Related papers: Nondeterminism and Guarded Commands
Nondeterministic choice is a useful program construct that provides a way to describe the behaviour of a program without specifying the details of possible implementations. It supports the stepwise refinement of programs, a method that has…
This paper proposes new semantics for nondeterministic program execution, replacing the standard relational semantics for propositional dynamic logic (PDL). Under these new semantics, program execution is represented as fundamentally…
Parallelism is often required for performance. In these situations an excess of non-determinism is harmful as it means the program can have several different behaviours or even different results. Even in domains such as high-performance…
In this paper, we examine the state art of quantum computing and analyze its potential effects in scientific computing and cybersecurity. Additionally, a non-technical description of the mechanics of the listed form of computing is provided…
The present paper gives a mathematical, in particular, syntax-independent, formulation of intensionality and dynamics of computation in terms of games and strategies. Specifically, we give a game semantics for a higher-order programming…
We investigate the power of non-determinism in purely functional programming languages with higher-order types. Specifically, we consider cons-free programs of varying data orders, equipped with explicit non-deterministic choice.…
Software engineering requires rigorous testing to guarantee the product's quality. Semantic testing of functional correctness is challenged by nondeterminism in behavior, which makes testers difficult to write and reason about. This thesis…
Though many safety-critical software systems use floating point to represent real-world input and output, programmers usually have idealized versions in mind that compute with real numbers. Significant deviations from the ideal can cause…
I consider issues in distributed computation that should be of relevance to game theory. In particular, I focus on (a) representing knowledge and uncertainty, (b) dealing with failures, and (c) specification of mechanisms.
We study a class of filters -- discrete finite-state transition systems employed as incremental stream transducers -- that have application to robotics: e.g., to model combinatorial estimators and also as concise encodings of feedback…
Non deterministic applications arise in many domains, including, stochastic optimization, multi-objectives optimization, stochastic planning, contingent stochastic planning, reinforcement learning, reinforcement learning in partially…
These lecture notes are intended as a supplement to Moore and Mertens' The Nature of Computation or as a standalone resource, and are available to anyone who wants to use them. Comments are welcome, and please let me know if you use these…
We investigate the power of non-determinism in purely functional programming languages with higher-order types. Specifically, we set out to characterise the hierarchy NP $\subseteq$ NEXP $\subseteq$ NEXP$^{(2)}$ $\subseteq \cdots \subseteq$…
Probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) are an expressive and intuitive means of representing complex probability distributions. In that realm, languages like Dice target an important class of probabilistic programs: those whose…
We explore language semantics for automata combining probabilistic and nondeterministic behavior. We first show that there are precisely two natural semantics for probabilistic automata with nondeterminism. For both choices, we show that…
Students find their first course in Formal Languages and Automata Theory challenging. In addition to the development of formal arguments, most students struggle to understand nondeterministic computation models. In part, the struggle stems…
Asynchronous executions of a distributed algorithm differ from each other due to the nondeterminism in the order in which the messages exchanged are handled. In many situations of interest, the asynchronous executions induced by restricting…
The focus of the iWIGP workshop is the interrelation between interactions, games and protocols. How does computer science deal with nondeterministic interactions where the actions a system takes are not (completely) determined by the…
This paper analyzes infinitary nondeterministic computability theory. The main result is D $\ne$ ND $\cap$ coND where D is the class of sets decidable by infinite time Turing machines and ND is the class of sets recognizable by a…
This paper is a tutorial on the proven but currently under-appreciated security mechanisms associated with "tagged" or "descriptor" architectures. The tutorial shows how the principles behind such architectures can be applied to mitigate or…