Related papers: Modeling the Raft Distributed Consensus Protocol i…
Multi-Byzantine Fault Tolerant (Multi-BFT) consensus allows multiple consensus instances to run in parallel, resolving the leader bottleneck problem inherent in classic BFT consensus. However, the global ordering of Multi-BFT consensus…
We consider the problem of solving consensus using deterministic algorithms in a synchronous dynamic network with unreliable, directional point-to-point links, which are under the control of a message adversary. In contrast to a large body…
Global pooling is one of the most significant operations in many machine learning models and tasks, which works for information fusion and structured data (like sets and graphs) representation. However, without solid mathematical…
This paper addresses task planning problems for language-instructed robot teams. Tasks are expressed in natural language (NL), requiring the robots to apply their capabilities at various locations and semantic objects. Several recent works…
Modern ways of communications, such as in a web services environment, also influences trust relationships between organisations. This concept of web-based (way towards semantic web services) trust is new and has as yet not been resolved. We…
We propose a new distributed-computing model, inspired by permissionless distributed systems such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, that allows studying permissionless consensus in a mathematically regular setting. Like in the sleepy model of Pass…
Byzantine fault tolerant protocols enable state replication in the presence of crashed, malfunctioning, or actively malicious processes. Designing such protocols without the assistance of verification tools, however, is remarkably…
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) standardizes how a large-language-model (LLM) agent and an external tool server exchange messages, but not trust: a host reads a server's self-declared tool list and dispatches calls, with no notion of which…
State machine replication protocols, like MultiPaxos and Raft, are a critical component of many distributed systems and databases. However, these protocols offer relatively low throughput due to several bottlenecked components. Numerous…
The emergence of blockchain technology has renewed the interest in consensus-based data management systems that are resilient to failures. To maximize the throughput of these systems, we have recently seen several prototype consensus…
As the complexity of our neural network models grow, so too do the data and computation requirements for successful training. One proposed solution to this problem is training on a distributed network of computational devices, thus…
Using an algorithm due to Safra for distributed termination detection as a running example, we present the main tools for verifying specifications written in TLA+. Examining their complementary strengths and weaknesses, we suggest a…
Today's practical partially synchronous Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocols trade off low latency and high throughput. On the one end, traditional BFT protocols such as PBFT and its derivatives optimize for latency. They…
Replication ensures data availability in fault-prone distributed systems. The celebrated CAP theorem stipulates that replicas cannot guarantee both strong consistency and availability under network partitions. A popular alternative, adopted…
Leader-based consensus protocols must undergo a view-change phase to elect a new leader when the current leader fails. The new leader is often decided upon a candidate server that collects votes from a quorum of servers. However,…
Test case prioritisation (TCP) is a critical task in regression testing to ensure quality as software evolves. Machine learning has become a common way to achieve it. In particular, learning-to-rank (LTR) algorithms provide an effective…
Blockchain technology provides an auditable and tamper-proof distributed storage infrastructure for information records. This can be leveraged to support distributed workflow management. Compared to proof-of-work consensus, popularized by…
There is a resurgence of interest in Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) systems due to blockchains. However, leader-based BFT consensus protocols used by permissioned blockchains have limited scalability and robustness. To alleviate the leader…
TAP, the Table Access Protocol, is a widely used Virtual Observatory specification allowing client software to interact with remote database services in a standardised way. This paper presents taplint, a tool for assessing the compliance of…
Inconsistent outputs and hallucinations from large language models (LLMs) are major obstacles to reliable AI systems. When different proprietary reasoning models (RMs), such as those by OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, DeepSeek, and xAI, are…