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Giuseppe Della Penna, Daniele Magazzeni, Alberto Tofani, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, and Enrico Tronci. "Automatic Synthesis of Robust Numerical Controllers." In Icas '07, 4. IEEE Computer Society, 2007. ISSN: 0-7695-2859-5. DOI: 10.1109/CONIELECOMP.2007.59.
Abstract: A major problem of numerical controllers is their robustness, i.e. the state read from the plant may not be in the controller table, although it may be close to some states in the table. For continuous systems, this problem is typically handled by interpolation techniques. Unfortunately, when the plant contains both continuous and discrete variables, the interpolation approach does not work well. To cope with this kind of systems, we propose a general methodology that exploits explicit model checking in an innovative way to automatically synthesize a (time-) optimal numerical controller from a plant specification and apply an optimized strengthening algorithm only on the most significant states, in order to reach an acceptable robustness degree. We implemented all the algorithms within our CGMurphi tool, an extension of the well-known CMurphi verifier, and tested the effectiveness of our approach by applying it to the well-known truck and trailer obstacles avoidance problem.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Synchronized regular expressions." Acta Inf. 39, no. 1 (2003): 31–70.
Abstract: Text manipulation is one of the most common tasks for everyone using a computer. The increasing number of textual information in electronic format that every computer user collects everyday also increases the need of more powerful tools to interact with texts. Indeed, much work has been done to provide simple and versatile tools that can be useful for the most common text manipulation tasks. Regular Expressions (RE), introduced by Kleene, are well known in the formal language theory. RE have been extended in various ways, depending on the application of interest. In almost all the implementations of RE search algorithms (e.g. the egrep [15] UNIX command, or the Perl [20] language pattern matching constructs) we find backreferences, i.e. expressions that make reference to the string matched by a previous subexpression. Generally speaking, it seems that all kinds of synchronizations between subexpressions in a RE can be very useful when interacting with texts. In this paper we introduce the Synchronized Regular Expressions (SRE) as an extension of the Regular Expressions. We use SRE to present a formal study of the already known backreferences extension, and of a new extension proposed by us, which we call the synchronized exponents. Moreover, since we are dealing with formalisms that should have a practical utility and be used in real applications, we have the problem of how to present SRE to the final users. Therefore, in this paper we also propose a user-friendly syntax for SRE to be used in implementations of SRE-powered search algorithms.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Exploiting Transition Locality in the Disk Based Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In 4th International Conference on Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design (FMCAD), edited by M. Aagaard and J. W. O'Leary, 202–219. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2517. Portland, OR, USA: Springer, 2002. ISSN: 3-540-00116-6. DOI: 10.1007/3-540-36126-X_13.
Abstract: The main obstruction to automatic verification of Finite State Systems is the huge amount of memory required to complete the verification task (state explosion). This motivates research on distributed as well as disk based verification algorithms. In this paper we present a disk based Breadth First Explicit State Space Exploration algorithm as well as an implementation of it within the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. Our algorithm exploits transition locality (i.e. the statistical fact that most transitions lead to unvisited states or to recently visited states) to decrease disk read accesses thus reducing the time overhead due to disk usage. A disk based verification algorithm for Mur$\varphi$ has been already proposed in the literature. To measure the time speed up due to locality exploitation we compared our algorithm with such previously proposed algorithm. Our experimental results show that our disk based verification algorithm is typically more than 10 times faster than such previously proposed disk based verification algorithm. To measure the time overhead due to disk usage we compared our algorithm with RAM based verification using the (standard) Mur$\varphi$ verifier with enough memory to complete the verification task. Our experimental results show that even when using 1/10 of the RAM needed to complete verification, our disk based algorithm is only between 1.4 and 5.3 times (3 times on average) slower than (RAM) Mur$\varphi$ with enough RAM memory to complete the verification task at hand. Using our disk based Mur$\varphi$ we were able to complete verification of a protocol with about $10^9$ reachable states. This would require more than 5 gigabytes of RAM using RAM based Mur$\varphi$.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Synchronized Regular Expressions." Electr. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 62 (2002): 195–210. Notes: TOSCA 2001, Theory of Concurrency, Higher Order Languages and Types.
Abstract: Text manipulation is one of the most common tasks for everyone using a computer. The increasing number of textual information in electronic format that every computer user collects everyday stresses the need of more powerful tools to interact with texts. Indeed, much work has been done to provide nonprogramming tools that can be useful for the most common text manipulation issues. Regular Expressions (RE), introduced by Kleene, are well–known in the formal language theory. RE received several extensions, depending on the application of interest. In almost all the implementations of RE search algorithms (e.g. the egrep [A] UNIX command, or the Perl [17] language pattern matching constructs) we find backreferences (as defind in [1]), i.e. expressions that make reference to the string matched by a previous subexpression. Generally speaking, it seems that all the kinds of synchronizations between subexpressions in a RE can be very useful when interacting with texts. Therefore, we introduce the Synchronized Regular Expressions (SRE) as a derivation of the Regular Expressions. We use SRE to present a formal study of the already known backreferences extension, and of a new extension proposed by us, which we call the synchronized exponents. Moreover, since we are talking about formalisms that should have a practical utility and can be used in the real world, we have the problem of how to present SRE to the final users. Therefore, in this paper we also propose a user–friendly syntax for SRE to be used in implementations of SRE–powered search algorithms.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Finite horizon analysis of Markov Chains with the Mur$\varphi$ verifier." Int. J. Softw. Tools Technol. Transf. 8, no. 4 (2006): 397–409. Springer-Verlag. ISSN: 1433-2779. DOI: 10.1007/s10009-005-0216-7.
Abstract: In this paper we present an explicit disk-based verification algorithm for Probabilistic Systems defining discrete time/finite state Markov Chains. Given a Markov Chain and an integer k (horizon), our algorithm checks whether the probability of reaching an error state in at most k steps is below a given threshold. We present an implementation of our algorithm within a suitable extension of the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. We call the resulting probabilistic model checker FHP-Mur$\varphi$ (Finite Horizon Probabilistic Mur$\varphi$). We present experimental results comparing FHP-Mur$\varphi$ with (a finite horizon subset of) PRISM, a state-of-the-art symbolic model checker for Markov Chains. Our experimental results show that FHP-Mur$\varphi$ can handle systems that are out of reach for PRISM, namely those involving arithmetic operations on the state variables (e.g. hybrid systems).
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Finite Horizon Analysis of Markov Chains with the Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In Correct Hardware Design and Verification Methods, 12th IFIP WG 10.5 Advanced Research Working Conference, CHARME 2003, L'Aquila, Italy, October 21-24, 2003, Proceedings, edited by D. Geist and E. Tronci, 394–409. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2860. Springer, 2003. ISSN: 3-540-20363-X. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-39724-3_34.
Abstract: In this paper we present an explicit disk based verification algorithm for Probabilistic Systems defining discrete time/finite state Markov Chains. Given a Markov Chain and an integer k (horizon), our algorithm checks whether the probability of reaching an error state in at most k steps is below a given threshold. We present an implementation of our algorithm within a suitable extension of the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. We call the resulting probabilistic model checker FHP-Mur$\varphi$ (Finite Horizon Probabilistic Mur$\varphi$). We present experimental results comparing FHP-Mur$\varphi$ with (a finite horizon subset of) PRISM, a state-of-the-art symbolic model checker for Markov Chains. Our experimental results show that FHP-Mur$\varphi$ can handle systems that are out of reach for PRISM, namely those involving arithmetic operations on the state variables (e.g. hybrid systems).
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Integrating RAM and Disk Based Verification within the Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In Correct Hardware Design and Verification Methods, 12th IFIP WG 10.5 Advanced Research Working Conference, CHARME 2003, L'Aquila, Italy, October 21-24, 2003, Proceedings, edited by D. Geist and E. Tronci, 277–282. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2860. Springer, 2003. ISSN: 3-540-20363-X. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-39724-3_25.
Abstract: We present a verification algorithm that can automatically switch from RAM based verification to disk based verification without discarding the work done during the RAM based verification phase. This avoids having to choose beforehand the proper verification algorithm. Our experimental results show that typically our integrated algorithm is as fast as (sometime faster than) the fastest of the two base (i.e. RAM based and disk based) verification algorithms.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Bounded Probabilistic Model Checking with the Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design, 5th International Conference, FMCAD 2004, Austin, Texas, USA, November 15-17, 2004, Proceedings, edited by A. J. Hu and A. K. Martin, 214–229. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3312. Springer, 2004. ISSN: 3-540-23738-0. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-30494-4_16.
Abstract: In this paper we present an explicit verification algorithm for Probabilistic Systems defining discrete time/finite state Markov Chains. We restrict ourselves to verification of Bounded PCTL formulas (BPCTL), that is, PCTL formulas in which all Until operators are bounded, possibly with different bounds. This means that we consider only paths (system runs) of bounded length. Given a Markov Chain $\cal M$ and a BPCTL formula Φ, our algorithm checks if Φ is satisfied in $\cal M$. This allows to verify important properties, such as reliability in Discrete Time Hybrid Systems. We present an implementation of our algorithm within a suitable extension of the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. We call FHP-Mur$\varphi$ (Finite Horizon Probabilistic Mur$\varphi$) such extension of the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. We give experimental results comparing FHP-Mur$\varphi$ with (a finite horizon subset of) PRISM, a state-of-the-art symbolic model checker for Markov Chains. Our experimental results show that FHP-Mur$\varphi$ can effectively handle verification of BPCTL formulas for systems that are out of reach for PRISM, namely those involving arithmetic operations on the state variables (e.g. hybrid systems).
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Finite Horizon Analysis of Stochastic Systems with the Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In Theoretical Computer Science, 8th Italian Conference, ICTCS 2003, Bertinoro, Italy, October 13-15, 2003, Proceedings, edited by C. Blundo and C. Laneve, 58–71. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2841. Springer, 2003. ISSN: 3-540-20216-1. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-45208-9_6.
Abstract: Many reactive systems are actually Stochastic Processes. Automatic analysis of such systems is usually very difficult thus typically one simplifies the analysis task by using simulation or by working on a simplified model (e.g. a Markov Chain). We present a Finite Horizon Probabilistic Model Checking approach which essentially can handle the same class of stochastic processes of a typical simulator. This yields easy modeling of the system to be analyzed together with formal verification capabilities. Our approach is based on a suitable disk based extension of the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. Moreover we present experimental results showing effectiveness of our approach.
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Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Igor Melatti, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Exploiting Transition Locality in Automatic Verification of Finite State Concurrent Systems." Sttt 6, no. 4 (2004): 320–341. DOI: 10.1007/s10009-004-0149-6.
Abstract: In this paper we show that statistical properties of the transition graph of a system to be verified can be exploited to improve memory or time performances of verification algorithms. We show experimentally that protocols exhibit transition locality. That is, with respect to levels of a breadth-first state space exploration, state transitions tend to be between states belonging to close levels of the transition graph. We support our claim by measuring transition locality for the set of protocols included in the Mur$\varphi$ verifier distribution. We present a cache-based verification algorithm that exploits transition locality to decrease memory usage and a disk-based verification algorithm that exploits transition locality to decrease disk read accesses, thus reducing the time overhead due to disk usage. Both algorithms have been implemented within the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. Our experimental results show that our cache-based algorithm can typically save more than 40% of memory with an average time penalty of about 50% when using (Mur$\varphi$) bit compression and 100% when using bit compression and hash compaction, whereas our disk-based verification algorithm is typically more than ten times faster than a previously proposed disk-based verification algorithm and, even when using 10% of the memory needed to complete verification, it is only between 40 and 530% (300% on average) slower than (RAM) Mur$\varphi$ with enough memory to complete the verification task at hand. Using just 300 MB of memory our disk-based Mur$\varphi$ was able to complete verification of a protocol with about $10^9$ reachable states. This would require more than 5 GB of memory using standard Mur$\varphi$.
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