586755
Mixed symbolic representations for model checking software programs
We present an efficient symbolic search algorithm for software model checking. The algorithm combines multiple symbolic representations to efficiently represent the transition relation and reachable states and uses a combination of decision procedures for Boolean and integer representations. Our main contributions include: (1) mixed symbolic representations to model C programs with rich data types and complex expressions; and (2) new symbolic search strategies and optimization techniques specific to sequential programs that can significantly improve the scalability of model checking algorithms. Our controlled experiments on real-world software programs show that the new symbolic search algorithm can achieve several orders-of-magnitude improvements over existing methods. The proposed techniques are extremely competitive in handling sequential models of non-trivial sizes, and also compare favorably to popular Boolean-level model checking algorithms based on BDDs and SAT
53757025
The Compositional Far Side of Image Computation
2969808
Improving Ariadne's Bundle by Following Multiple Threads in Abstraction Refinement
The authors propose a scalable abstraction-refinement method for model checking invariant properties on large sequential circuits, which is based on fine-grain abstraction and simultaneous analysis of all abstract counterexamples of the shortest length. Abstraction efficiency is introduced to measure for a given abstraction-refinement algorithm how much of the concrete model is required to make the decision. The fully automatic techniques presented in this paper can efficiently reach or come near to the maximal abstraction efficiency. First, a fine-grain abstraction approach is given to keep the abstraction granularity small by breaking down large combinational logic cones with Boolean network variables (BNVs) and then treating both state variables and BNVs as atoms in abstraction. Second, a refinement algorithm is proposed based on an improved Ariadne's bundle In the legend of Theseus, Ariadne's bundle contained one ball of thread to help Theseus navigate the labyrinth. In this paper, we work with multiple threads-hence, the "improved." of synchronous onion rings on the abstract model, through which the transitions contain all shortest abstract counterexamples. The synchronous onion rings are exploited in two distinct ways to provide global guidance to the abstraction refinement process. The scalability of our algorithm is ensured in the sense that all the analysis and computation required in our refinement algorithm are conducted on the abstract model. Finally, we derive sequential don't cares from the invisible variables and use them to constrain the behavior of the abstract model. We conducted experimental comparisons of our new method with various existing techniques. The results show that our method outperforms other counterexample-guided methods in terms of both run time and abstraction efficiency
18730116
A satisfiability-based approach to abstraction refinement in model checking
Abstract We present an abstraction refinement algorithm for model checking of safety properties that relies exclusively on a SAT solver for checking the abstract model, testing abstract counterexamples on the concrete model, and refinement. Model checking of the abstractions is based on bounded model checking extended with checks for the existence of simple paths that help in deciding passing properties. All minimum-length spurious counterexamples are eliminated in one refinement step by a procedure that combines the analysis of the conflict dependency graph produced by the SAT solver while looking for concrete counterexamples with an effective abstraction minimization procedure.
10395010
Abstraction and BDDs Complement SAT-Based BMC in DiVer
Bounded Model Checking (BMC) based on Boolean Satisfiability (SAT) procedures has recently gained popularity for finding bugs in large designs. However, due to its incompleteness, there is a need to perform deeper searches for counterexamples, or a proof by induction where possible. The DiVer verification platform uses abstraction and BDDs to complement BMC in the quest for completeness. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in practice on industrial designs.
18368722
Abstraction refinement in symbolic model checking using satisfiability as the only decision procedure
We present an abstraction refinement algorithm for model checking of safety properties that relies exclusively on a SAT solver for checking the abstract model, testing abstract counterexamples on the concrete model, and refinement. Model checking of the abstractions is based on bounded model checking extended with checks for the existence of simple paths that help in deciding passing properties. All minimum-length spurious counterexamples are eliminated in one refinement step by an incremental procedure that combines the analysis of the conflict dependency graph produced by the SAT solver while looking for concrete counterexamples with an effective refinement minimization procedure.
1003958
An Effective P2P Search Scheme to Exploit File Sharing Heterogeneity
Although the original intent of the peer-to-peer (P2P) concept is to treat each participant equally, heterogeneity widely exists in deployed P2P networks. Peers are different from each other in many aspects, such as bandwidth, CPU power, and storage capacity. Some approaches have been proposed to take advantage of the query forwarding heterogeneity such that the high bandwidth of powerful nodes can be fully utilized to maximize the system capacity. In this paper, we suggest using the query answering heterogeneity to directly improve the search efficiency of P2P networks. In our proposed differentiated search (DiffSearch) algorithm, the peers with high query answering capabilities will have higher priority to be queried. Because the query answering capabilities are extremely unbalanced among peers, a high query success rate can be achieved by querying only a small portion of a network. The search traffic is significantly reduced due to the shrunken search space. Our trace analysis and simulation show that the DiffSearch algorithm can save up to 60 percent of search traffic
10710066
An Algorithm for the Chromatic Number of a Graph
Christofides' algorithm for finding the chromatic number of a graph is improved both in speed and memory space by using a depth-first search rule to search for a shortest path in a reduced subgraph tree.
9860662
Interacting Object Tracking in Crowded Urban Areas
Tracking in crowded urban areas is a daunting task. High crowdedness causes challenging data association problems. Different motion patterns from a wide variety of moving objects make motion modeling difficult. Accompanying with traditional motion modeling techniques, this paper introduces a scene interaction model and a neighboring object interaction model to respectively take long-term and short-term interactions between the tracked objects and its surroundings into account. With the use of the interaction models, anomalous activity recognition is accomplished easily. In addition, move-stop hypothesis tracking is applied to deal with move-stop-move maneuvers. All these approaches are seamlessly inter-graded under the variable-structure multiple-model estimation framework. The proposed approaches have been demonstrated using data from a laser scanner mounted on the PALI robot at a crowded intersection. Interacting pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, cars and trucks are successfully tracked in difficult situations with occlusion.
214819
Scalable search-based image annotation of personal images
With the prevalence of digital cameras, more and more people have considerable digital images on their personal devices. As a result, there are increasing needs to effectively search these personal images. Automatic image annotation may serve the goal, for the annotated keywords could facilitate the search processes. Although many image annotation methods have been proposed in recent years, their effectiveness on arbitrary personal images is constrained by their limited scalability, i.e. limited lexicon of small-scale training set. To be scalable, we propose a search-based image annotation (SBIA) algorithm that is analogous to Web page search. First, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) technology is used to retrieve a set of visually similar images from a large-scale Web image set. Then, a text-based keyword search (TBKS) technique is used to obtain a ranked list of candidate annotations for each retrieved image. Finally, a fusion algorithm is used to combine the ranked lists into the final annotation list. The application of both efficient search technologies and Web-scale image set guarantees the scalability of the proposed algorithm. Experimental results on U. Washington dataset show not only the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm but also the advantage of image retrieval using annotation results over that using visual features.
31866645
Optimal Processor Mapping for Linear-Complement Communication on Hypercubes
In this paper, we address the problem of minimizing channel contention of linear-complement communication on wormhole-routed hypercubes. Our research reveals that, for traditional routing algorithms, the degree of channel contention of a linear-complement communication can be quite large. To solve this problem, we propose an alternative approach, which applies processor reordering mapping at compile time. In this compiler approach, processors are logically reordered according to the given communication(s) so that the new communication(s) can be efficiently realized on the hypercube network. It is proved that, for any linear-complement communication, there exists a reordering mapping such that the new communication has minimum channel contention. An O(n/sup 3/) algorithm is proposed to find such a mapping for an n-dimensional hypercube. An algorithm based on dynamic programming is also proposed to find an optimal reordering mapping for a set of linear-complement communications. Several computer simulations have been conducted and the results clearly show the advantage of the proposed approach.