOKA programs. Such programs return all and only the initial states which violate the formula. By applying abstract interpretation to MOKA programs, we pave the way for reusing more general abstractions than partitions as well as for tuning the precision of the abstraction to remove or avoid false alarms. We show how to perform model checking via a program logic that combines under-approximation and abstract interpretation analysis to avoid false alarms. The notion of locally complete abstraction is used to dynamically improve the analysis precision via counterexample-guided domain refinement.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2024

Coalgebraic Behavioral Metrics

We study different behavioral metrics, such as those arising from both branching and linear-time semantics, in a coalgebraic setting. Given a coalgebra $α\colon X \to HX$ for a functor $H \colon \mathrm{Set}\to \mathrm{Set}$, we define a framework for deriving pseudometrics on $X$ which measure the behavioral distance of states. A crucial step is the lifting of the functor $H$ on $\mathrm{Set}$ to a functor $\overline{H}$ on the category $\mathrm{PMet}$ of pseudometric spaces. We present two different approaches which can be viewed as generalizations of the Kantorovich and Wasserstein pseudometrics for probability measures. We show that the pseudometrics provided by the two approaches coincide on several natural examples, but in general they differ. If $H$ has a final coalgebra, every lifting $\overline{H}$ yields in a canonical way a behavioral distance which is usually branching-time, i.e., it generalizes bisimilarity. In order to model linear-time metrics (generalizing trace equivalences), we show sufficient conditions for lifting distributive laws and monads. These results enable us to employ the generalized powerset construction.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2024

Left-Linear Rewriting in Adhesive Categories

When can two sequential steps performed by a computing device be considered (causally) independent? This is a relevant question for concurrent and distributed systems, since independence means that they could be executed in any order, and potentially in parallel. Equivalences identifying rewriting sequences which differ only for independent steps are at the core of the theory of concurrency of many formalisms. We investigate the issue in the context of the double pushout approach to rewriting in the general setting of adhesive categories. While a consolidated theory exists for linear rules,which can consume, preserve and generate entities, this paper focuses on left-linear rules which may also "merge" parts of the state. This is an apparently minimal, yet technically hard enhancement,since a standard characterisation of independence that - in the linear case - allows one to derive a number of properties, essential in the development of a theory of concurrency, no longer holds. The paper performs an in-depth study of the notion of independence for left-linear rules: it introduces a novel characterisation of independence, identifies well-behaved classes of left-linear rewriting systems,and provides some fundamental results including a Church-Rosser property and the existence of canonical equivalence proofs for concurrent computations. These results properly extends the class of formalisms that can be modelled in the adhesive framework

cs.LO↗

arXiv2023

Fixpoint Theory -- Upside Down

Knaster-Tarski's theorem, characterising the greatest fixpoint of a monotone function over a complete lattice as the largest post-fixpoint, naturally leads to the so-called coinduction proof principle for showing that some element is below the greatest fixpoint (e.g., for providing bisimilarity witnesses). The dual principle, used for showing that an element is above the least fixpoint, is related to inductive invariants. In this paper we provide proof rules which are similar in spirit but for showing that an element is above the greatest fixpoint or, dually, below the least fixpoint. The theory is developed for non-expansive monotone functions on suitable lattices of the form $\mathbb{M}^Y$, where $Y$ is a finite set and $\mathbb{M}$ an MV-algebra, and it is based on the construction of (finitary) approximations of the original functions. We show that our theory applies to a wide range of examples, including termination probabilities, metric transition systems, behavioural distances for probabilistic automata and bisimilarity. Moreover it allows us to determine original algorithms for solving simple stochastic games.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2022

A Lattice-Theoretical View of Strategy Iteration

Strategy iteration is a technique frequently used for two-player games in order to determine the winner or compute payoffs, but to the best of our knowledge no general framework for strategy iteration has been considered. Inspired by previous work on simple stochastic games, we propose a general formalisation of strategy iteration for solving least fixpoint equations over a suitable class of complete lattices, based on MV-chains. We devise algorithms that can be used for non-expansive fixpoint functions represented as so-called min-, respectively, max-decompositions. Correspondingly, we develop two different techniques: strategy iteration from above, which has to solve the problem that iteration might reach a fixpoint that is not the least, and from below, which is algorithmically simpler, but requires a more involved correctness argument. We apply our method to solve energy games and compute behavioural metrics for probabilistic automata.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2021

Intensional Kleene and Rice Theorems for Abstract Program Semantics

Classical results in computability theory, notably Rice's theorem, focus on the extensional content of programs, namely, on the partial recursive functions that programs compute. Later and more recent work investigated intensional generalisations of such results that take into account the way in which functions are computed, thus affected by the specific programs computing them. In this paper, we single out a novel class of program semantics based on abstract domains of program properties that are able to capture nonextensional aspects of program computations, such as their asymptotic complexity or logical invariants, and allow us to generalise some foundational computability results such as Rice's Theorem and Kleene's Second Recursion Theorem to these semantics. In particular, it turns out that for this class of abstract program semantics, any nontrivial abstract property is undecidable and every decidable over-approximation necessarily includes an infinite set of false positives which covers all the values of the semantic abstract domain.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2021

Abstraction, Up-to Techniques and Games for Systems of Fixpoint Equations

Systems of fixpoint equations over complete lattices, consisting of (mixed) least and greatest fixpoint equations, allow one to express a number of verification tasks such as model-checking of various kinds of specification logics or the check of coinductive behavioural equivalences. In this paper we develop a theory of approximation for systems of fixpoint equations in the style of abstract interpretation: a system over some concrete domain is abstracted to a system in a suitable abstract domain, with conditions ensuring that the abstract solution represents a sound/complete overapproximation of the concrete solution. Interestingly, up-to techniques, a classical approach used in coinductive settings to obtain easier or feasible proofs, can be interpreted as abstractions in a way that they naturally fit in our framework and extend to systems of equations. Additionally, relying on the approximation theory, we can provide a characterisation of the solution of systems of fixpoint equations over complete lattices in terms of a suitable parity game, generalising some recent work that was restricted to continuous lattices. The game view opens the way to the development of on-the-fly algorithms for characterising the solution of such equation systems.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2021

Fixpoint Games on Continuous Lattices

Many analysis and verifications tasks, such as static program analyses and model-checking for temporal logics reduce to the solution of systems of equations over suitable lattices. Inspired by recent work on lattice-theoretic progress measures, we develop a game-theoretical approach to the solution of systems of monotone equations over lattices, where for each single equation either the least or greatest solution is taken. A simple parity game, referred to as fixpoint game, is defined that provides a correct and complete characterisation of the solution of equation systems over continuous lattices, a quite general class of lattices widely used in semantics. For powerset lattices the fixpoint game is intimately connected with classical parity games for $μ$-calculus model-checking, whose solution can exploit as a key tool Jurdziński's small progress measures. We show how the notion of progress measure can be naturally generalised to fixpoint games over continuous lattices and we prove the existence of small progress measures. Our results lead to a constructive formulation of progress measures as (least) fixpoints. We refine this characterisation by introducing the notion of selection that allows one to constrain the plays in the parity game, enabling an effective (and possibly efficient) solution of the game, and thus of the associated verification problem. We also propose a logic for specifying the moves of the existential player that can be used to systematically derive simplified equations for efficiently computing progress measures. We discuss potential applications to the model-checking of latticed $μ$-calculi and to the solution of fixpoint equations systems over the reals.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2020

Domains and Event Structures for Fusions

Stable event structures, and their duality with prime algebraic domains arising as partial orders of configurations, are a landmark of concurrency theory, providing a clear characterisation of causality in computations. They have been used for defining a concurrent semantics of several formalisms, from Petri nets to (linear) graph rewriting systems, which in turn lay at the basis of many visual modelling frameworks. Stability however is restrictive when dealing with formalisms with "fusion", i.e., where a computational step can not only consume and produce but also merge parts of the state. This happens, e.g., for graph rewriting systems with non-linear rules, which are needed to cover some relevant applications (such as the graphical encoding of calculi with name passing). Guided by the need of capturing the semantics of formalisms with fusion we leave aside stability and we characterise, as a natural generalisation of prime algebraic domains, a class of domains, referred to as weak prime domains. We then identify a corresponding class of event structures, that we call connected event structures, via a duality result formalised as an equivalence of categories. We show that connected event structures are exactly the class of event structures that arise as the semantics of non-linear graph rewriting systems. Interestingly, the category of general unstable event structures coreflects into our category of weak prime domains, so that our result provides a characterisation of the partial orders of configurations of such event structures.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2020

An exploratory study of the glassy landscape near jamming

We present the study of the landscape structure of athermal soft spheres both as a function of the packing fraction and of the energy. We find that, on approaching the jamming transition, the number of different configurations available to the system has a steep increase and that a hierarchical organization of the landscape emerges. We use the knowledge of the structure of the landscape to predict the values of thermodynamic observables on the edge of the transition.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2019

Minimisation of Event Structures

Event structures are fundamental models in concurrency theory, providing a representation of events in computation and of their relations, notably concurrency, conflict and causality. In this paper we present a theory of minimisation for event structures. Working in a class of event structures that generalises many stable event structure models in the literature (e.g., prime, asymmetric, flow and bundle event structures), we study a notion of behaviour-preserving quotient, referred to as a folding, taking (hereditary) history preserving bisimilarity as a reference behavioural equivalence. We show that for any event structure a folding producing a uniquely determined minimal quotient always exists. We observe that each event structure can be seen as the folding of a prime event structure, and that all foldings between general event structures arise from foldings of (suitably defined) corresponding prime event structures. This gives a special relevance to foldings in the class of prime event structures, which are studied in detail. We identify folding conditions for prime and asymmetric event structures, and show that also prime event structures always admit a unique minimal quotient (while this is not the case for various other event structure models).

cs.LO↗

arXiv2018

Event Structures for Petri nets with Persistence

Event structures are a well-accepted model of concurrency. In a seminal paper by Nielsen, Plotkin and Winskel, they are used to establish a bridge between the theory of domains and the approach to concurrency proposed by Petri. A basic role is played by an unfolding construction that maps (safe) Petri nets into a subclass of event structures, called prime event structures, where each event has a uniquely determined set of causes. Prime event structures, in turn, can be identified with their domain of configurations. At a categorical level, this is nicely formalised by Winskel as a chain of coreflections. Contrary to prime event structures, general event structures allow for the presence of disjunctive causes, i.e., events can be enabled by distinct minimal sets of events. In this paper, we extend the connection between Petri nets and event structures in order to include disjunctive causes. In particular, we show that, at the level of nets, disjunctive causes are well accounted for by persistent places. These are places where tokens, once generated, can be used several times without being consumed and where multiple tokens are interpreted collectively, i.e., their histories are inessential. Generalising the work on ordinary nets, Petri nets with persistence are related to a new subclass of general event structures, called locally connected, by means of a chain of coreflections relying on an unfolding construction.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2015

Towards Trace Metrics via Functor Lifting

We investigate the possibility of deriving metric trace semantics in a coalgebraic framework. First, we generalize a technique for systematically lifting functors from the category Set of sets to the category PMet of pseudometric spaces, showing under which conditions also natural transformations, monads and distributive laws can be lifted. By exploiting some recent work on an abstract determinization, these results enable the derivation of trace metrics starting from coalgebras in Set. More precisely, for a coalgebra on Set we determinize it, thus obtaining a coalgebra in the Eilenberg-Moore category of a monad. When the monad can be lifted to PMet, we can equip the final coalgebra with a behavioral distance. The trace distance between two states of the original coalgebra is the distance between their images in the determinized coalgebra through the unit of the monad. We show how our framework applies to nondeterministic automata and probabilistic automata.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2014

Behavioral Metrics via Functor Lifting

We study behavioral metrics in an abstract coalgebraic setting. Given a coalgebra alpha: X -> FX in Set, where the functor F specifies the branching type, we define a framework for deriving pseudometrics on X which measure the behavioral distance of states. A first crucial step is the lifting of the functor F on Set to a functor in the category PMet of pseudometric spaces. We present two different approaches which can be viewed as generalizations of the Kantorovich and Wasserstein pseudometrics for probability measures. We show that the pseudometrics provided by the two approaches coincide on several natural examples, but in general they differ. Then a final coalgebra for F in Set can be endowed with a behavioral distance resulting as the smallest solution of a fixed-point equation, yielding the final coalgebra in PMet. The same technique, applied to an arbitrary coalgebra alpha: X -> FX in Set, provides the behavioral distance on X. Under some constraints we can prove that two states are at distance 0 if and only if they are behaviorally equivalent.

cs.LO↗