On-the-fly exact computation of bisimilarity distances

Giorgio Bacci, Giovanni Bacci, Kim G. Larsen, Radu Mardare

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution book

36 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper proposes an algorithm for exact computation of bisimilarity distances between discrete-time Markov chains introduced by Desharnais et. al. Our work is inspired by the theoretical results presented by Chen et. al. at FoSSaCS'12, proving that these distances can be computed in polynomial time using the ellipsoid method. Despite its theoretical importance, the ellipsoid method is known to be inefficient in practice. To overcome this problem, we propose an efficient on-the-fly algorithm which, unlike other existing solutions, computes exactly the distances between given states and avoids the exhaustive state space exploration. It is parametric in a given set of states for which we want to compute the distances. Our technique successively refines over-approximations of the target distances using a greedy strategy which ensures that the state space is further explored only when the current approximations are improved. Tests performed on a consistent set of (pseudo)randomly generated Markov chains shows that our algorithm improves, on average, the efficiency of the corresponding iterative algorithms with orders of magnitude.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems. TACAS 2013.
EditorsN. Pieterman, S.A. Smolka
Place of PublicationBerlin
PublisherSpringer-Verlag
Pages1-15
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9783642367410
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 5 Mar 2013
Event19th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2013, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2013 - Rome, Italy
Duration: 16 Mar 201324 Mar 2013

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume7795 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference19th International Conference on Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems, TACAS 2013, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2013
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityRome
Period16/03/1324/03/13

Keywords

  • Markov chain
  • discount factor
  • transportation problem
  • exact computation
  • greedy strategy

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