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Radu Iosif

Publications and source records attributed to Radu Iosif.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Robust Algebraic Theories of Triangle Graphs

Triangle graphs are graphs of tree-width at most three in which every edge belongs to a triangle. This class encompasses well-known graph families such as Apollonian networks. We also consider fan graphs, a subclass of triangle graphs closely related to the 3-connected triangle graphs. Our main result is an algebraic characterization of both classes. We introduce two graph algebras based on parallel composition and a ternary serial composition, and show that they generate exactly the triangle and fan graphs, respectively. These algebras provide a natural extension of the classical algebra of series-parallel graphs from tree-width two to tree-width three. Building on these characterizations, we investigate context-free, recognizable, and logically-definable graph languages. We show that counting monadic second-order logic (CMSO) is decidable over the context-free sets of triangle and fan graphs. Moreover, we prove that recognizable graph languages coincide with languages definable in CMSO for both algebras.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2026

Regular Grammars as Effective Representations of Recognizable Sets of Series-Parallel Graphs

Series-parallel (SP) graphs are binary edge-labeled graphs with a designated source and target vertex, built using serial and parallel composition. A set of graphs is recognizable if membership depends only on its image under a homomorphism into a finite algebra. For SP-graphs, and more generally, for graphs of bounded tree-width, recognizability coincides with definability in Counting Monadic Second-Order (CMSO) logic. Despite this strong logical characterization, the conciseness and algorithmic effectiveness of syntactic representations of recognizable sets of SP (and bounded-tree-width) graphs remain poorly understood. Building on previously introduced regular grammars for SP-graphs, we show that recognizable sets admit concise and effective syntactic representations. The main contribution is an improved construction of finite recognizer algebras whose size is singly-exponential in the size of a regular grammar, improving upon the previously known double-exponential bound. As a consequence, the problems of intersection and language inclusion for sets represented by regular grammars are shown to be EXPTIME-complete, thus improving on a previously known 2EXPTIME upper bound.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2025

Iterating Non-Aggregative Structure Compositions

An aggregative composition is a binary operation obeying the principle that the whole is determined by the sum of its parts. The development of graph algebras, on which the theory of formal graph languages is built, relies on aggregative compositions that behave like disjoint union, except for a set of well-marked interface vertices from both sides, that are joined. The same style of composition has been considered in the context of relational structures, that generalize graphs and use constant symbols to label the interface. In this paper, we study a non-aggregative composition operation, called \emph{fusion}, that joins non-deterministically chosen elements from disjoint structures. The sets of structures obtained by iteratively applying fusion do not always have bounded tree-width, even when starting from a tree-width bounded set. First, we prove that the problem of the existence of a bound on the tree-width of the closure of a given set under fusion is decidable, when the input set is described inductively by a finite \emph{hyperedge-replacement} (HR) grammar, written using the operations of aggregative composition, forgetting and renaming of constants. Such sets are usually called \emph{context-free}. Second, assuming that the closure under fusion of a context-free set has bounded tree-width, we show that it is the language of an effectively constructible HR grammar. A possible application of the latter result is the possiblity of checking whether all structures from a non-aggregatively closed set having bounded tree-width satisfy a given monadic second order logic formula.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2025

Verifying Parameterized Networks Specified by Vertex-Replacement Graph Grammars

We consider the parametric reachability problem (PRP) for families of networks described by vertex-replacement (VR) graph grammars, where network nodes run replicas of finite-state processes that communicate via binary handshaking. We show that the PRP problem for VR grammars can be effectively reduced to the PRP problem for hyperedge-replacement (HR) grammars at the cost of introducing extra edges for routing messages. This transformation is motivated by the existence of several parametric verification techniques for families of networks specified by HR grammars, or similar inductive formalisms. Our reduction enables applying the verification techniques for HR systems to systems with dense architectures, such as user-specified cliques and multi-partite graphs.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2025

Counting Abstraction for the Verification of Structured Parameterized Networks

We consider the verification of parameterized networks of replicated processes whose architecture is described by hyperedge-replacement graph grammars. Due to the undecidability of verification problems such as reachability or coverability of a given configuration, in which we count the number of replicas in each local state, we develop two orthogonal verification techniques. We present a counting abstraction able to produce, from a graph grammar describing a parameterized system, a finite set of Petri nets that over-approximate the behaviors of the original system. The counting abstraction is implemented in a prototype tool, evalutated on a non-trivial set of test cases. Moreover, we identify a decidable fragment, for which the coverability problem is in 2EXPTIME and PSPACE-hard.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2024

Regular Grammars for Sets of Graphs of Tree-Width 2

Regular word grammars are restricted context-free grammars that define all the recognizable languages of words. This paper generalizes regular grammars from words to certain classes of graphs, by defining regular grammars for unordered unranked trees and graphs of tree-width 2 at most. The qualifier ``regular'' is justified because these grammars define precisely the recognizable (equivalently, CMSO-definable) sets of the respective graph classes. The proof of equivalence between regular and recognizable sets of graphs relies on the effective construction of a recognizer algebra of size doubly-exponential in the size of the grammar. This sets a 2EXPTIME upper bound on the (EXPTIME-hard) problem of inclusion of a context-free language in a regular language, for graphs of tree-width 2 at most. A further syntactic restriction of regular grammars suffices to capture precisely the MSO-definable sets of graphs of tree-width 2 at most, i.e., the sets defined by CMSO formulae without cardinality constraints. Moreover, we show that MSO-definability coincides with recognizability by algebras having an aperiodic parallel composition semigroup, for each class of graphs defined by a bound on the tree-width.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2024

Tree-Verifiable Graph Grammars

Hyperedge-Replacement grammars (HR) have been introduced by Courcelle in order to extend the notion of context-free sets from words and trees to graphs of bounded tree-width. While for words and trees the syntactic restrictions that guarantee that the associated languages of words resp. trees are regular - and hence, MSO-definable - are known, the situation is far more complicated for graphs. Here, Courcelle proposed the notion of regular graph grammars, a syntactic restriction of HR grammars that guarantees the definability of the associated languages of graphs in Counting Monadic Second Order Logic (CMSO). However, these grammars are not complete in the sense that not every CMSO-definable set of graphs of bounded tree-width can be generated by a regular graph grammar. In this paper, we introduce a new syntactic restriction of HR grammars, called tree-verifiable graph grammars, and a new notion of bounded tree-width, called embeddable bounded tree-width, where the later restricts the trees of a tree-decomposition to be a subgraph of the analyzed graph. The main property of tree-verifiable graph grammars is that their associated languages are CMSO-definable and that the have bounded embeddable tree-width. We show further that they strictly generalize the regular graph grammars of Courcelle. Finally, we establish a completeness result, showing that every language of graphs that is CMSO-definable and of bounded embeddable tree-width can be generated by a tree-verifiable graph grammar.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2024

Effective MSO-Definability for Tree-width Bounded Models of an Inductive Separation Logic of Relations

A class of graph languages is definable in Monadic Second-Order logic (MSO) if and only if it consists of sets of models of MSO formul{\ae}. If, moreover, there is a computable bound on the tree-widths of the graphs in each such set, the satisfiability and entailment problems are decidable, by Courcelle's Theorem. This motivates the comparison of other graph logics to MSO. In this paper, we consider the MSO definability of a Separation Logic of Relations (SLR) that describes simple hyper-graphs, in which each sequence of vertices is attached to at most one edge with a given label. Our logic SLR uses inductive predicates whose recursive definitions consist of existentially quantified separated conjunctions of relation and predicate atoms. The main contribution of this paper is an expressive fragment of SLR that describes bounded tree-width sets of graphs which can, moreover, be effectively translated into MSO.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2023

The Treewidth Boundedness Problem for an Inductive Separation Logic of Relations

The treewidth boundedness problem for a logic asks for the existence of an upper bound on the treewidth of the models of a given formula in that logic. This problem is found to be undecidable for first order logic. We consider a generalization of Separation Logic over relational signatures, interpreted over standard relational structures, and describe an algorithm for the treewidth boundedness problem in the context of this logic.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2023

Characterizations of Monadic Second Order Definable Context-Free Sets of Graphs

We give a characterization of the sets of graphs that are both definable in Counting Monadic Second Order Logic (CMSO) and context-free, i.e., least solutions of Hyperedge-Replacement (HR) grammars introduced by Courcelle and Engelfriet. We prove the equivalence of these sets with: (a) recognizable sets (in the algebra of graphs with HR-operations) of bounded tree-width; we refine this condition further and show equivalence with recognizability in a finitely generated subalgebra of the HR-algebra of graphs; (b) parsable sets, for which there is a definable transduction from graphs to a set of derivation trees labelled by HR operations, such that the set of graphs is the image of the set of derivation trees under the canonical evaluation of the HR operations; (c) images of recognizable unranked sets of trees under a definable transduction, whose inverse is also definable. We rely on a novel connection between two seminal results, a logical characterization of context-free graph languages in terms of tree-to-graph definable transductions, by Courcelle and Engelfriet and a proof that an optimal-width tree decomposition of a graph can be built by an definable transduction, by Bojanczyk and Pilipczuk.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2023

Expressiveness Results for an Inductive Logic of Separated Relations

In this paper we study a Separation Logic of Relations (SLR) and compare its expressiveness to (Monadic)Second Order Logic (M)SO. SLR is based on the well-known Symbolic Heap fragment of Separation Logic, whose formulae are composed of points-to assertions, inductively defined predicates, with the separating conjunction as the only logical connective. SLR generalizes the Symbolic Heap fragment by supporting general relational atoms, instead of only points-to assertions. In this paper, we restrict ourselves to finite relational structures, and hence only consider Weak (M)SO, where quantification ranges over finite sets. Our main results are that SLR and MSO are incomparable on structures of unbounded treewidth, while SLR can be embedded in SO in general. Furthermore, MSO becomes a strict subset of SLR, when the treewidth of the models is bounded by a parameter and all vertices attached to some hyperedge belong to the interpretation of a fixed unary relation symbol. We also discuss the problem of identifying a fragment of SLR that is equivalent to MSO over models of bounded treewidth.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2022

On the Expressiveness of a Logic of Separated Relations

We compare the model-theoretic expressiveness of the existential fragment of Separation Logic over unrestricted relational signatures (SLR) -- with only separating conjunction as logical connective and higher-order inductive definitions, traditionally known as the symbolic heap fragment -- with the expressiveness of (Monadic) Second Order Logic ((M)SO). While SLR and MSO are incomparable on structures of unbounded treewidth, it turns out that SLR can be embedded in SO, in general, and that MSO becomes a strict subset of SLR, when the treewidth of the models is bounded by a parameter given as input. We also discuss the problem of defining a fragment of SLR that is equivalent to MSO over models of bounded treewidth. Such a fragment would then become the most general Separation Logic with a decidable entailment problem, a key ingredient of practical verification methods for self-adapting (reconfigurable) component-based and distributed systems.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2022

Decision Problems in a Logic for Reasoning about Reconfigurable Distributed Systems

We consider a logic used to describe sets of configurations of distributed systems, whose network topologies can be changed at runtime, by reconfiguration programs. The logic uses inductive definitions to describe networks with an unbounded number of components and interactions, written using a multiplicative conjunction, reminiscent of Bunched Implications and Separation Logic. We study the complexity of the satisfiability and entailment problems for the configuration logic under consideration. Additionally, we consider robustness properties, such as tightness (are all interactions entirely connected to components?) and degree boundedness (is every component involved in a bounded number of interactions?), the latter being an ingredient for decidability of entailments.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2022

On an Invariance Problem for Parameterized Concurrent Systems

We consider concurrent systems consisting of replicated finite-state processes that synchronize via joint interactions in a network with user-defined topology. The system is specified using a resource logic with a multiplicative connective and inductively defined predicates, reminiscent of Separation Logic. The problem we consider is if a given formula in this logic defines an invariant, namely whether any model of the formula, following an arbitrary firing sequence of interactions, is transformed into another model of the same formula. This property, called \emph{havoc invariance}, is quintessential in proving the correctness of reconfiguration programs that change the structure of the network at runtime. We show that the havoc invariance problem is many-one reducible to the entailment problem $ϕ\models ψ$, asking if any model of $ϕ$ is also a model of $ψ$. Although, in general, havoc invariance is found to be undecidable, this reduction allows to prove that havoc invariance is in 2EXP, for a general fragment of the logic, with a 2EXP entailment problem.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2022

Reasoning about Reconfigurations of Distributed Systems

This paper presents a Hoare-style calculus for formal reasoning about reconfiguration programs of distributed systems. Such programs create and delete components and/or interactions (connectors) while the system components change state according to their internal behaviour. Our proof calculus uses a resource logic, in the spirit of Separation Logic, to give local specifications of reconfiguration actions. Moreover, distributed systems with an unbounded number of components are described using inductively defined predicates. The correctness of reconfiguration programs relies on havoc invariants, that are assertions about the ongoing interactions in a part of the system that is not affected by the structural change caused by the reconfiguration. We present a proof system for such invariants in an assume/rely-guarantee style. We illustrate the feasibility of our approach by proving the correctness of real-life distributed systems with reconfigurable (self-adjustable) tree architectures.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2021

Verification of Component-based Systems with Recursive Architectures

We study a sound verification method for parametric component-based systems. The method uses a resource logic, a new formal specification language for distributed systems consisting of a finite yet unbounded number of components. The logic allows the description of architecture configurations coordinating instances of a finite number of types of components, by means of inductive definitions similar to the ones used to describe algebraic data types or recursive data structures. For parametric systems specified in this logic, we show that decision problems such as reaching deadlock or violating critical section are undecidable, in general. Despite this negative result, we provide for these decision problems practical semi-algorithms relying on the automatic synthesis of structural invariants allowing the proof of general safety properties. The invariants are defined using the WSkS fragment of the monadic second order logic, known to be decidable by a classical automata-logic connection, thus reducing a verification problem to checking satisfiability of a WSkS formula.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2021

Structural Invariants for the Verification of Systems with Parameterized Architectures

We consider parameterized concurrent systems consisting of a finite but unknown number of components, obtained by replicating a given set of finite state automata. Components communicate by executing atomic interactions whose participants update their states simultaneously. We introduce an interaction logic to specify both the type of interactions (e.g.\ rendez-vous, broadcast) and the topology of the system (e.g.\ pipeline, ring). The logic can be easily embedded in monadic second order logic of finitely many successors, and is therefore decidable. Proving safety properties of such a parameterized system, like deadlock freedom or mutual exclusion, requires to infer an inductive invariant that contains all reachable states of all system instances, and no unsafe state. We present a method to automatically synthesize inductive invariants directly from the formula describing the interactions, without costly fixed point iterations. We experimentally prove that this invariant is strong enough to verify safety properties of a large number of systems including textbook examples (dining philosophers, synchronization schemes), classical mutual exclusion algorithms, cache-coherence protocols and self-stabilization algorithms, for an arbitrary number of components.

cs.DC↗