Lutz Schröder

Expressivity of coalgebraic modal logic: The limits and beyond

Modal logic has a good claim to being the logic of choice for describing the reactive behaviour of systems modelled as coalgebras. Logics with modal operators obtained from so-called predicate liftings have been shown to be invariant under behavioural equivalence. Expressivity results stating that, conversely, logically indistinguishable states are behaviourally equivalent depend on the existence of separating sets of predicate liftings for the signature functor at hand. Here, we provide a classification result for predicate liftings which leads to an easy criterion for the existence of such separating sets, and we give simple examples of functors that fail to admit expressive normal or monotone modal logics, respectively, or in fact an expressive (unary) modal logic at all. We then move on to polyadic modal logic, where modal operators may take more than one argument formula. We show that every accessible functor admits an expressive polyadic modal logic. Moreover, expressive polyadic modal logics are, unlike unary modal logics, compositional.

Probabilistic description logics for subjective uncertainty

We propose a new family of probabilistic description logics (DLs) that, in contrast to most existing approaches, are derived in a principled way from Halperns probabilistic first-order logic. The resulting probabilistic DLs have a two-dimensional semantics similar to certain popular combinations of DLs with temporal logic and are well-suited for capturing subjective probabilities. Our main contribution is a detailed study of the complexity of reasoning in the new family of probabilistic DLs, showing that it ranges from PTIME for weak variants based on the lightweight DL EL to undecidable for some expressive variants based on the DL ALC.

PSPACE bounds for rank-1 modal logics

For lack of general algorithmic methods that apply to wide classes of logics, establishing a complexity bound for a given modal logic is often a laborious task. The present work is a step towards a general theory of the complexity of modal logics. Our main result is that all rank-1 logics enjoy a shallow model property and thus are, under mild assumptions on the format of their axiomatization, in PSPACE. This leads not only to a unified derivation of (known) tight PSPACE-bounds for a number of logics including K, coalition logic, and graded modal logic (and to a new algorithm in the latter case), but also to a previously unknown tight PSPACE-bound for probabilistic modal logic, with rational probabilities coded in binary. This generality is made possible by a coalgebraic semantics, which conveniently abstracts from the details of a given model class and thus allows covering a broad range of logics in a uniform way

Closing a Million-Landmarks Loop

We present an improved version of the treemap SLAM algorithm which uses Cholesky factors for representing Gaussians and a hierarchical tree partitioning algorithm derived from the established Kernighan-Lin heuristic for graph bisection. We demonstrate the algorithms efficiency by mapping a simulated building with 1032271 landmarks. In the end, we close a million-landmarks loop in 21 ms, providing an estimate for ap10000 selected landmarks close to the robot, or in 442 ms for computing a full estimate

Modal Logics are Coalgebraic1

Applications of modal logics are abundant in computer science, and a large number of structurally different modal logics have been successfully employed in a diverse spectrum of application contexts. Coalgebraic semantics, on the other hand, provides a uniform and encompassing view on the large variety of specific logics used in particular domains. The coalgebraic approach is generic and compositional: tools and techniques simultaneously apply to a large class of application areas and can, moreover, be combined in a modular way. In particular, this facilitates a pick-and-choose approach to domain-specific formalisms, applicable across the entire scope of application areas, leading to generic software tools that are easier to design, to implement and to maintain. This paper substantiates the authors’ firm belief that the systematic exploitation of the coalgebraic nature of modal logic will not only have impact on the field of modal logic itself but also lead to significant progress in a number of areas within computer science, such as knowledge representation and concurrency/mobility.

Modular algorithms for heterogeneous modal logics

State-based systems and modal logics for reasoning about them often heterogeneously combine a number of features such as non-determinism and probabilities. Here, we show that the combination of features can be reflected algorithmically and develop modular decision procedures for heterogeneous modal logics. The modularity is achieved by formalising the underlying state-based systems as multi-sorted coalgebras and associating both a logical and an algorithmic description to a number of basic building blocks. Our main result is that logics arising as combinations of these building blocks can be decided in polynomial space provided that this is the case for the components. By instantiating the general framework to concrete cases, we obtain PSPACE decision procedures for a wide variety of structurally different logics, describing e.g. Segala systems and games with uncertain information.

Algebraic–coalgebraic specification in CoCasl

We introduce CoCASL as a simple coalgebraic extension of the algebraic specification language CASL. CoCASL allows the nested combination of algebraic datatypes and coalgebraic process types. We show that the well-known coalgebraic modal logic can be expressed in COCASL. We present sufficient criteria for the existence of cofree models, also for several variants of nested cofree and free specifications. Moreover, we describe an extension of the existing proof support for CASL (in the shape of an encoding into higher-order logic) to COCASL.

Monad-independent Dynamic Logic in HasCasl

Monads have been recognized by Moggi as an elegant device for dealing with stateful computation in functional programming languages. In previous work, we have introduced a Hoare calculus for partial correctness of monadic programs. All this has been done in an entirely monad-independent way. Here, we extend this to a monad-independent dynamic logic (assuming a moderate amount of additional infrastructure for the monad). Dynamic logic is more expressive than the Hoare calculus; in particular, it allows reasoning about termination and total correctness. As the background formalism for these concepts, we use the logic of HASCASL, a higher-order language for functional specification and programming.

Globalization of confluent partial actions on topological and metric spaces

Abstract We generalize Exels notion of partial group action to monoids. For partial monoid actions that can be defined by means of suitably well-behaved systems of generators and relations, we employ classical rewriting theory in order to describe the universal induced global action on an extended set. This universal action can be lifted to the setting of topological spaces and continuous maps, as well as to that of metric spaces and non-expansive maps. Well-known constructions such as Shimrats homogeneous extension are special cases of this construction. We investigate various properties of the arising spaces in relation to the original space; in particular, we prove embedding theorems and preservation properties concerning separation axioms and dimension. These results imply that every normal (metric) space can be embedded into a normal (metrically) ultrahomogeneous space of the same dimension and cardinality.

PSPACE Bounds for Rank-1 Modal Logics

For lack of general algorithmic methods that apply to wide classes of logics, establishing a complexity bound for a given modal logic is often a laborious task. The present work is a step towards a general theory of the complexity of modal logics. Our main result is that all rank-1 logics enjoy a shallow model property and thus are, under mild assumptions on the format of their axiomatization, in PSPACE. This leads not only to a unified derivation of (known) tight PSPACE-bounds for a number of logics including K, coalition logic, and graded modal logic (and to a new algorithm in the latter case), but also to a previously unknown tight PSPACE-bound for probabilistic modal logic, with rational probabilities coded in binary. This generality is made possible by a coalgebraic semantics, which conveniently abstracts from the details of a given model class and thus allows covering a broad range of logics in a uniform way.