@article{6752, abstract = {Two-player games on graphs are widely studied in formal methods, as they model the interaction between a system and its environment. The game is played by moving a token throughout a graph to produce an infinite path. There are several common modes to determine how the players move the token through the graph; e.g., in turn-based games the players alternate turns in moving the token. We study the bidding mode of moving the token, which, to the best of our knowledge, has never been studied in infinite-duration games. The following bidding rule was previously defined and called Richman bidding. Both players have separate budgets, which sum up to 1. In each turn, a bidding takes place: Both players submit bids simultaneously, where a bid is legal if it does not exceed the available budget, and the higher bidder pays his bid to the other player and moves the token. The central question studied in bidding games is a necessary and sufficient initial budget for winning the game: a threshold budget in a vertex is a value t ∈ [0, 1] such that if Player 1’s budget exceeds t, he can win the game; and if Player 2’s budget exceeds 1 − t, he can win the game. Threshold budgets were previously shown to exist in every vertex of a reachability game, which have an interesting connection with random-turn games—a sub-class of simple stochastic games in which the player who moves is chosen randomly. We show the existence of threshold budgets for a qualitative class of infinite-duration games, namely parity games, and a quantitative class, namely mean-payoff games. The key component of the proof is a quantitative solution to strongly connected mean-payoff bidding games in which we extend the connection with random-turn games to these games, and construct explicit optimal strategies for both players.}, author = {Avni, Guy and Henzinger, Thomas A and Chonev, Ventsislav K}, issn = {1557735X}, journal = {Journal of the ACM}, number = {4}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{Infinite-duration bidding games}}, doi = {10.1145/3340295}, volume = {66}, year = {2019}, } @article{7109, abstract = {We show how to construct temporal testers for the logic MITL, a prominent linear-time logic for real-time systems. A temporal tester is a transducer that inputs a signal holding the Boolean value of atomic propositions and outputs the truth value of a formula along time. Here we consider testers over continuous-time Boolean signals that use clock variables to enforce duration constraints, as in timed automata. We first rewrite the MITL formula into a “simple” formula using a limited set of temporal modalities. We then build testers for these specific modalities and show how to compose testers for simple formulae into complex ones. Temporal testers can be turned into acceptors, yielding a compositional translation from MITL to timed automata. This construction is much simpler than previously known and remains asymptotically optimal. It supports both past and future operators and can easily be extended.}, author = {Ferrere, Thomas and Maler, Oded and Ničković, Dejan and Pnueli, Amir}, issn = {0004-5411}, journal = {Journal of the ACM}, number = {3}, publisher = {ACM}, title = {{From real-time logic to timed automata}}, doi = {10.1145/3286976}, volume = {66}, year = {2019}, } @inproceedings{7147, abstract = {The expression of a gene is characterised by its transcription factors and the function processing them. If the transcription factors are not affected by gene products, the regulating function is often represented as a combinational logic circuit, where the outputs (product) are determined by current input values (transcription factors) only, and are hence independent on their relative arrival times. However, the simultaneous arrival of transcription factors (TFs) in genetic circuits is a strong assumption, given that the processes of transcription and translation of a gene into a protein introduce intrinsic time delays and that there is no global synchronisation among the arrival times of different molecular species at molecular targets. In this paper, we construct an experimentally implementable genetic circuit with two inputs and a single output, such that, in presence of small delays in input arrival, the circuit exhibits qualitatively distinct observable phenotypes. In particular, these phenotypes are long lived transients: they all converge to a single value, but so slowly, that they seem stable for an extended time period, longer than typical experiment duration. We used rule-based language to prototype our circuit, and we implemented a search for finding the parameter combinations raising the phenotypes of interest. The behaviour of our prototype circuit has wide implications. First, it suggests that GRNs can exploit event timing to create phenotypes. Second, it opens the possibility that GRNs are using event timing to react to stimuli and memorise events, without explicit feedback in regulation. From the modelling perspective, our prototype circuit demonstrates the critical importance of analysing the transient dynamics at the promoter binding sites of the DNA, before applying rapid equilibrium assumptions.}, author = {Guet, Calin C and Henzinger, Thomas A and Igler, Claudia and Petrov, Tatjana and Sezgin, Ali}, booktitle = {17th International Conference on Computational Methods in Systems Biology}, isbn = {9783030313036}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Trieste, Italy}, pages = {155--187}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Transient memory in gene regulation}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-31304-3_9}, volume = {11773}, year = {2019}, } @inproceedings{7159, abstract = {Cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet-of-Things (IoT) result in a tremendous amount of generated, measured and recorded time-series data. Extracting temporal segments that encode patterns with useful information out of these huge amounts of data is an extremely difficult problem. We propose shape expressions as a declarative formalism for specifying, querying and extracting sophisticated temporal patterns from possibly noisy data. Shape expressions are regular expressions with arbitrary (linear, exponential, sinusoidal, etc.) shapes with parameters as atomic predicates and additional constraints on these parameters. We equip shape expressions with a novel noisy semantics that combines regular expression matching semantics with statistical regression. We characterize essential properties of the formalism and propose an efficient approximate shape expression matching procedure. We demonstrate the wide applicability of this technique on two case studies. }, author = {Ničković, Dejan and Qin, Xin and Ferrere, Thomas and Mateis, Cristinel and Deshmukh, Jyotirmoy}, booktitle = {19th International Conference on Runtime Verification}, isbn = {9783030320782}, issn = {0302-9743}, location = {Porto, Portugal}, pages = {292--309}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Shape expressions for specifying and extracting signal features}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-32079-9_17}, volume = {11757}, year = {2019}, } @inproceedings{7231, abstract = {Piecewise Barrier Tubes (PBT) is a new technique for flowpipe overapproximation for nonlinear systems with polynomial dynamics, which leverages a combination of barrier certificates. PBT has advantages over traditional time-step based methods in dealing with those nonlinear dynamical systems in which there is a large difference in speed between trajectories, producing an overapproximation that is time independent. However, the existing approach for PBT is not efficient due to the application of interval methods for enclosure-box computation, and it can only deal with continuous dynamical systems without uncertainty. In this paper, we extend the approach with the ability to handle both continuous and hybrid dynamical systems with uncertainty that can reside in parameters and/or noise. We also improve the efficiency of the method significantly, by avoiding the use of interval-based methods for the enclosure-box computation without loosing soundness. We have developed a C++ prototype implementing the proposed approach and we evaluate it on several benchmarks. The experiments show that our approach is more efficient and precise than other methods in the literature.}, author = {Kong, Hui and Bartocci, Ezio and Jiang, Yu and Henzinger, Thomas A}, booktitle = {17th International Conference on Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems}, isbn = {978-3-0302-9661-2}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, pages = {123--141}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Piecewise robust barrier tubes for nonlinear hybrid systems with uncertainty}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-29662-9_8}, volume = {11750}, year = {2019}, } @inproceedings{7232, abstract = {We present Mixed-time Signal Temporal Logic (STL−MX), a specification formalism which extends STL by capturing the discrete/ continuous time duality found in many cyber-physical systems (CPS), as well as mixed-signal electronic designs. In STL−MX, properties of components with continuous dynamics are expressed in STL, while specifications of components with discrete dynamics are written in LTL. To combine the two layers, we evaluate formulas on two traces, discrete- and continuous-time, and introduce two interface operators that map signals, properties and their satisfaction signals across the two time domains. We show that STL-mx has the expressive power of STL supplemented with an implicit T-periodic clock signal. We develop and implement an algorithm for monitoring STL-mx formulas and illustrate the approach using a mixed-signal example. }, author = {Ferrere, Thomas and Maler, Oded and Nickovic, Dejan}, booktitle = {17th International Conference on Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems}, isbn = {978-3-0302-9661-2}, issn = {1611-3349}, location = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, pages = {59--75}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Mixed-time signal temporal logic}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-29662-9_4}, volume = {11750}, year = {2019}, } @phdthesis{6894, abstract = {Hybrid automata combine finite automata and dynamical systems, and model the interaction of digital with physical systems. Formal analysis that can guarantee the safety of all behaviors or rigorously witness failures, while unsolvable in general, has been tackled algorithmically using, e.g., abstraction, bounded model-checking, assisted theorem proving. Nevertheless, very few methods have addressed the time-unbounded reachability analysis of hybrid automata and, for current sound and automatic tools, scalability remains critical. We develop methods for the polyhedral abstraction of hybrid automata, which construct coarse overapproximations and tightens them incrementally, in a CEGAR fashion. We use template polyhedra, i.e., polyhedra whose facets are normal to a given set of directions. While, previously, directions were given by the user, we introduce (1) the first method for computing template directions from spurious counterexamples, so as to generalize and eliminate them. The method applies naturally to convex hybrid automata, i.e., hybrid automata with (possibly non-linear) convex constraints on derivatives only, while for linear ODE requires further abstraction. Specifically, we introduce (2) the conic abstractions, which, partitioning the state space into appropriate (possibly non-uniform) cones, divide curvy trajectories into relatively straight sections, suitable for polyhedral abstractions. Finally, we introduce (3) space-time interpolation, which, combining interval arithmetic and template refinement, computes appropriate (possibly non-uniform) time partitioning and template directions along spurious trajectories, so as to eliminate them. We obtain sound and automatic methods for the reachability analysis over dense and unbounded time of convex hybrid automata and hybrid automata with linear ODE. We build prototype tools and compare—favorably—our methods against the respective state-of-the-art tools, on several benchmarks.}, author = {Giacobbe, Mirco}, issn = {2663-337X}, pages = {132}, publisher = {Institute of Science and Technology Austria}, title = {{Automatic time-unbounded reachability analysis of hybrid systems}}, doi = {10.15479/AT:ISTA:6894}, year = {2019}, } @book{3300, abstract = {This book first explores the origins of this idea, grounded in theoretical work on temporal logic and automata. The editors and authors are among the world's leading researchers in this domain, and they contributed 32 chapters representing a thorough view of the development and application of the technique. Topics covered include binary decision diagrams, symbolic model checking, satisfiability modulo theories, partial-order reduction, abstraction, interpolation, concurrency, security protocols, games, probabilistic model checking, and process algebra, and chapters on the transfer of theory to industrial practice, property specification languages for hardware, and verification of real-time systems and hybrid systems. The book will be valuable for researchers and graduate students engaged with the development of formal methods and verification tools.}, author = {Clarke, Edmund M. and Henzinger, Thomas A and Veith, Helmut and Bloem, Roderick}, isbn = {978-3-319-10574-1}, pages = {XLVIII, 1212}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Handbook of Model Checking}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-10575-8}, year = {2018}, } @inbook{60, abstract = {Model checking is a computer-assisted method for the analysis of dynamical systems that can be modeled by state-transition systems. Drawing from research traditions in mathematical logic, programming languages, hardware design, and theoretical computer science, model checking is now widely used for the verification of hardware and software in industry. This chapter is an introduction and short survey of model checking. The chapter aims to motivate and link the individual chapters of the handbook, and to provide context for readers who are not familiar with model checking.}, author = {Clarke, Edmund and Henzinger, Thomas A and Veith, Helmut}, booktitle = {Handbook of Model Checking}, editor = {Henzinger, Thomas A}, pages = {1 -- 26}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Introduction to model checking}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-10575-8_1}, year = {2018}, } @inbook{86, abstract = {Responsiveness—the requirement that every request to a system be eventually handled—is one of the fundamental liveness properties of a reactive system. Average response time is a quantitative measure for the responsiveness requirement used commonly in performance evaluation. We show how average response time can be computed on state-transition graphs, on Markov chains, and on game graphs. In all three cases, we give polynomial-time algorithms.}, author = {Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Henzinger, Thomas A and Otop, Jan}, booktitle = {Principles of Modeling}, editor = {Lohstroh, Marten and Derler, Patricia and Sirjani, Marjan}, pages = {143 -- 161}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Computing average response time}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-95246-8_9}, volume = {10760}, year = {2018}, }