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Related papers: Probabilistic Population Protocol Models

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Population protocols are a model of distributed computation in which a collection of indistinguishable finite-state agents interact randomly in pairs to decide a predicate of their initial configuration. The agents decide by achieving a…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-05-01 Philipp Czerner , Javier Esparza , Vincent Fischer , Roland Guttenberg , Julian Pins , Simon Reilich

In this paper we analyze the computational power of variants of population protocols (PP), a formalism for distributed systems with anonymous agents having very limited capabilities. The capabilities of agents are enhanced in mediated…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2019-08-26 Tobias Prehn , Myron Rotter

Population protocols are a well established model of computation by anonymous, identical finite state agents. A protocol is well-specified if from every initial configuration, all fair executions reach a common consensus. The central…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-07-31 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Stefan Jaax , Philipp J. Meyer

Population protocols are a well established model of distributed computation by mobile finite-state agents with very limited storage. A classical result establishes that population protocols compute exactly predicates definable in…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-03-08 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Stefan Jaax

In this paper we investigate the computational power of Population Protocols (PP) under some unreliable and/or weaker interaction models. More precisely, we focus on two features related to the power of interactions: omission failures and…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-11-03 Giuseppe Antonio Di Luna , Paola Flocchini , Taisuke Izumi , Tomoko Izumi , Nicola Santoro , Giovanni Viglietta

The recent proliferation of research into transformer based natural language processing has led to a number of studies which attempt to detect the presence of human-like cognitive behavior in the models. We contend that, as is true of human…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-04-01 Jesse Roberts , Kyle Moore , Drew Wilenzick , Doug Fisher

We consider the standard population protocol model, where (a priori) indistinguishable and anonymous agents interact in pairs according to uniformly random scheduling. The self-stabilizing leader election problem requires the protocol to…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-11-30 Janna Burman , Ho-Lin Chen , Hsueh-Ping Chen , David Doty , Thomas Nowak , Eric Severson , Chuan Xu

Sensory processing is often characterized as implementing probabilistic inference: networks of neurons compute posterior beliefs over unobserved causes given the sensory inputs. How these beliefs are computed and represented by neural…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2018-11-27 Sabyasachi Shivkumar , Richard D. Lange , Ankani Chattoraj , Ralf M. Haefner

In a previous paper, a process algebra based on ACP (Algebra of Communicating Processes) was proposed in which processes involving data can be handled by means of features originating from imperative programming. In this paper, an extension…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2026-05-19 C. A. Middelburg

In the stochastic population protocol model, we are given a connected graph with $n$ nodes, and in every time step, a scheduler samples an edge of the graph uniformly at random and the nodes connected by this edge interact. A fundamental…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2023-12-22 Dan Alistarh , Joel Rybicki , Sasha Voitovych

The wisdom of the crowd is a valuable asset in today's society. It is not only important in predicting elections but also plays an essential role in marketing and the financial industry. Having a trustworthy source of opinion can make…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2018-12-05 Anton Muehlemann

The population protocol model was introduced by Angluin \emph{et al.} as a model of passively mobile anonymous finite-state agents. This model computes a predicate on the multiset of their inputs via interactions by pairs. The original…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-02-12 Olivier Bournez , Johanne Cohen , Mikaël Rabie

We consider a population of $n$ agents which communicate with each other in a decentralized manner, through random pairwise interactions. One or more agents in the population may act as authoritative sources of information, and the…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2017-11-30 Bartlomiej Dudek , Adrian Kosowski

In the distributed localization problem (DLP), $n$ anonymous robots (agents) $a_0, a_1, ..., a_{n-1}$ begin at arbitrary positions $p_0, ..., p_{n-1}$ in $S$, where $S$ is an Euclidean space. The primary goal in DLP is for agents to reach a…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-05-09 Leszek Gąsieniec , Łukasz Kuszner , Ehsan Latif , Ramviyas Parasuraman , Paul Spirakis , Grzegorz Stachowiak

We study which outcomes are implementable by disclosing coarse statistics of a data-generating process rather than its full distribution. Players observe data whose joint distribution is only partially known: they know the expectations of…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-05-11 Francesco Giordano

In this paper, we focus on the uniform bipartition problem in the population protocol model. This problem aims to divide a population into two groups of equal size. In particular, we consider the problem in the context of \emph{arbitrary}…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2020-11-19 Hiroto Yasumi , Fukuhito Ooshita , Michiko Inoue , Sébastien Tixeuil

Population size estimates for hidden and hard-to-reach populations are particularly important when members are known to suffer from disproportion health issues or to pose health risks to the larger ambient population in which they are…

Social and Information Networks · Computer Science 2018-07-04 Bilal Khan , Hsuan-Wei Lee , Ian Fellows , Kirk Dombrowski

We present a loosely-stabilizing phase clock for population protocols. In the population model we are given a system of $n$ identical agents which interact in a sequence of randomly chosen pairs. Our phase clock is leaderless and it…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-12-03 Petra Berenbrink , Felix Biermeier , Christopher Hahn , Dominik Kaaser

In this paper we study population protocols governed by the {\em random scheduler}, which uniformly at random selects pairwise interactions between $n$ agents. The main result of this paper is the first time and space optimal {\em exact…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-06-29 Leszek Gąsieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak , Przemysław Uznański

Models of opinion dynamics play a major role in various disciplines, including economics, political science, psychology, and social science, as they provide a framework for analysis and intervention. In spite of the numerous mathematical…

Physics and Society · Physics 2021-08-17 Armineh Rahmanian , Sadegh Bolouki , S. Rasoul Etesami , Abolfazl Mohebbi