Self-Referential Justifications in Epistemic Logic

This paper is devoted to the study of self-referential proofs and/or justifications, i.e., valid proofs that prove statements about these same proofs. The goal is to investigate whether such self-referential justifications are present in the reasoning described by standard modal epistemic logics such as  $\mathsf{S4}$ . We argue that the modal language by itself is too coarse to capture this concept of self-referentiality and that the language of justification logic can serve as an adequate refinement. We consider well-known modal logics of knowledge/belief and show, using explicit justifications, that $\mathsf{S4}$ , $\mathsf{D4}$ , $\mathsf{K4}$ , and  $\mathsf{T}$ with their respective justification counterparts  $\mathsf{LP}$ , $\mathsf{JD4}$ , $\mathsf{J4}$ , and  $\mathsf{JT}$ describe knowledge that is self-referential in some strong sense. We also demonstrate that self-referentiality can be avoided for  $\mathsf{K}$ and  $\mathsf{D}$ . In order to prove the former result, we develop a machinery of minimal evidence functions used to effectively build models for justification logics. We observe that the calculus used to construct the minimal functions axiomatizes the reflected fragments of justification logics. We also discuss difficulties that result from an introduction of negative introspection.     

Plaintext awareness in identity-based key encapsulation

The notion of plaintext awareness ( ${\mathsf{PA}}$ ) has many applications in public key cryptography: it offers unique, stand-alone security guarantees for public key encryption schemes, has been used as a sufficient condition for proving indistinguishability against adaptive chosen-ciphertext attacks ( ${\mathsf{IND}\hbox {-}{\mathsf{CCA}}}$ ), and can be used to construct privacy-preserving protocols such as deniable authentication. Unlike many other security notions, plaintext awareness is very fragile when it comes to differences between the random oracle and standard models; for example, many implications involving ${\mathsf{PA}}$ in the random oracle model are not valid in the standard model and vice versa. Similarly, strategies for proving ${\mathsf{PA}}$ of schemes in one model cannot be adapted to the other model. Existing research addresses ${\mathsf{PA}}$ in detail only in the public key setting. This paper gives the first formal exploration of plaintext awareness in the identity-based setting and, as initial work, proceeds in the random oracle model. The focus is laid mainly on identity-based key encapsulation mechanisms (IB-KEMs), for which the paper presents the first definitions of plaintext awareness, highlights the role of ${\mathsf{PA}}$ in proof strategies of ${\mathsf{IND}\hbox {-}{\mathsf{CCA}}}$ security, and explores relationships between ${\mathsf{PA}}$ and other security properties. On the practical side, our work offers the first, highly efficient, general approach for building IB-KEMs that are simultaneously plaintext-aware and ${\mathsf{IND}\hbox {-}{\mathsf{CCA}}}$ -secure. Our construction is inspired by the Fujisaki-Okamoto (FO) transform, but demands weaker and more natural properties of its building blocks. This result comes from a new look at the notion of $\gamma $ -uniformity that was inherent in the original FO transform. We show that for IB-KEMs (and PK-KEMs), this assumption can be replaced with a weaker computational notion, which is in fact implied by one-wayness. Finally, we give the first concrete IB-KEM scheme that is ${\mathsf{PA}}$ and ${\mathsf{IND}\hbox {-}{\mathsf{CCA}}}$ -secure by applying our construction to a popular IB-KEM and optimizing it for better performance.     

Tight Bounds for Distributed Minimum-Weight Spanning Tree Verification

This paper introduces the notion of distributed verification without preprocessing. It focuses on the Minimum-weight Spanning Tree (MST) verification problem and establishes tight upper and lower bounds for the time and message complexities of this problem. Specifically, we provide an MST verification algorithm that achieves simultaneously $\tilde{O}(m)$ messages and $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n} + D)$ time, where m is the number of edges in the given graph G, n is the number of nodes, and D is G’s diameter. On the other hand, we show that any MST verification algorithm must send $\tilde{\varOmega}(m)$ messages and incur $\tilde{\varOmega}(\sqrt{n} + D)$ time in worst case. Our upper bound result appears to indicate that the verification of an MST may be easier than its construction, since for MST construction, both lower bounds of $\tilde{\varOmega}(m)$ messages and $\tilde{\varOmega}(\sqrt{n} + D)$ time hold, but at the moment there is no known distributed algorithm that constructs an MST and achieves simultaneously $\tilde{O}(m)$ messages and $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n} + D)$ time. Specifically, the best known time-optimal algorithm (using ${\tilde{O}}(\sqrt {n} + D)$ time) requires O(m+n ^3/2) messages, and the best known message-optimal algorithm (using ${\tilde{O}}(m)$ messages) requires O(n) time. On the other hand, our lower bound results indicate that the verification of an MST is not significantly easier than its construction.     

Order optimal information spreading using algebraic gossip

In this paper we study gossip based information spreading with bounded message sizes. We use algebraic gossip to disseminate $k$ distinct messages to all $n$ nodes in a network. For arbitrary networks we provide a new upper bound for uniform algebraic gossip of $O((k+\log n + D)\varDelta )$ rounds with high probability, where $D$ and $\varDelta $ are the diameter and the maximum degree in the network, respectively. For many topologies and selections of $k$ this bound improves previous results, in particular, for graphs with a constant maximum degree it implies that uniform gossip is order optimal and the stopping time is $\varTheta (k + D)$ . To eliminate the factor of $\varDelta $ from the upper bound we propose a non-uniform gossip protocol, TAG, which is based on algebraic gossip and an arbitrary spanning tree protocol $\mathcal{S } $ . The stopping time of TAG is $O(k+\log n +d(\mathcal{S })+t(\mathcal{S }))$ , where $t(\mathcal{S })$ is the stopping time of the spanning tree protocol, and $d(\mathcal{S })$ is the diameter of the spanning tree. We provide two general cases in which this bound leads to an order optimal protocol. The first is for $k=\varOmega (n)$ , where, using a simple gossip broadcast protocol that creates a spanning tree in at most linear time, we show that TAG finishes after $\varTheta (n)$ rounds for any graph. The second uses a sophisticated, recent gossip protocol to build a fast spanning tree on graphs with large weak conductance. In turn, this leads to the optimally of TAG on these graphs for $k=\varOmega (\text{ polylog }(n))$ . The technique used in our proofs relies on queuing theory, which is an interesting approach that can be useful in future gossip analysis.     

Delayed theory combination vs. Nelson-Oppen for satisfiability modulo theories: a comparative analysis

Most state-of-the-art approaches for Satisfiability Modulo Theories $(SMT(\mathcal{T}))$ rely on the integration between a SAT solver and a decision procedure for sets of literals in the background theory $\mathcal{T} (\mathcal{T}{\text {-}}solver)$ . Often $\mathcal{T}$ is the combination $\mathcal{T}_1 \cup \mathcal{T}_2$ of two (or more) simpler theories $(SMT(\mathcal{T}_1 \cup \mathcal{T}_2))$ , s.t. the specific ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ must be combined. Up to a few years ago, the standard approach to $SMT(\mathcal{T}_1 \cup \mathcal{T}_2)$ was to integrate the SAT solver with one combined $\mathcal{T}_1 \cup \mathcal{T}_2{\text {-}}solver$ , obtained from two distinct ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ by means of evolutions of Nelson and Oppen’s (NO) combination procedure, in which the ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ deduce and exchange interface equalities. Nowadays many state-of-the-art SMT solvers use evolutions of a more recent $SMT(\mathcal{T}_1 \cup \mathcal{T}_2)$ procedure called Delayed Theory Combination (DTC), in which each ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solver$ interacts directly and only with the SAT solver, in such a way that part or all of the (possibly very expensive) reasoning effort on interface equalities is delegated to the SAT solver itself. In this paper we present a comparative analysis of DTC vs. NO for $SMT(\mathcal{T}_1 \cup \mathcal{T}_2)$ . On the one hand, we explain the advantages of DTC in exploiting the power of modern SAT solvers to reduce the search. On the other hand, we show that the extra amount of Boolean search required to the SAT solver can be controlled. In fact, we prove two novel theoretical results, for both convex and non-convex theories and for different deduction capabilities of the ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ , which relate the amount of extra Boolean search required to the SAT solver by DTC with the number of deductions and case-splits required to the ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ by NO in order to perform the same tasks: (i) under the same hypotheses of deduction capabilities of the ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ required by NO, DTC causes no extra Boolean search; (ii) using ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ with limited or no deduction capabilities, the extra Boolean search required can be reduced down to a negligible amount by controlling the quality of the $\mathcal{T}$ -conflict sets returned by the ${\mathcal{T}_i}{\text {-}}solvers$ .     

D-Separation and computation of probability distributions in Bayesian networks

Consider a family ${(X_i)_{i \in I}}$ of random variables endowed with the structure of a Bayesian network, and a subset S of I. This paper examines the problem of computing the probability distribution of the subfamily ${(X_{a})_{a \in S}}$ (respectively the probability distribution of ${ (X_{b})_{b \in {\bar{S}}}}$ , where ${{\bar{S}} = I - S}$ , conditional on ${(X_{a})_{a \in S}}$ ). This paper presents some theoretical results that makes it possible to compute joint and conditional probabilities over a subset of variables by computing over separate components. In other words, it is demonstrated that it is possible to decompose this task into several parallel computations, each related to a subset of S (respectively of ${{\bar{S}}}$ ); these partial results are then put together as a final product. In computing the probability distribution over ${(X_a)_{a \in S}}$ , this procedure results in the production of a structure of level two Bayesian network structure for S.     

On reducing factorization to the discrete logarithm problem modulo a composite

The discrete logarithm problem modulo a composite??abbreviate it as DLPC??is the following: given a (possibly) composite integer n??? 1 and elements ${a, b \in \mathbb{Z}_n^*}$ , determine an ${x \in \mathbb{N}}$ satisfying a ^x ?=?b if one exists. The question whether integer factoring can be reduced in deterministic polynomial time to the DLPC remains open. In this paper we consider the problem ${{\rm DLPC}_\varepsilon}$ obtained by adding in the DLPC the constraint ${x\le (1-\varepsilon)n}$ , where ${\varepsilon}$ is an arbitrary fixed number, ${0 < \varepsilon\le\frac{1}{2}}$ . We prove that factoring n reduces in deterministic subexponential time to the ${{\rm DLPC}_\varepsilon}$ with ${O_\varepsilon((\ln n)^2)}$ queries for moduli less or equal to n.     

Quantum discord in spin systems with dipole–dipole interaction

The behavior of total quantum correlations (discord) in dimers consisting of dipolar-coupled spins 1/2 are studied. We found that the discord $Q=0$ at absolute zero temperature. As the temperature $T$ increases, the quantum correlations in the system increase at first from zero to its maximum and then decrease to zero according to the asymptotic law $T^{-2}$ . It is also shown that in absence of external magnetic field $B$ , the classical correlations $C$ at $T\rightarrow 0$ are, vice versa, maximal. Our calculations predict that in crystalline gypsum $\hbox {CaSO}_{4}\cdot \hbox {2H}_{2}{\hbox {O}}$ the value of natural $(B=0)$ quantum discord between nuclear spins of hydrogen atoms is maximal at the temperature of 0.644  $\upmu $ K, and for 1,2-dichloroethane $\hbox {H}_{2}$ ClC– $\hbox {CH}_{2}{\hbox {Cl}}$ the discord achieves the largest value at $T=0.517~\upmu $ K. In both cases, the discord equals $Q\approx 0.083$  bit/dimer what is $8.3\,\%$ of its upper limit in two-qubit systems. We estimate also that for gypsum at room temperature $Q\sim 10^{-18}$  bit/dimer, and for 1,2-dichloroethane at $T=90$  K the discord is $Q\sim 10^{-17}$  bit per a dimer.     

Short PCPPs verifiable in polylogarithmic time with O(1) queries

In this paper we show for every pair language $L\subseteq \{0,1\}^*\times\{0,1\}^*$ in ${\ensuremath{\mathsf{NTIME}}}(T)$ for some non-decreasing function $T:{{\mathbb Z}}^+\rightarrow {{\mathbb Z}}^+$ there is a ${\ensuremath{\mathsf{PCPP}}}$ -verifier such that the following holds. In time poly (|x|,log|y|,logT(|x|?+?|y|)) it decides the membership of a purported word (x,y) by reading the explicit input x entirely and querying the implicit input y and the auxiliary proof of length T(|x|?+?|y|)·poly log T(|x|?+?|y|) in a constant number of positions.     

Distinguishing and relating higher-order and first-order processes by expressiveness

This is a paper on distinguishing and relating two important kinds of calculi through expressiveness, settling some critical but long unanswered questions. The delimitation of higher-order and first-order process calculi is a basic and pivotal topic in the study of process theory. Particularly, expressiveness studies mutual encodability, which helps decide whether process-passing or name-passing is more fundamental, and the way they ought to be used in both theory and practice. In this paper, we contribute to such demarcation with three major results. Firstly $\pi $ (first-order pi-calculus) can faithfully express $\varPi $ (basic higher-order pi-calculus). The calculus $\varPi $ has the elementary operators (input, output, composition and restriction). This actually is a corollary of a more general result, that $\pi $ can encode $\varPi ^r$ ( $\varPi $ enriched with the relabelling operator). Secondly $\varPi $ cannot interpret $\pi $ reasonably. This is of more significance since it separates $\varPi $ and $\pi $ by drawing a well-defined boundary. Thirdly an encoding from $\pi $ to $\varPi ^r$ is revisited and discussed, which not only implies how to make $\varPi $ more useful but also stresses the importance of name-passing in $\pi $ .     

The Rank-Width of Edge-Coloured Graphs

A C-coloured graph is a graph, that is possibly directed, where the edges are coloured with colours from the set C. Clique-width is a complexity measure for C-coloured graphs, for finite sets C. Rank-width is an equivalent complexity measure for undirected graphs and has good algorithmic and structural properties. It is in particular related to the vertex-minor relation. We discuss some possible extensions of the notion of rank-width to C-coloured graphs. There is not a unique natural notion of rank-width for C-coloured graphs. We define two notions of rank-width for them, both based on a coding of C-coloured graphs by ${\mathbb{F}}^{*}$ -graphs— $\mathbb {F}$ -coloured graphs where each edge has exactly one colour from $\mathbb{F}\setminus \{0\},\ \mathbb{F}$ a field—and named respectively $\mathbb{F}$ -rank-width and $\mathbb {F}$ -bi-rank-width. The two notions are equivalent to clique-width. We then present a notion of vertex-minor for $\mathbb{F}^{*}$ -graphs and prove that $\mathbb{F}^{*}$ -graphs of bounded $\mathbb{F}$ -rank-width are characterised by a list of $\mathbb{F}^{*}$ -graphs to exclude as vertex-minors (this list is finite if $\mathbb{F}$ is finite). An algorithm that decides in time O(n ³) whether an $\mathbb{F}^{*}$ -graph with n vertices has $\mathbb{F}$ -rank-width (resp. $\mathbb{F}$ -bi-rank-width) at most k, for fixed k and fixed finite field $\mathbb{F}$ , is also given. Graph operations to check MSOL-definable properties on $\mathbb{F}^{*}$ -graphs of bounded $\mathbb{F}$ -rank-width (resp. $\mathbb{F}$ -bi-rank-width) are presented. A specialisation of all these notions to graphs without edge colours is presented, which shows that our results generalise the ones in undirected graphs.     

Numerical solutions of AXB = C for mirrorsymmetric matrix X under a specified submatrix constraint

Mirrorsymmetric matrices, which are the iteraction matrices of mirrorsymmetric structures, have important application in studying odd/even-mode decomposition of symmetric multiconductor transmission lines (MTL). In this paper we present an efficient algorithm for minimizing ${\|AXB-C\|}$ where ${\|\cdot\|}$ is the Frobenius norm, ${A\in \mathbb{R}^{m\times n}}$ , ${B\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times s}}$ , ${C\in \mathbb{R}^{m\times s}}$ and ${X\in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}}$ is mirrorsymmetric with a specified central submatrix [x _ij ] _{r≤i, j≤n-r} . Our algorithm produces a suitable X such that AXB = C in finitely many steps, if such an X exists. We show that the algorithm is stable any case, and we give results of numerical experiments that support this claim.     

Arithmetizing Classes Around \textsf{NC} 1 and \textsf{L}

The parallel complexity class $\textsf{NC}$ ¹ has many equivalent models such as polynomial size formulae and bounded width branching programs. Caussinus et al. (J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 57:200–212, 1992) considered arithmetizations of two of these classes, $\textsf{\#NC}$ ¹ and $\textsf{\#BWBP}$ . We further this study to include arithmetization of other classes. In particular, we show that counting paths in branching programs over visibly pushdown automata is in $\textsf{FLogDCFL}$ , while counting proof-trees in logarithmic width formulae has the same power as $\textsf{\#NC}$ ¹. We also consider polynomial-degree restrictions of $\textsf{SC}$ ⁱ , denoted $\textsf{sSC}$ ⁱ , and show that the Boolean class $\textsf{sSC}$ ¹ is sandwiched between $\textsf{NC}$ ¹ and $\textsf{L}$ , whereas $\textsf{sSC}$ ⁰ equals $\textsf{NC}$ ¹. On the other hand, the arithmetic class $\textsf{\#sSC}$ ⁰ contains $\textsf{\#BWBP}$ and is contained in $\textsf{FL}$ , and $\textsf{\#sSC}$ ¹ contains $\textsf{\#NC}$ ¹ and is in $\textsf{SC}$ ². We also investigate some closure properties of the newly defined arithmetic classes.     

\lambda -Statistical convergence of fuzzy numbers and fuzzy functions of order \theta

In this paper, we introduce the concept of $\lambda $ -statistical convergence of order $\theta $ and strong $\lambda $ -summability of order $\theta $ for the sequence of fuzzy numbers. Further the same concept is extended to the sequence of fuzzy functions and introduce the spaces like $S_\lambda ^\theta (\hat{f})$ and $\omega _{\lambda p} ^\theta (\hat{f})$ . Some inclusion relations in those spaces and also the underlying relation between these two spaces are also obtained.     

An efficient simulation algorithm on Kripke structures

A number of algorithms for computing the simulation preorder (and equivalence) on Kripke structures are available. Let $\varSigma $ denote the state space, ${\rightarrow }$ the transition relation and $P_{\mathrm {sim}}$ the partition of $\varSigma $ induced by simulation equivalence. While some algorithms are designed to reach the best space bounds, whose dominating additive term is $|P_{\mathrm {sim}}|^2$ , other algorithms are devised to attain the best time complexity $O(|P_{\mathrm {sim}}||{\rightarrow }|)$ . We present a novel simulation algorithm which is both space and time efficient: it runs in $O(|P_ {\mathrm {sim}}|^2 \log |P_{\mathrm {sim}}| + |\varSigma |\log |\varSigma |)$ space and $O(|P_{\mathrm {sim}}||{\rightarrow }|\log |\varSigma |)$ time. Our simulation algorithm thus reaches the best space bounds while closely approaching the best time complexity.     

Interpolation splines minimizing a semi-norm

Using S.L. Sobolev’s method, we construct the interpolation splines minimizing the semi-norm in $K_2(P_2)$ , where $K_2(P_2)$ is the space of functions $\phi $ such that $\phi ^{\prime } $ is absolutely continuous, $\phi ^{\prime \prime } $ belongs to $L_2(0,1)$ and $\int _0^1(\varphi ^{\prime \prime }(x)+\varphi (x))^2dx<\infty $ . Explicit formulas for coefficients of the interpolation splines are obtained. The resulting interpolation spline is exact for the trigonometric functions $\sin x$ and $\cos x$ . Finally, in a few numerical examples the qualities of the defined splines and $D^2$ -splines are compared. Furthermore, the relationship of the defined splines with an optimal quadrature formula is shown.     

New types of fuzzy ideals of near-rings

In this paper, we consider the $(\in_{\gamma},\in_{\gamma} \vee \; \hbox{q}_{\delta})$ -fuzzy and $(\overline{\in}_{\gamma},\overline{\in}_{\gamma} \vee \; \overline{\hbox{q}}_{\delta})$ -fuzzy subnear-rings (ideals) of a near-ring. Some new characterizations are also given. In particular, we introduce the concepts of (strong) prime $(\in_{\gamma},\in_{\gamma} \vee \; \hbox{q}_{\delta})$ -fuzzy ideals of near-rings and discuss the relationship between strong prime $(\in_{\gamma},\in_{\gamma} \vee \; \hbox{q}_{\delta})$ -fuzzy ideals and prime $(\in_{\gamma},\in_{\gamma} \vee \; \hbox{q}_{\delta})$ -fuzzy ideals of near-rings.     

Uncertainty and certainty relations for complementary qubit observables in terms of Tsallis’ entropies

Uncertainty relations for more than two observables have found use in quantum information, though commonly known relations pertain to a pair of observables. We present novel uncertainty and certainty relations of state-independent form for the three Pauli observables with use of the Tsallis $\alpha $ -entropies. For all real $\alpha \in (0;1]$ and integer $\alpha \ge 2$ , lower bounds on the sum of three $\alpha $ -entropies are obtained. These bounds are tight in the sense that they are always reached with certain pure states. The necessary and sufficient condition for equality is that the qubit state is an eigenstate of one of the Pauli observables. Using concavity with respect to the parameter $\alpha $ , we derive approximate lower bounds for non-integer $\alpha \in (1;+\infty )$ . In the case of pure states, the developed method also allows to obtain upper bounds on the entropic sum for real $\alpha \in (0;1]$ and integer $\alpha \ge 2$ . For applied purposes, entropic bounds are often used with averaging over the individual entropies. Combining the obtained bounds leads to a band, in which the rescaled average $\alpha $ -entropy ranges in the pure-state case. A width of this band is essentially dependent on $\alpha $ . It can be interpreted as an evidence for sensitivity in quantifying the complementarity.