2055715
Relaxed Balance for Search Trees with Local Rebalancing
Search trees with relaxed balance were introduced with the aim of facilitating fast updating on shared-memory asynchronous parallel architectures. To obtain this, rebalancing has been uncoupled from the updating, so extensive locking in connection with updates is avoided. Rebalancing is taken care of by background processes, which do only a constant amount of work at a time before they release locks. Thus, the rebalancing and the associated locks are very localized in time as well as in space. In particular, there is no exclusive locking of whole paths. This means that the amount of parallelism possible is not limited by the height of the tree. Search trees with relaxed balance have been obtained by adapting standard sequential search trees to this new paradigm; clearly using similar techniques in each case, but no general result has been obtained. We show how any search tree with local bottom-up rebalancing can be used in a relaxed variant preserving the complexity of the rebalancing from the sequential case. Additionally, we single out the one high level locking mechanism that a parallel implementation must provide in order to guarantee consistency.
30882911
Complexity of Layered Binary Search Trees with Relaxed Balance
When search trees are made relaxed, balance constraints are weakened such that updates can be made without immediate rebalancing. This can lead to a speed-up in some circumstances. However, the weakened balance constraints also make it more challenging to prove complexity results for relaxed structures.In our opinion, one of the simplest and most intuitive presentations of balanced search trees has been given via layered trees. We show that relaxed layered trees are among the best of the relaxed structures. More precisely, rebalancing is worst-case logarithmic and amortized constant per update, and restructuring is worst-case constant per update.
6986183
Efficient Simplification of Bisimulation Formulas
The problem of checking or optimally simplifying bisimulation formulas is likely to be computationally very hard. We take a different view at the problem: we set out to define a very fast algorithm, and then see what we can obtain. Sometimes our algorithm can simplify a formula perfectly, sometimes it cannot. However, the algorithm is extremely fast and can, therefore, be added to formula-based bisimulation model checkers at practically no cost. When the formula can be simplified by our algorithm, this can have a dramatic positive effect on the better, but also more time consuming, theorem provers which will finish the job.
19914316
Extending the Accommodating Function
The applicability of the accommodating function, a relatively new measure for the quality of on-line algorithms, is extended. If a limited amount n of some resource is available, the accommodating function A(?) is the competitive ratio when input sequences are restricted to those for which the amount ?n of resources suffices for an optimal off-line algorithm. The accommodating function was originally used only for ? ? 1. We focus on ? < 1, observe that the function now appears interesting for a greater variety of problems, and use it to make new distinctions between known algorithms and to find new ones.
34233329
Search Trees with Relaxed Balance and Near-Optimal Height
We introduce the relaxed k-tree, a search tree with relaxed balance and a height bound, when in balance, of (1 + Ɛ) log2 n + 1, for any Ɛ > 0. The rebalancing work is amortized O(1/Ɛ) per update. This is the first binary search tree with relaxed balance having a height bound better than c ċ log2 n for a fixed constant c. In all previous proposals, the constant is at least 1/ log2 Φ > 1.44, where Φ is the golden ratio. 
 
As a consequence, we can also define a standard (non-relaxed) k-tree with amortized constant rebalancing per update, which is an improvement over the original definition. 
 
Search engines based on main-memory databases with strongly fluctuating workloads are possible applications for this line of work.
80794
Efficient Rebalancing of Chromatic Search Trees
Chromatic trees were defined by Nurmi and Soisalon-Soininen, as a new type of binary search tree for databases. The aim is to improve runtime performance by allowing a greater degree of concurrency, which, in turn, is obtained by uncoupling updating from rebalancing. This also allows rebalancing to be postponed completely or partially until after peak working hours. The advantages of the proposal of Nurmi and Soisalon-Soininen are quite significant, but there are definite problems with it. First, they give no explicit upper bound on the complexity of their algorithm. Second, some of their rebalancing operations can be applied many more times than necessary. Third, some of their operations, when removing one problem, create another. We define a new set of rebalancing operations which we prove give rise to at most @?log"2(N+1)@?-1 rebalancing operations per insertion and at most @?log"2(N+1)@?-2 rebalancing operations per deletion, where N is the maximum size the tree could ever have, given its initial size and the number of insertions performed. Most of these rebalancing operations, in fact, do no restructuring; they simply move weights around. The number of operations which actually change the structure of the tree is at most one per update.
39576178
Resource-Efficient Scheduling for Real Time Systems
For embedded systems efficient utilization of resources is an acute problem arising from the increasing computational demands in all sorts of applications. The consumers constantly demand better functionality and flexibility of embedded products which imply an increase in the resources needed for their realization. In several areas – e.g. portable devices such as PDAs, mobile phones and laptops as well as mission critical systems such as space applications – the ability to design resource efficient solutions is crucial.
8154526
From Timed Automata to Logic - and Back
In this paper, we define a timed logic L v which is sufficiently expressive that we for any timed automaton may construct a single characteristic L v formula uniquely characterizing the automaton up to timed bisimilarity.
4574615
As Cheap as Possible: Efficient Cost-Optimal Reachability for Priced Timed Automata
In this paper we present an algorithm for efficiently computing optimal cost of reaching a goal state in the model of Linearly Priced Timed Automata (LPTA). The central contribution of this paper is a priced extension of so-called zones. This, together with a notion of facets of a zone, allows the entire machinery for symbolic reachability for timed automata in terms of zones to be lifted to cost-optimal reachability using priced zones. We report on experiments with a cost-optimizing extension of Uppaal on a number of examples.
11147632
Lower and upper bounds in zone-based abstractions of timed automata
Timed automata have an infinite semantics. For verification purposes, one usually uses zone-based abstractions w.r.t. the maximal constants to which clocks of the timed automaton are compared. We show that by distinguishing maximal lower and upper bounds, significantly coarser abstractions can be obtained. We show soundness and completeness of the new abstractions w.r.t. reachability and demonstrate how information about lower and upper bounds can be used to optimise the algorithm for bringing a difference bound matrix into normal form. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate that the new techniques dramatically increase the scalability of the real-time model checker UPPAAL.
12303667
Formal Verification of a Power Controller Using the Real-Time Model Checker UPPAAL
A real-time system for power-down control in audio/video components is modeled and verified using the real-time model checker UPPAAL. The system is supposed to reside in an audio/video component and control (read from and write to) links to neighbor audio/video components such as TV, VCR and remote-control. In particular, the system is responsible for the powering up and down of the component in between the arrival of data, and in order to do so in a safe way without loss of data, it is essential that no link interrupts are lost. Hence, a component system is a multitasking system with hard real-time requirements, and we present techniques for modeling time consumption in such a multitasked, prioritized system. The work has been carried out in a collaboration between Aalborg University and the audio/video company B&O. By modeling the system, 3 design errors were identified and corrected, and the following verification confirmed the validity of the design but also revealed the necessity for an upper limit of the interrupt frequency. The resulting design has been implemented and it is going to be incorporated as part of a new product line.