34.3CRJun 1
Quantifying Side-Channel Leakage in Public Metrology ReleasesFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
Public scientific and metrology releases can leak the hidden settings that produced them. We formalize and quantify this risk as a profiled statistical side-channel audit: a release map exposes finite-band statistics of a power spectral density (PSD), a profiled observer trains labeled template spectra under an explicit budget, and a challenge release is drawn from one of two utility-equivalent recipes separated by a protected coordinate. Averaged PSD bins follow a gamma channel, replaced by a covariance-weighted log-spectrum channel when the bins are correlated; this yields exact Kullback-Leibler divergences, Chernoff exponents, protected-bit advantage bounds, and finite-training, finite-library, finite-compute, and model-mismatch corrections. Our headline result is a finite-band transport-leakage law: after amplitude and blur are eliminated, the protected acid-transport information obeys $I_{λ|α,β}(K) = (64/1225)\, w λ^{6} K^{9} + O(w λ^{8} K^{11})$ for $Kλ\ll 1$, a ninth-order exponent with a closed-form safe band. A step-by-step protocol turns a measured release into these numbers, and a fixed-seed reproducibility package regenerates every table and figure. We instantiate the audit on screened extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) roughness spectra as a model-conditioned case study, with deployment on measured releases the next step.
61.7CRMay 25
AgentSecBench: Measuring Prompt Injection, Privacy Leakage, and Tool-Use Integrity in LLM AgentsFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
LLM agents process trusted instructions, retrieved records, and tool observations through a common generative channel. This conflates data flow with authority: an untrusted string can affect a secret-bearing response or an action proposal even when no application policy authorizes that influence. We introduce AgentSecBench as an empirical instantiation of a formal security framework for this problem. The framework defines three games-instruction-integrity, retrieval-confidentiality, and capability-integrity-under a common notion of intent-to-execution noninterference with permitted leakage. It represents an application policy as a projection onto authorized observations and capabilities, distinguishes prompt annotations from enforcing projections, and measures both adversarial advantage and whether a defense closes the relevant model-visible channel before generation. The exact-marker experiments are intentionally one observable instantiation of the games rather than a complete semantic security claim: they test disclosure and forbidden-action distinguishers with unambiguous ground truth. We evaluate six defense classes with Qwen3-0.6B and Qwen3-1.7B on paired adversarial and benign-control executions. The measurements show when risk reduction follows channel closure and when a model-visible adversarial capability remains exploitable. The result is a security-oriented evaluation method: prompt text can describe a boundary, whereas provenance projection, capability restriction, and output validation can enforce one.
29.2CRMay 1
Composable Post-Quantum Security for FADEC-Coupled Dual-Spool Turbofan Cyber-Physical SystemsFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
We develop a unified mathematical formulation for post-quantum authenticated telemetry and actuation in FADEC-coupled dual-spool turbofan cyber-physical systems. The formulation integrates lattice-based key establishment under LWE/SIS-style assumptions, PUF-derived attestation entropy, authenticated encryption, radar-altimeter integrity, avionics-bus timing, and Kalman residual monitoring in a stochastic hybrid model. Within this model, plant evolution, communication latency, leakage, adversarial channel quality, and cryptographic state evolve under a common filtration. We show that channel uncertainty tightens admissible key-renewal periods, that ciphertext expansion enters bus-level schedulability constraints, and that sensing and actuator limits shape integrity thresholds and allowable control delay. We further relate PUF smooth min-entropy to distinguishing advantage and connect innovation statistics to conservative alarm design. Overall, the results characterize how post-quantum security, real-time schedulability, and closed-loop stability interact in safety-critical aerospace control architectures within a defensive analytical treatment that does not provide operational guidance for interference with real platforms.
PLSep 9, 2025
XML Prompting as Grammar-Constrained Interaction: Fixed-Point Semantics, Convergence Guarantees, and Human-AI ProtocolsFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
Structured prompting with XML tags has emerged as an effective way to steer large language models (LLMs) toward parseable, schema-adherent outputs in real-world systems. We develop a logic-first treatment of XML prompting that unifies (i) grammar-constrained decoding, (ii) fixed-point semantics over lattices of hierarchical prompts, and (iii) convergent human-AI interaction loops. We formalize a complete lattice of XML trees under a refinement order and prove that monotone prompt-to-prompt operators admit least fixed points (Knaster-Tarski) that characterize steady-state protocols; under a task-aware contraction metric on trees, we further prove Banach-style convergence of iterative guidance. We instantiate these results with context-free grammars (CFGs) for XML schemas and show how constrained decoding guarantees well-formedness while preserving task performance. A set of multi-layer human-AI interaction recipes demonstrates practical deployment patterns, including multi-pass "plan $\to$ verify $\to$ revise" routines and agentic tool use. We provide mathematically complete proofs and tie our framework to recent advances in grammar-aligned decoding, chain-of-verification, and programmatic prompting.
CLSep 4, 2025
Manipulating Transformer-Based Models: Controllability, Steerability, and Robust InterventionsFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
Transformer-based language models excel in NLP tasks, but fine-grained control remains challenging. This paper explores methods for manipulating transformer models through principled interventions at three levels: prompts, activations, and weights. We formalize controllable text generation as an optimization problem addressable via prompt engineering, parameter-efficient fine-tuning, model editing, and reinforcement learning. We introduce a unified framework encompassing prompt-level steering, activation interventions, and weight-space edits. We analyze robustness and safety implications, including adversarial attacks and alignment mitigations. Theoretically, we show minimal weight updates can achieve targeted behavior changes with limited side-effects. Empirically, we demonstrate >90% success in sentiment control and factual edits while preserving base performance, though generalization-specificity trade-offs exist. We discuss ethical dual-use risks and the need for rigorous evaluation. This work lays groundwork for designing controllable and robust language models.
MLAug 25, 2025
Deterministic Coreset Construction via Adaptive Sensitivity TrimmingFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
We develop a rigorous framework for deterministic coreset construction in empirical risk minimization (ERM). Our central contribution is the Adaptive Deterministic Uniform-Weight Trimming (ADUWT) algorithm, which constructs a coreset by excising points with the lowest sensitivity bounds and applying a data-dependent uniform weight to the remainder. The method yields a uniform $(1\pm\varepsilon)$ relative-error approximation for the ERM objective over the entire hypothesis space. We provide complete analysis, including (i) a minimax characterization proving the optimality of the adaptive weight, (ii) an instance-dependent size analysis in terms of a \emph{Sensitivity Heterogeneity Index}, and (iii) tractable sensitivity oracles for kernel ridge regression, regularized logistic regression, and linear SVM. Reproducibility is supported by precise pseudocode for the algorithm, sensitivity oracles, and evaluation pipeline. Empirical results align with the theory. We conclude with open problems on instance-optimal oracles, deterministic streaming, and fairness-constrained ERM.
AIAug 18, 2025
Reliability, Embeddedness, and Agency: A Utility-Driven Mathematical Framework for Agent-Centric AI AdoptionFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay
We formalize three design axioms for sustained adoption of agent-centric AI systems executing multi-step tasks: (A1) Reliability > Novelty; (A2) Embed > Destination; (A3) Agency > Chat. We model adoption as a sum of a decaying novelty term and a growing utility term and derive the phase conditions for troughs/overshoots with full proofs. We introduce: (i) an identifiability/confounding analysis for $(α,β,N_0,U_{\max})$ with delta-method gradients; (ii) a non-monotone comparator (logistic-with-transient-bump) evaluated on the same series to provide additional model comparison; (iii) ablations over hazard families $h(\cdot)$ mapping $ΔV \to β$; (iv) a multi-series benchmark (varying trough depth, noise, AR structure) reporting coverage (type-I error, power); (v) calibration of friction proxies against time-motion/survey ground truth with standard errors; (vi) residual analyses (autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity) for each fitted curve; (vii) preregistered windowing choices for pre/post estimation; (viii) Fisher information & CRLB for $(α,β)$ under common error models; (ix) microfoundations linking $\mathcal{T}$ to $(N_0,U_{\max})$; (x) explicit comparison to bi-logistic, double-exponential, and mixture models; and (xi) threshold sensitivity to $C_f$ heterogeneity. Figures and tables are reflowed for readability, and the bibliography restores and extends non-logistic/Bass adoption references (Gompertz, Richards, Fisher-Pry, Mansfield, Griliches, Geroski, Peres). All code and logs necessary to reproduce the synthetic analyses are embedded as LaTeX listings.
CRAug 2, 2025
Reconstructing Trust Embeddings from Siamese Trust Scores: A Direct-Sum Approach with Fixed-Point SemanticsFaruk Alpay, Taylan Alpay, Bugra Kilictas
We study the inverse problem of reconstructing high-dimensional trust embeddings from the one-dimensional Siamese trust scores that many distributed-security frameworks expose. Starting from two independent agents that publish time-stamped similarity scores for the same set of devices, we formalise the estimation task, derive an explicit direct-sum estimator that concatenates paired score series with four moment features, and prove that the resulting reconstruction map admits a unique fixed point under a contraction argument rooted in Banach theory. A suite of synthetic benchmarks (20 devices x 10 time steps) confirms that, even in the presence of Gaussian noise, the recovered embeddings preserve inter-device geometry as measured by Euclidean and cosine metrics; we complement these experiments with non-asymptotic error bounds that link reconstruction accuracy to score-sequence length. Beyond methodology, the paper demonstrates a practical privacy risk: publishing granular trust scores can leak latent behavioural information about both devices and evaluation models. We therefore discuss counter-measures -- score quantisation, calibrated noise, obfuscated embedding spaces -- and situate them within wider debates on transparency versus confidentiality in networked AI systems. All datasets, reproduction scripts and extended proofs accompany the submission so that results can be verified without proprietary code.
AIAug 2, 2025
Idempotent Equilibrium Analysis of Hybrid Workflow Allocation: A Mathematical Schema for Future WorkFaruk Alpay, Bugra Kilictas, Taylan Alpay et al.
The rapid advance of large-scale AI systems is reshaping how work is divided between people and machines. We formalise this reallocation as an iterated task-delegation map and show that--under broad, empirically grounded assumptions--the process converges to a stable idempotent equilibrium in which every task is performed by the agent (human or machine) with enduring comparative advantage. Leveraging lattice-theoretic fixed-point tools (Tarski and Banach), we (i) prove existence of at least one such equilibrium and (ii) derive mild monotonicity conditions that guarantee uniqueness. In a stylised continuous model the long-run automated share takes the closed form $x^* = α/ (α+ β)$, where $α$ captures the pace of automation and $β$ the rate at which new, human-centric tasks appear; hence full automation is precluded whenever $β> 0$. We embed this analytic result in three complementary dynamical benchmarks--a discrete linear update, an evolutionary replicator dynamic, and a continuous Beta-distributed task spectrum--each of which converges to the same mixed equilibrium and is reproducible from the provided code-free formulas. A 2025-to-2045 simulation calibrated to current adoption rates projects automation rising from approximately 10% of work to approximately 65%, leaving a persistent one-third of tasks to humans. We interpret that residual as a new profession of workflow conductor: humans specialise in assigning, supervising and integrating AI modules rather than competing with them. Finally, we discuss implications for skill development, benchmark design and AI governance, arguing that policies which promote "centaur" human-AI teaming can steer the economy toward the welfare-maximising fixed point.
OCJul 25, 2025
Ultracoarse Equilibria and Ordinal-Folding Dynamics in Operator-Algebraic Models of Infinite Multi-Agent GamesFaruk Alpay, Hamdi Alakkad, Bugra Kilictas et al.
We develop an operator algebraic framework for infinite games with a continuum of agents and prove that regret based learning dynamics governed by a noncommutative continuity equation converge to a unique quantal response equilibrium under mild regularity assumptions. The framework unifies functional analysis, coarse geometry and game theory by assigning to every game a von Neumann algebra that represents collective strategy evolution. A reflective regret operator within this algebra drives the flow of strategy distributions and its fixed point characterises equilibrium. We introduce the ordinal folding index, a computable ordinal valued metric that measures the self referential depth of the dynamics, and show that it bounds the transfinite time needed for convergence, collapsing to zero on coarsely amenable networks. The theory yields new invariant subalgebra rigidity results, establishes existence and uniqueness of envy free and maximin share allocations in continuum economies, and links analytic properties of regret flows with empirical stability phenomena in large language models. These contributions supply a rigorous mathematical foundation for large scale multi agent systems and demonstrate the utility of ordinal metrics for equilibrium selection.
LOJul 25, 2025
Transfinite Fixed Points in Alpay Algebra as Ordinal Game Equilibria in Dependent Type TheoryFaruk Alpay, Bugra Kilictas, Taylan Alpay
This paper contributes to the Alpay Algebra by demonstrating that the stable outcome of a self referential process, obtained by iterating a transformation through all ordinal stages, is identical to the unique equilibrium of an unbounded revision dialogue between a system and its environment. The analysis initially elucidates how classical fixed point theorems guarantee such convergence in finite settings and subsequently extends the argument to the transfinite domain, relying upon well founded induction and principles of order theoretic continuity. Furthermore, the resulting transordinal fixed point operator is embedded into dependent type theory, a formalization which permits every step of the transfinite iteration and its limit to be verified within a modern proof assistant. This procedure yields a machine checked proof that the iterative dialogue necessarily stabilizes and that its limit is unique. The result provides a foundation for Alpay's philosophical claim of semantic convergence within the framework of constructive logic. By unifying concepts from fixed point theory, game semantics, ordinal analysis, and type theory, this research establishes a broadly accessible yet formally rigorous foundation for reasoning about infinite self referential systems and offers practical tools for certifying their convergence within computational environments.