A practical module system for LF

Module systems for proof assistants provide administrative support for large developments when mechanizing the meta-theory of programming languages and logics. In this paper we describe a module system for the logical framework LF. It is based on two main primitives: signatures and signature morphisms, which provide a semantically transparent module level and permit to represent logic translations as homomorphisms. Modular LF is a conservative extension over LF, and defines an elaboration of modular into core LF signatures. We have implemented our design in the Twelf system and used it to modularize large parts of the Twelf example library

Representing Isabelle in LF

LF has been designed and successfully used as a meta-logical framework to represent and reason about object logics. Here we design a representation of the Isabelle logical framework in LF using the recently introduced module system for LF. The major novelty of our approach is that we can naturally represent the advanced Isabelle features of type classes and locales. Our representation of type classes relies on a feature so far lacking in the LF module system: morphism variables and abstraction over them. While conservative over the present system in terms of expressivity, this feature is needed for a representation of type classes that preserves the modular structure. Therefore, we also design the necessary extension of the LF module system.Comment: In Proceedings LFMTP 2010, arXiv:1009.218

Towards MKM in the Large: Modular Representation and Scalable Software Architecture

MKM has been defined as the quest for technologies to manage mathematical knowledge. MKM "in the small" is well-studied, so the real problem is to scale up to large, highly interconnected corpora: "MKM in the large". We contend that advances in two areas are needed to reach this goal. We need representation languages that support incremental processing of all primitive MKM operations, and we need software architectures and implementations that implement these operations scalably on large knowledge bases. We present instances of both in this paper: the MMT framework for modular theory-graphs that integrates meta-logical foundations, which forms the base of the next OMDoc version; and TNTBase, a versioned storage system for XML-based document formats. TNTBase becomes an MMT database by instantiating it with special MKM operations for MMT.Comment: To appear in The 9th International Conference on Mathematical Knowledge Management: MKM 201

An Open Challenge Problem Repository for Systems Supporting Binders

A variety of logical frameworks support the use of higher-order abstract syntax in representing formal systems; however, each system has its own set of benchmarks. Even worse, general proof assistants that provide special libraries for dealing with binders offer a very limited evaluation of such libraries, and the examples given often do not exercise and stress-test key aspects that arise in the presence of binders. In this paper we design an open repository ORBI (Open challenge problem Repository for systems supporting reasoning with BInders). We believe the field of reasoning about languages with binders has matured, and a common set of benchmarks provides an important basis for evaluation and qualitative comparison of different systems and libraries that support binders, and it will help to advance the field.Comment: In Proceedings LFMTP 2015, arXiv:1507.0759

Representing Model Theory in a Type-Theoretical Logical Framework

AbstractWe give a comprehensive formal representation of first-order logic using the recently developed module system for the Twelf implementation of the Edinburgh Logical Framework LF. The module system places strong emphasis on signature morphisms as the main primitive concept, which makes it particularly useful to reason about structural translations, which occur frequently in proof and model theory.Syntax and proof theory are encoded in the usual way using LF's higher order abstract syntax and judgments-as-types paradigm, but using the module system to treat all connectives and quantifiers independently. The difficulty is to reason about the model theory, for which the mathematical foundation in which the models are expressed must be encoded itself. We choose a variant of Martin-Löf's type theory as this foundation and use it to axiomatize first-order model theoretic semantics. Then we can encode the soundness proof as a signature morphism from the proof theory to the model theory. We extend our results to models given in terms of set theory using an encoding of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory in LF and giving a signature morphism from Martin-Löf type theory into it. These encodings can be checked mechanically by Twelf.Our results demonstrate the feasibility of comprehensively formalizing large scale representation theorems and thus promise significant future applications

Architectural Refinement in HETS

The main objective of this work is to bring a number of improvements to the Heterogeneous Tool Set HETS, both from a theoretical and an implementation point of view. In the first part of the thesis we present a number of recent extensions of the tool, among which declarative specifications of logics, generalized theoroidal comorphisms, heterogeneous colimits and integration of the logic of the term rewriting system Maude. In the second part we concentrate on the CASL architectural refinement language, that we equip with a notion of refinement tree and with calculi for checking correctness and consistency of refinements. Soundness and completeness of these calculi is also investigated. Finally, we present the integration of the VSE refinement method in HETS as an institution comorphism. Thus, the proof manangement component of HETS remains unmodified