Symmetry, Structure and the Constitution of Objects

In this paper I focus on the impact on structuralism of the quantum treatment of objects in terms of symmetry groups and, in particular, on the question as to how we might eliminate, or better, reconceptualise such objects in structural terms. With regard to the former, both Cassirer and Eddington not only explicitly and famously tied their structuralism to the development of group theory but also drew on the quantum treatment in order to further their structuralist aims and here I sketch the relevant history with an eye on what lessons might be drawn. With regard to the latter, Ladyman has explicitly cited Castellani's work on the group-theoretical constitution of quantum objects and I indicate both how such an approach needs to be understood if it is to mesh with Ladyman's 'ontic' form of structural realism and how it might accommodate permutation symmetry through a consideration of Huggett's recent account

Term rewriting systems from Church-Rosser to Knuth-Bendix and beyond

Term rewriting systems are important for computability theory of abstract data types, for automatic theorem proving, and for the foundations of functional programming. In this short survey we present, starting from first principles, several of the basic notions and facts in the area of term rewriting. Our treatment, which often will be informal, covers abstract rewriting, Combinatory Logic, orthogonal systems, strategies, critical pair completion, and some extended rewriting formats

Symmetry, Structure and the Constitution of Objects

In this paper I focus on the impact on structuralism of the quantum treatment of objects in terms of symmetry groups and, in particular, on the question as to how we might eliminate, or better, reconceptualise such objects in structural terms. With regard to the former, both Cassirer and Eddington not only explicitly and famously tied their structuralism to the development of group theory but also drew on the quantum treatment in order to further their structuralist aims and here I sketch the relevant history with an eye on what lessons might be drawn. With regard to the latter, Ladyman has explicitly cited Castellani's work on the group-theoretical constitution of quantum objects and I indicate both how such an approach needs to be understood if it is to mesh with Ladyman's 'ontic' form of structural realism and how it might accommodate permutation symmetry through a consideration of Huggett's recent account

Polymorphic Rewriting Conserves Algebraic Confluence

We study combinations of many-sorted algebraic term rewriting systems and polymorphic lambda term rewriting. Algebraic and lambda terms are mixed by adding the symbols of the algebraic signature to the polymorphic lambda calculus, as higher-order constants. We show that if a many-sorted algebraic rewrite system R has the Church-Rosser property (is confluent), then R + β + type-β + type-η rewriting of mixed terms has the Church-Rosser property too. η reduction does not commute with algebraic reduction, in general. However, using long normal forms, we show that if R is canonical (confluent and strongly normalizing) then equational provability from R + β + η + type-β + type-η is still decidable

Modification of Newman\u27s BAND(J) Subroutine to Multi-Region Systems Containing Interior Boundaries: MBAND

Newman\u27s BAND(J) subroutine, which has been used widely to solve models of various electrochemical systems, is extended to solve a system of coupled, ordinary differential equations with interior boundary conditions. A set of coupled, linear ordinary differential equations is used to demonstrate the solution procedure. The results show that the extended technique has the same accuracy as that of using pentadiagonal BAND(J), but the execution speed is about five times faster than that of pentadiagonal BAND(J). Using sparse matrix solver Y12MAF to solve the same set of equations takes even longer time than pentadiagonal BAND(J)

Diagram techniques for confluence

AbstractWe develop diagram techniques for proving confluence in abstract reductions systems. The underlying theory gives a systematic and uniform framework in which a number of known results, widely scattered throughout the literature, can be understood. These results include Newman's lemma, Lemma 3.1 of Winkler and Buchberger, the Hindley–Rosen lemma, the Request lemmas of Staples, the Strong Confluence lemma of Huet, the lemma of De Bruijn

Combining Algebra and Higher-Order Types

We study the higher-order rewrite/equational proof systems obtained by adding the simply typed lambda calculus to algebraic rewrite/equational proof systems. We show that if a many-sorted algebraic rewrite system has the Church-Rosser property, then the corresponding higher-order rewrite system which adds simply typed ß-reduction has the Church-Rosser property too. This result is relevant to parallel implementations of functional programming languages. We also show that provability in the higher-order equational proof system obtained by adding the simply typed ß and η axioms to some many-sorted algebraic proof system is effectively reducible to provability in that algebraic proof system. This effective reduction also establishes transformations between higher-order and algebraic equational proofs, transformations which can be useful in automated deduction