Person. Kevin Batz
Papers
Type-Directed Discretization of Probabilistic Programs (Extended Version) wu-2026-type
We study exact discretization as a semantics-preserving transformation for recursive, higher-order probabilistic programs with continuous distributions. We target programs where continuous values are compared against finitely many constants, so exact inference reduces to a discrete problem. Our central technical contribution is a non-local, type-directed analysis that infers where continuous values can be partitioned into finitely many observationally relevant regions, then rewrites sampling and comparison behavior over those regions. We call this transformation Slice. Because this construction is global and type-directed, correctness requires reasoning beyond the local syntax: we formalize the transformation and prove soundness for boolean queries using a coupling-style logical relations argument over operational semantics. As an application, transformed programs can be executed by discrete engines such as Dice, Roulette, and Storm. Our empirical evaluation shows two complementary strengths of Slice when paired with discrete backends: it enables exact inference for challenging continuous programs that lie beyond the reach of previous exact systems, and, on benchmarks where direct comparison is possible, it is competitive with state-of-the-art exact inference systems for continuous programs.
A Fast Quantitative Analyzer for NetKAT lu-2026-a
When designing a network, engineers must navigate trade-offs (e.g., one topology offers more aggregate bandwidth, another lower latency or better resilience) that demand reasoning about quantitative properties. We present a fast analyzer for quantitative network properties based on weighted NetKAT (wNetKAT), a domain-specific language that provides a semantic foundation for quantitative reasoning by modeling network behavior using weights drawn from a semiring. At the core of our development is the design of a symbolic data structure – weighted symbolic packet programs (wSPPs) – that compactly represent the semantics of weighted policies, for which a direct implementation would be intractable. We show how to compute all policy constructs symbolically; unsurprisingly, the crux is Kleene star, for which we design a tailored algorithm. We further develop trace-carrying Pareto semirings, which compute multi-objective frontiers together with the network paths that realize them. We formalize the development in Lean and provide an optimized Rust implementation. Being parametric on a semiring, our implementation covers both classical and quantitative analyses: we show that it is competitive with KATch, a heavily optimized Boolean-reachability verifier, and orders of magnitude faster than McNetKAT and Storm on probabilistic analyses. A case study comparing Fat-tree and Jellyfish data-center topologies shows the framework supports multi-objective design-time analysis.
Weighted NetKAT: A Programming Language for Quantitative Network Verification suarezacevedo-2026-weighted
We introduce weighted NetKAT, a domain-specific language for modeling and verifying quantitative quantitative network properties. The language is parametric on a semiring , enabling the treatment of a wide range of quantities in a uniform way. We provide a denotational semantics and an equivalent operational semantics, the latter based on a novel model of weighted NetKAT automata ( WNKA ) capturing the stateful behavior of our language. With WNKA , we obtain a class of generic decision procedures for reasoning about quantitative safety and reachability in a fully automatic way, even in the presence of possibly unbounded iteration. We demonstrate the applicability of our framework in a case study using Internet2’s Abilene network as the underlying topology.
SMT-Based Active Learning of Weighted Automata ferreira-2026-smt
We present an SMT-based active learning algorithm for nondeterministic weighted automata (WFAs) as a practical and robust alternative to Hankel/-style methods. Our algorithm is parametric in a given semiring and, if it terminates, guaranteed to produce minimal WFAs. We prove partial correctness and provide a sufficient termination condition, which in particular implies termination for all finite semirings. Our extensive experimental evaluation shows that our algorithm is capable of learning numerous minimal WFAs over both finite and infinite semirings, vastly outperforms a naive baseline, and is competitive with a state-of-the-art algorithm while producing significantly smaller automata and requiring less interaction with the teacher.