SHF: Small: Information Effects

SHF：小：信息效应

• 批准号: 1217454
• 负责人: Amr Sabry
• 金额: $ 27.53万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1217454&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SHF; Small; Information; Effects

Conventional models of computation abstract from the explicit flow of energy (and hence information) in physical realizations of computational devices. The benefits of such an abstract layer are self-evident, and yet it results in a conceptual model of computing that is unsuitable for reasoning about entire classes of applications including systems that aim to optimize the use of energy or that aim to guarantee privacy and security of information in the presence of arbitrary attackers. More fundamentally, the computational model becomes at odds with the basic laws of physics which hinders the general ability to explore, model, and understand nature's interactions, connections, complex relations, and interdependencies. To remedy these problems, the research builds a model of computation based on the physical principle of "conservation of information," uses it to expose information manipulation, and to reason about information-flow security, privacy, and similar applications.Technically, the proposed model builds on the type isomorphisms and categorical structures that underlie models of linear logic and quantum computing, and treats information as a linear resource that can neither be erased nor duplicated. On the theoretical side, the model is expected to unveil deeper and more elegant symmetries of computation than have previously been reported. In particular, in a computational model where information is conserved, it is natural to introduce notions of information debts that are related to continuations. Such notions could be useful to addressing long-standing theoretical problems related to the duality of computation. With an eye towards applications, and hence with the aim of reasoning about open systems which may erase and duplicate information relative to their environment, the model is extended with a layer based on the concept of arrows that allows explicit erasure and duplication of information in a way that is tracked by the type system. By implementing this extended model in a mainstream programming environment, it will become possible to reason about new classes of applications that deal with information manipulation in a systematic manner using the established tools of programming language theory.

传统的计算模型从计算设备的物理实现中的显式能量流（以及因此的信息流）中抽象出来。这样一个抽象层的好处是不言而喻的，但它导致一个概念模型的计算，是不适合推理的整个类的应用程序，包括系统，旨在优化能源的使用，或旨在保证隐私和安全的信息在任意攻击者的存在。更根本的是，计算模型与物理学的基本定律不一致，这阻碍了探索、建模和理解自然界的相互作用、联系、复杂关系和相互依赖性的一般能力。为了解决这些问题，该研究基于“信息守恒”的物理原理构建了一个计算模型，用它来暴露信息操纵，并对信息流安全、隐私和类似应用进行推理。从技术上讲，所提出的模型建立在线性逻辑和量子计算模型的类型同构和范畴结构基础上，并将信息视为既不能擦除也不能复制的线性资源。在理论方面，该模型有望揭示出比以前报道的更深入、更优雅的计算对称性。特别是，在信息守恒的计算模型中，引入与延续相关的信息债的概念是很自然的。这些概念可能有助于解决长期存在的与计算的对偶性有关的理论问题。着眼于应用程序，并因此与开放系统，可以擦除和复制信息相对于他们的环境的推理的目的，该模型是扩展了一个层的概念的基础上的箭头，允许明确的擦除和复制的信息的方式跟踪的类型系统。通过在主流编程环境中实现这种扩展模型，将有可能推理出新的应用程序类别，这些应用程序使用编程语言理论的既定工具以系统的方式处理信息操作。