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We consider nondeterministic probabilistic programs with the most basic liveness property of termination. We present efficient methods for termination analysis of nondeterministic probabilistic programs with polynomial guards and…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2016-04-26 Krishnendu Chatterjee , Hongfei Fu , Amir Kafshdar Goharshady

Dependency pairs are one of the most powerful techniques to analyze termination of term rewrite systems (TRSs) automatically. We adapt the dependency pair framework to the probabilistic setting in order to prove almost-sure innermost…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2023-06-06 Jan-Christoph Kassing , Jürgen Giesl

This paper considers the computational hardness of computing expected outcomes and deciding (universal) (positive) almost-sure termination of probabilistic programs. It is shown that computing lower and upper bounds of expected outcomes is…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2015-06-08 Benjamin Lucien Kaminski , Joost-Pieter Katoen

We propose a modular method for proving termination of general logic programs (i.e., logic programs with negation). It is based on the notion of acceptable programs, but it allows us to prove termination in a truly modular way. We consider…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-06-18 Annalisa Bossi , Nicoletta Cocco , Sandro Etalle , Sabina Rossi

The classical technique for proving termination of a generic sequential computer program involves the synthesis of a ranking function for each loop of the program. Linear ranking functions are particularly interesting because many…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2012-04-03 Roberto Bagnara , Fred Mesnard , Andrea Pescetti , Enea Zaffanella

We introduce the class of constant probability (CP) programs and show that classical results from probability theory directly yield a simple decision procedure for (positive) almost sure termination of programs in this class. Moreover,…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2019-09-19 Jürgen Giesl , Peter Giesl , Marcel Hark

As machine learning is increasingly used in essential systems, it is important to reduce or eliminate the incidence of serious bugs. A growing body of research has developed machine learning algorithms with formal guarantees about…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-15 Jean-Baptiste Tristan , Joseph Tassarotti , Koundinya Vajjha , Michael L. Wick , Anindya Banerjee

Testing algorithms across a wide range of problem instances is crucial to ensure the validity of any claim about one algorithm's superiority over another. However, when it comes to inference algorithms for probabilistic logic programs,…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2020-09-14 Paulius Dilkas , Vaishak Belle

Probabilistic programs extend classical imperative programs with real-valued random variables and random branching. The most basic liveness property for such programs is the termination property. The qualitative (aka almost-sure)…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2017-09-14 Sheshansh Agrawal , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Petr Novotný

In this paper we investigate the applicability of standard model checking approaches to verifying properties in probabilistic programming. As the operational model for a standard probabilistic program is a potentially infinite parametric…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2016-07-28 Nils Jansen , Christian Dehnert , Benjamin Lucien Kaminski , Joost-Pieter Katoen , Lukas Westhofen

We present a novel technique for proving program termination which introduces a new dimension of modularity. Existing techniques use the program to incrementally construct a termination proof. While the proof keeps changing, the program…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2015-05-26 Pierre Ganty , Samir Genaim

It is widely acknowledged that function symbols are an important feature in answer set programming, as they make modeling easier, increase the expressive power, and allow us to deal with infinite domains. The main issue with their…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-02-19 Marco Calautti , Sergio Greco , Cristian Molinaro , Irina Trubitsyna

Determining whether a program terminates is a core challenge in program analysis with direct implications for correctness, verification, and security. We investigate whether transformer architectures can recognise termination patterns…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2026-04-02 Yoav Alon , Cristina David

Computing reachability probabilities is a fundamental problem in the analysis of probabilistic programs. This paper aims at a comprehensive and comparative account on various martingale-based methods for over- and under-approximating…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2018-11-16 Toru Takisaka , Yuichiro Oyabu , Natsuki Urabe , Ichiro Hasuo

We introduce the notion of a stochastic probabilistic program and present a reference implementation of a probabilistic programming facility supporting specification of stochastic probabilistic programs and inference in them. Stochastic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-01-23 David Tolpin , Tomer Dobkin

We show that a subclass of infinite-state probabilistic programs that can be modeled by probabilistic one-counter automata (pOC) admits an efficient quantitative analysis. In particular, we show that the expected termination time can be…

Formal Languages and Automata Theory · Computer Science 2011-02-15 Tomas Brazdil , Stefan Kiefer , Antonin Kucera

Programs that combine I/O and countable probabilistic choice, modulo either bisimilarity or trace equivalence, can be seen as describing a probabilistic strategy. For well-founded programs, we might expect to axiomatize bisimilarity via a…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2025-08-22 Nathan Bowler , Sergey Goncharov , Paul Blain Levy

The chase procedure is a fundamental algorithmic tool in databases that allows us to reason with constraints, such as existential rules, with a plethora of applications. It takes as input a database and a set of constraints, and iteratively…

Databases · Computer Science 2023-03-24 Marco Calautti , Mostafa Milani , Andreas Pieris

Determining whether a program terminates is a central problem in computer science. Turing's Halting Problem established termination as undecidable, showing that no algorithm can universally determine termination for all programs and inputs.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Oren Sultan , Jordi Armengol-Estape , Pascal Kesseli , Julien Vanegue , Dafna Shahaf , Yossi Adi , Peter O'Hearn

We introduce a method for proving almost sure termination in the context of lambda calculus with continuous random sampling and explicit recursion, based on ranking supermartingales. This result is extended in three ways. Antitone ranking…

Programming Languages · Computer Science 2021-05-04 Andrew Kenyon-Roberts , Luke Ong