Contextual equivalence for a probabilistic language with continuous random variables and recursion

Author:

Wand Mitchell1,Culpepper Ryan2,Giannakopoulos Theophilos3,Cobb Andrew1

Affiliation:

1. Northeastern University, USA

2. Czech Technical University, Czechia

3. BAE Systems, USA

Abstract

We present a complete reasoning principle for contextual equivalence in an untyped probabilistic language. The language includes continuous (real-valued) random variables, conditionals, and scoring. It also includes recursion, since the standard call-by-value fixpoint combinator is expressible. We demonstrate the usability of our characterization by proving several equivalence schemas, including familiar facts from lambda calculus as well as results specific to probabilistic programming. In particular, we use it to prove that reordering the random draws in a probabilistic program preserves contextual equivalence. This allows us to show, for example, that (let x = e 1 in let y = e 2 in e 0 ) = ctx (let y = e 2 in let x = e 1 in e 0 ) (provided x does not occur free in e 2 and y does not occur free in e 1 ) despite the fact that e 1 and e 2 may have sampling and scoring effects.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Subject

Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality,Software

Cited by 21 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. Almost-Sure Termination by Guarded Refinement;Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages;2024-08-15

2. Bialgebraic Reasoning on Higher-order Program Equivalence;Proceedings of the 39th Annual ACM/IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science;2024-07-08

3. Compiling Probabilistic Programs for Variable Elimination with Information Flow;Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages;2024-06-20

4. A Formalisation of Core Erlang, a Concurrent Actor Language;Acta Cybernetica;2024-03-04

5. Asynchronous Probabilistic Couplings in Higher-Order Separation Logic;Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages;2024-01-05

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3