In this paper I attempt to cast the current program verification debate within a more general perspective on the methodologies and goals of computer science. I show, first, how any method involved in demonstrating the correctness of a physically executing computer program, whether by testing or formal verification, involves reasoning that is defeasible in nature. Then, through a delineation of the senses in which programs can be run as tests, I show that the activities of testing and formal (...) verification do not necessarily share the same goals and thus do not always constitute alternatives. The testing of a program is not always intended to demonstrate a program's correctness. Testing may seek to accept or reject nonprograms including algorithms, specifications, and hypotheses regarding phenomena. The relationship between these kinds of testing and formal verification is couched in a more fundamental relationship between two views of computer science, one properly containing the other. (shrink)

Compositional verification aims at managing the complexity of theverification process by exploiting compositionality of the systemarchitecture. In this paper we explore the use of a temporal epistemiclogic to formalize the process of verification of compositionalmulti-agent systems. The specification of a system, its properties andtheir proofs are of a compositional nature, and are formalized within acompositional temporal logic: Temporal Multi-Epistemic Logic. It isshown that compositional proofs are valid under certain conditions.Moreover, the possibility of incorporating default persistence ofinformation in a (...) system, is explored. A completion operation on aspecific type of temporal theories, temporal completion, is introducedto be able to use classical proof techniques in verification withrespect to non-classical semantics covering default persistence. (shrink)

Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. (...) The primary value of models is heuristic. (shrink)

This paper investigates the strange case of an argument that was directed against a positivist verification principle. We find an early occurrence of the argument in a talk by the phenomenologist Roman Ingarden at the 1934 International Congress of Philosophy in Prague, where Carnap and Neurath were present and contributed short rejoinders. We discuss the underlying presuppositons of the argument, and we evaluate whether the attempts by Carnap (especially) actually succeed in answering this argument. We think they don’t, and (...) offer instead a few sociological thoughts about why the argument seems to have disappeared from the profession’s evaluaton of the positivist criterion of verifiability. (shrink)

The notion of program verification appears to trade upon an equivocation. Algorithms, as logical structures, are appropriate subjects for deductive verification. Programs, as causal models of those structures, are not. The success of program verification as a generally applicable and completely reliable method for guaranteeing program performance is not even a theoretical possibility.

Various errors can affect scientific code and detecting them is a central concern within computational science. Could formal verification methods, which are now available tools, be widely adopted to guarantee the general reliability of scientific code? After discussing their benefits and drawbacks, we claim that, absent significant changes as regards features like their user-friendliness and versatility, these methods are unlikely to be adopted throughout computational science, beyond certain specific contexts for which they are well-suited. This issue exemplifies the epistemological (...) heterogeneity of computational science: profoundly different practices can be appropriate to meet the reliability challenge that rises for scientific code. (shrink)

The new phase of science evolution is characterized by totality of subject and object of cognition and technology (high-hume). As a result, forming of network structure in a disciplinary matrix modern are «human dimensional» natural sciences and two paradigmal «nuclei» (attraktors). As a result, the complication of structure of disciplinary matrix and forming a few paradigm nuclei in modern «human dimensional» natural sciences are observed. In the process of social verification integration of scientific theories into the existent system of (...) mental and valued options of spiritual culture takes place. The attribute of classical science – ethics neutrality of scientific knowledge becomes an unattainable ideal. One of the trends in the evolution of theoretical epistemology is the study of migration mechanisms of generation of scientific knowledge from the sphere of its own logic and methodology of science in the field of sociology - the consideration of this process, as the resulting system of interactions of social structures and institutions. Ensuing ideas and settings become the dominant worldview of philosophical and technological civilization. -/- . (shrink)

‘Trust but verify’ is a translation of a Russian proverb made famous by former US President Ronald Reagan. In their paper, Grahamet alappear to take an alternate view that might be summarised astrust or verify. The contrast highlights a general question: how do we come to trust in authorities? More specifically, Grahamet alclaim: (1) that UK Trusted Research Environments (TREs) are misnamed as future custodians for big health data because their promised verification systems actually negate the uncertainty that trust (...) requires; (2) the public is mistaken if it believes such verification enhances trust; (3) the notion of building public trust in TREs is unclear or misconceived. In response, I propose a more relational, perhaps less reductionist account. I argue (1) that verification is itself a source of uncertainty, so it can’t extinguish the uncertainty needed for trust; (2) it’s nevertheless possible for verification to enhance feelings of trust thereby reducing our needs for the same; (3) trust is also social, even political, meaning institutions like TREs may become too big to fail—and end up shielding their ‘trusted’ brand by being less candid about inevitable flaws in their verification systems. (shrink)

The new phase of science evolution is characterized by totality of subject and object of cognition and technology (high-hume). As a result, forming of network structure in a disciplinary matrix modern are «human dimensional» natural sciences and two paradigmal «nuclei» (attraktors). As a result, the complication of structure of disciplinary matrix and forming a few paradigm nuclei in modern «human dimensional» natural sciences are observed. In the process of social verification integration of scientific theories into the existent system of (...) mental and valued options of spiritual culture takes place. The attribute of classical science – ethics neutrality of scientific knowledge becomes an unattainable ideal. One of the trends in the evolution of theoretical epistemology is the study of migration mechanisms of generation of scientific knowledge from the sphere of its own logic and methodology of science in the field of sociology - the consideration of this process, as the resulting system of interactions of social structures and institutions. Ensuing ideas and settings become the dominant worldview of philosophical and technological civilization. -/- . (shrink)

Our starting point is Michael Luntley's falsificationist semantics for the logical connectives and quantifiers: the details of his account are criticised but we provide an alternative falsificationist semantics that yields intuitionist logic, as Luntley surmises such a semantics ought. Next an account of the logical connectives and quantifiers that combines verificationist and falsificationist perspectives is proposed and evaluated. While the logic is again intuitionist there is, somewhat surprisingly, an unavoidable asymmetry between the verification and falsification conditions for negation, the (...) conditional, and the universal quantifier. Lastly we are lead to a novel characterization of realism. (shrink)

Sidgwick offers an account of how to verify our beliefs, both factual and normative. He maintains that, although utter scepticism cannot be confuted, it also cannot be defended because, as soon as the sceptic tries to justify himself, he invariably limits himself by assuming the truth of certain premises and the validity of a particular method of inference. If it is possible to establish a criterion of truth for a given domain, then within that domain we may possess a set (...) of beliefs that are certain and never found to be erroneous. Sidgwick distinguishes between intuitive certainty and discursive certainty, the latter involving the apprehension of a belief in conjunction with other beliefs. He holds that intuitive verification is not entirely trustworthy, and so must be supplemented by discursive verification. (shrink)

Abstract The work of Martin Buber oscillates between talk in which transcendence is experienced and talk in which transcendence is merely postulated. In order to show and mend this incoherence in Buber's thought, this essay attends to the rhetoric of verification ( Bewährung ), primarily but not solely in I and Thou (1923), both in order to show how it is a symptom of this incoherence, and also to show a broad pragmatic strain in Buber's thought. Given this pragmatic (...) strain, the essay argues that a weak notion of Buberian verification, in which taking a dialogic stance with reference to others evinces the right to talk of the real possibility of transcendence (a You-world, or God as the “eternal You“), is all that is necessary to combat despair. Strong notions of encounter are unnecessary, and also sink Buber in a morass of theodicy, in which he interprets historical misfortune and destruction as evidence of history's meaning. (shrink)

The paper deals with the conception of logical empiricism developed by Eino Kaila. Eino Kaila, being a thinker close to the Vienna Circle, departs from some of the central ideas of logical positivism. He identifies a limited number of problems in metaphysics that are meaningful and need to be solved, but he declares the rest of metaphysics to be a logical fallacy. For Eino Kaila, it is not the principle of verification (as a criterion of meaning) but the principle (...) of testability that plays the most important role. In addition, he revises the principle of translatability, insisting that it is impossible to translate a single sentence into the language of experience, but it is possible to translate the whole theory to which the sentence belongs. This is related to his structuralist position in the philosophy of science and his understanding of scientific theories as ‘rationalisations’ as opposed to simple inductive generalisations. The paper compares Eino Kaila’s views expressed during the period of his active interaction with the Vienna Circle be regarded as a predecessor of later critics of logical positivism (in particular, W.V.O. Quine). (shrink)

It has been argued that the Duhem problem is renewed with computational models since model assumptions having a representational aim and computational assumptions cannot be tested in isolation. In particular, while the Verification and Validation methodology is supposed to prevent such holism, Winsberg argues that verification and validation cannot be separated in practice. Morrison replies that Winsberg overstates the entanglement between the steps. The paper aims at arbitrating these two positions, by stressing their respective validity in relation to (...) domains of application. It importantly argues for an increasing use of formal methods in verification, that makes disentanglement possible. (shrink)

Every person has his/her own unique signature that is used mainly for the purposes of personal identification and verification of important documents or legal transactions. There are two kinds of signature verification: static and dynamic. Static(off-line) verification is the process of verifying an electronic or document signature after it has been made, while dynamic(on-line) verification takes place as a person creates his/her signature on a digital tablet or a similar device. Offline signature verification is not (...) efficient and slow for a large number of documents. To overcome the drawbacks of offline signature verification, we have seen a growth in online biometric personal verification such as fingerprints, eye scan etc. In this paper we created CNN model using python for offline signature and after training and validating, the accuracy of testing was 99.70%. (shrink)

We investigate agents that have incomplete information and make decisions based on their beliefs expressed as situation calculus bounded action theories. Such theories have an infinite object domain, but the number of objects that belong to fluents at each time point is bounded by a given constant. Recently, it has been shown that verifying temporal properties over such theories is decidable. We take a first-person view and use the theory to capture what the agent believes about the domain of interest (...) and the actions affecting it. In this paper, we study verification of temporal properties over online executions. These are executions resulting from agents performing only actions that are feasible according to their beliefs. To do so, we first examine progression, which captures belief state update resulting from actions in the situation calculus. We show that, for bounded action theories, progression, and hence belief states, can always be represented as a bounded first-order logic theory. Then, based on this result, we prove decidability of temporal verification over online executions for bounded action theories. (shrink)

A thought experiment is reviewed which shows two things. First, in a region of a rotating frame that is not simply connected, the inertial forces can be canceled without completely canceling the inertial vector potential (whose curl determines the Coriolis force); second, the presence of this uncanceled potential can be detected in a quantum interference experiment. It is then argued that the thought experiment was realized in an earlier experiment involving a rotating superconductor, and that the experimental results confirm the (...) theoretical prediction. In this way, the first experimental verification of a physical effect due to a nonelectromagnetic potential in a force-free region is established. An analogous experiment for the gravitational vector potential is also discussed. Finally, it is pointed out that the close connection between electromagnetic and inertial vector potentials provides an intuitive way to make predictions about rotating superconductors. (shrink)

Source domain verification has not received as much attention as criteria for metaphor identification in the study of conceptual metaphor. In this paper, we provide a replicable approach to source...

This article explores some open questions related to the problem of verification of theories in the context of empirical sciences by contrasting three epistemological frameworks. Each of these epistemological frameworks is based on a corresponding central metaphor, namely: (a) Neo-empiricism and the gambling metaphor; (b) Popperian falsificationism and the scientific tribunal metaphor; (c) Cognitive constructivism and the object as eigen-solution metaphor. Each of one of these epistemological frameworks has also historically co-evolved with a certain statistical theory and method for (...) testing scientific hypotheses, respectively: (a) Decision theoretic Bayesian statistics and Bayes factors; (b) Frequentist statistics and p-values; (c) Constructive Bayesian statistics and e-values. This article examines with special care the Zero Probability Paradox (ZPP), related to the verification of sharp or precise hypotheses. Finally, this article makes some remarks on Lakatos’ view of mathematics as a quasi-empirical science. (shrink)

Theorem 1 states a negative result about the classical semantics j= ! of program schemes. Theorem 2 investigates the reason for this. We conclude that Theorem 2 justies the Henkin-type semantics j= for which the opposite of the present Theorem 1 was proved in [1]{[3] and also in a dierent form in part III of [5]. The strongest positive result on j= is Corollary 6 in [3].

The new phase of science evolution is characterized by totality of subject and object of cognition and technology (high-hume). As a result, forming of network structure in a disciplinary matrix modern are «human dimensional» natural sciences and two paradigmal «nuclei» (attraktors). As a result, the complication of structure of disciplinary matrix and forming a few paradigm nuclei in modern «human dimensional» natural sciences are observed.

Based on the historical case of galvanic experimentation in Germany, I identify five types of experimentation which explored and shaped the new phenomenon rather than tested theoretical predictions. Verification evaluated initial reports of Galvani's phenomenon. Simplification reduced the experimental protocol to the fewest and most basic steps. Optimization found experimental conditions that magnified the observed effect. Exploration tested a wide variety of metals, animals or configurations. Application modified the experiment to address unresolved related problems. Attempts to derive laws of (...) the phenomenon or establish its underlying causes were unsuccessful primarily due to the great variability of the experimental results. (shrink)

Interactive theorem provers might seem particularly impractical in the history of philosophy. Journal articles in this discipline are generally not formalized. Interactive theorem provers involve a learning curve for which the payoffs might seem minimal. In this article I argue that interactive theorem provers have already demonstrated their potential as a useful tool for historians of philosophy; I do this by highlighting examples of work where this has already been done. Further, I argue that interactive theorem provers can continue to (...) be useful tools for historians of philosophy in the future; this claim is defended through a more conceptual analysis of what historians of philosophy do that identifies argument reconstruction as a core activity of such practitioners. It is then shown that interactive theorem provers can assist in this core practice by a description of what interactive theorem provers are and can do. If this is right, then computer verification for historians of philosophy is in the offing. (shrink)

This paper explores indirect verification in pragmatism and its impact on historical inquiry. Indirect verification, as articulated by William James and John Dewey, addresses the challenge of historical knowledge within pragmatism by confirming ideas about past events based on the consistency among their present effects, the ideas themselves, and anticipated future consequences. The paper identifies and discusses key challenges related to indirect verification, such as the ‘coherence verification fallacy,’ the ‘dilemma of interpreting historical consequences,’ and the (...) issue of ‘methodological indirect verification.’ It argues that indirect verification does not substantiate historical interpretations but instead illuminates the nature of historical inquiry. Historical inquiry, it contends, operates as a parasitic epistemic practice, relying on the relationship between the present effects of the past, anticipated future developments, and everyday problem-solving practices. (shrink)

The vision of machines autonomously carrying out substantive conjecture generation, theorem discovery, proof discovery, and proof verification in mathematics and the natural sciences has a long history that reaches back before the development of automatic systems designed for such processes. While there has been considerable progress in proof verification in the formal sciences, for instance the Mizar project’ and the four-color theorem, now machine verified, there has been scant such work carried out in the realm of the natural (...) sciences—until recently. The delay in the case of the natural sciences can be attributed to both a lack of formal analysis of the so-called “theories” in such sciences, and the lack of sufficient progress in automated theorem proving. While the lack of analysis is probably due to an inclination toward informality and empiricism on the part of nearly all of the relevant scientists, the lack of progress is to be expected, given the computational hardness of automated theorem proving; after all, theoremhood in even first-order logic is Turing-undecidable. We give in the present short paper a compressed report on our building upon these formal theories using logic-based AI in order to achieve, in relativity, both machine proof discovery and proof verification, for theorems previously established by humans. Our report is intended to serve as a springboard to machine-produced results in the future that have not been obtained by humans. (shrink)

Vardi, M.Y., Verification of concurrent programs: the automata-theoretic framework, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 51 79–98. We present an automata-theoretic framework to the verification of concurrent and nondeterministic programs. The basic idea is that to verify that a program P is correct one writes a program A that receives the computation of P as input and diverges only on incorrect computations of P. Now P is correct if and only if a program PA, obtained by combining P (...) and A, terminates. We formalize this idea in a framework of ω-automata with a recursive set of states. This unifies previous works on verification of fair termination and verification of temporal properties. (shrink)

The main result of this paper is that KT is closed under a cancellation principle. This result extends to KTG1, but it does not extend to modal systems associated with the provability interpretation of L, such as KW and KT4Grz. Following Williamson, these results are applied to philosophical concerns about the proper form for theories of meaning, via the interpretation of L as some kind of veriflability. The cancellation principle can then be read as saying that verifilability conditions and falsiflability (...) conditions jointly determine truth conditions. (shrink)

(1) It remains to be seen if in the field of Psychiatry just as in that of Psychology the verbal output of a subject can be submitted to verification. Many statements of a highly emotional character being merely symptoms of certain dispositions have no direct communicative sense at all.(2) It being one of the characteristics of the mentally ill to loose contact and exchange of ideas with other people, the question naturally suggests itself if this symptom may be at (...) the bottom of the phenomenon of these persons taking refuge in logical and ideological terminologies, their talk being a kind of verbal autism. (shrink)

A proof of ‘correctness’ for a mathematical algorithm cannot be relevant to executions of a program based on that algorithm because both the algorithm and the proof are based on assumptions that do not hold for computations carried out by real-world computers. Thus, proving the ‘correctness’ of an algorithm cannot establish the trustworthiness of programs based on that algorithm. Despite the (deceptive) sameness of the notations used to represent them, the transformation of an algorithm into an executable program is a (...) wrenching metamorphosis that changes a mathematical abstraction into a prescription for concrete actions to be taken by real computers. Therefore, it is verification of program executions (processes) that is needed, not of program texts that are merely the scripts for those processes. In this view, verification is the empirical investigation of: (a) the behavior that programs invoke in a computer system and (b) the larger context in which that behavior occurs. Here, deduction can play no more, and no less, a role than it does in the empirical sciences. (shrink)

The performance of most of the state-of-the-art speaker recognition systems deteriorates under degraded conditions, owing to mismatch between the training and testing sessions. This study focuses on the front end of the speaker verification system to reduce the mismatch between training and testing. An adaptive voice activity detection algorithm using zero-frequency filter assisted peaking resonator was integrated into the front end of the SV system. The performance of this proposed SV system was studied under degraded conditions with 50 selected (...) speakers from the NIST 2003 database. The degraded condition was simulated by adding different types of noises to the original speech utterances. The different types of noises were chosen from the NOISEX-92 database to simulate degraded conditions at signal-to-noise ratio levels from 0 to 20 dB. In this study, widely used 39-dimension Mel frequency cepstral coefficient features were used, and Gaussian mixture model–universal background model was used for speaker modeling. The proposed system’s performance was studied against the energy-based VAD used as the front end of the SV system. The proposed SV system showed some encouraging results when EMD-based VAD was used at its front end. (shrink)

The issue of proper functioning of operative computing and the utility of program verification, both in general and of specific methods, has been discussed a lot. In many of those discussions, attempts have been made to take mathematics as a model of knowledge and certitude achieving, and accordingly infer about the suitable ways to handle computing. I shortly review three approaches to the subject, and then take a stance by considering social factors which affect the epistemic status of both (...) mathematics and computing. I use the analogy between mathematics and computing in reverse—that is to say, I consider operative computing as a form of making mathematics, and so attempt to learn from computing to mathematics in general. I conclude that mathematics engineering is a field to be both developed for practical improvement of doing mathematics and taken into consideration while philosophizing about mathematics as well. (shrink)

We study the existence of efficient approximation methods to verify quantitative specifications of probabilistic systems. Models of such systems are labelled discrete time Markov chains and checking specifications consists of computing satisfaction probabilities of linear temporal logic formulas. We prove that, in general, there is no polynomial time randomized approximation scheme with relative error for probabilistic verification. However, in many applications, specifications can be expressed by monotone formulas or negation of monotone formulas and randomized approximation schemes with absolute error (...) are sufficient. We show how some simple randomized approximation algorithms can improve the efficiency of verification of such probabilistic specifications and can be implemented in a probabilistic model checker. (shrink)

Verification and validation are methods with which computer simulations are tested. While many practitioners draw a clear line between verification and validation and demand that the former precedes the latter, some philosophers have suggested that the distinction has been over-exaggerated. This chapter clarifies the relationship between verification and validation. Regarding the latter, validation of the conceptual and of the computational modelComputational model are distinguished. I argue that, as a method, verification is clearly different from validation of (...) either of the models. However, the methods are related to each other as follows: If we allow that the validation of the computational model need not include the comparisonComparison between simulation output and measured data, then the computational model may be validated by validating the conceptual model independently and by verifying the simulation with respect to it. This is often not realistic, however, because, in most cases, the conceptual modelConceptual model cannot be validated independently from the simulation. In such cases, the computational modelComputational model is verified with the aim to use it as an appropriate substitute for the conceptual model. Then simulation output is compared to measured data to validate both the computational and the conceptual model. I analyze the underlying inferences and argue that they require some prior confidence in the conceptual model and in verification. This suggests that verification precede validation that proceeds via a comparisonComparison between simulation outputOutput and measured data. Recent arguments to the effect that the distinction between verification and validation is not clear-cut do not refute these results, or so I argue against philosopher E. Winsberg. (shrink)

Model checking techniques for communication protocols usually are phrased in terms of processes, basically labelled arcs in a labelled transition system. We propose to lift checking for such protocols to a more abstract level by analysing the protocols as composite communicative actions, with a communicative action viewed as a mapping on an appropriate class of epistemic models. As an example, we analyse an anonymous broadcast protocol (Chaum’s well-known dining cryptographers protocol) and an electronic voting protocol.