Advances in SAT-based Techniques and Program Verification

The field of computer science is witnessing significant developments in SAT-based techniques and program verification. Researchers are exploring innovative approaches to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these methods. One of the key directions is the use of SAT-based constraint solvers to develop, analyze, and verify reductions between NP-complete problems. Additionally, there is a growing interest in synthesizing test cases for narrowing specification candidates, which can help choose the best formal specification candidate among a set of alternatives. Furthermore, researchers are investigating lower bounds for proofs of certain principles in bounded-depth resolution over parities, which can lead to a better understanding of the limitations of these proof systems. Another area of focus is the development of new heuristics for pseudo-Boolean propagation, which can significantly improve the performance of solvers. In the context of program verification, researchers are working on extracting modularity from interleaving-based proofs, which can help generate compact and efficient correctness proofs for concurrent programs. The development of new exchange formats, such as SV-LIB, is also facilitating the transfer of verification technology between different programming languages. Noteworthy papers include: The paper on lower bounds for bit pigeonhole principles in bounded-depth resolution over parities, which provides new insights into the limitations of these proof systems. The paper on synthesizing test cases for narrowing specification candidates, which proposes an efficient algorithm for generating test suites. The paper on optimism in equality saturation, which presents a unified algorithm for optimistic analysis and non-destructive rewriting. The paper on extracting modularity from interleaving-based proofs, which develops an approach to convert interleaving-based correctness proofs into thread-modular correctness proofs.

Sources

A SAT-based Approach for Specification, Analysis, and Justification of Reductions between NP-complete Problems

Synthesizing Test Cases for Narrowing Specification Candidates

Lower Bounds for Bit Pigeonhole Principles in Bounded-Depth Resolution over Parities

The Ghosts of Empires: Extracting Modularity from Interleaving-Based Proofs (Extended Version)

Optimism in Equality Saturation

On Solving Structured SAT on Ising Machines: A Semiprime Factorization Study

New Hybrid Heuristics for Pseudo-Boolean Propagation

On the Usefulness of Promises

SV-LIB 1.0: A Standard Exchange Format for Software-Verification Tasks

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