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Smoothed model checking for uncertain continuous-time Markov chains. (English) Zbl 1336.68162
Summary: We consider the problem of computing the satisfaction probability of a formula for stochastic models with parametric uncertainty. We show that this satisfaction probability is a smooth function of the model parameters under mild conditions. This enables us to devise a novel Bayesian statistical algorithm which performs model checking simultaneously for all values of the model parameters from observations of truth values of the formula over individual runs of the model at isolated parameter values. This is achieved by exploiting the smoothness of the satisfaction function: by modelling explicitly correlations through a prior distribution over a space of smooth functions (a Gaussian Process), we can condition on observations at individual parameter values to construct an analytical approximation of the function itself. Extensive experiments on non-trivial case studies show that the approach is accurate and considerably faster than naive parameter exploration with standard statistical model checking methods.

##### MSC:
 68Q60 Specification and verification (program logics, model checking, etc.) 60G15 Gaussian processes 60J28 Applications of continuous-time Markov processes on discrete state spaces 68Q87 Probability in computer science (algorithm analysis, random structures, phase transitions, etc.)
##### Software:
PARAM; STOCKS; PROPhESY; Bio-PEPA; PRISM; MRMC
Full Text:
##### References:
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