Research in mathematical theory of computation

Research progress in the following areas is reviewed: (1) new version of computer program LCF (logic for computable functions) including a facility to search for proofs automatically; (2) the description of the language PASCAL in terms of both LCF and in first order logic; (3) discussion of LISP semantics in LCF and attempt to prove the correctness of the London compilers in a formal way; (4) design of both special purpose and domain independent proving procedures specifically program correctness in mind; (5) design of languages for describing such proof procedures; and (6) the embedding of ideas in the first order checker

Formal Verification of Security Protocol Implementations: A Survey

Automated formal verification of security protocols has been mostly focused on analyzing high-level abstract models which, however, are significantly different from real protocol implementations written in programming languages. Recently, some researchers have started investigating techniques that bring automated formal proofs closer to real implementations. This paper surveys these attempts, focusing on approaches that target the application code that implements protocol logic, rather than the libraries that implement cryptography. According to these approaches, libraries are assumed to correctly implement some models. The aim is to derive formal proofs that, under this assumption, give assurance about the application code that implements the protocol logic. The two main approaches of model extraction and code generation are presented, along with the main techniques adopted for each approac

Proving Correctness of a Chez Scheme Compiler Pass

We present a proof of correctness for a pass of the Chez Scheme compiler over a subset of the Scheme programming language. To improve trust in our proof approach, we provide two different validation frameworks. The first, created with the Coq proof assistant, is a partial mechanization of the proof, notably implementing a formal semantics for our subset of Scheme. This framework was designed to serve as a basis for the future work of a complete mechanization of our proof. The second framework uses an existing implementation of the Scheme semantics to demonstrate correctness of the pass on a variety of individual examples. We discuss our proof and frameworks in-depth, and give a historical background on compiler correctness proofs and their mechanization

Engineering formal systems in constructive type theory

This thesis presents a practical methodology for formalizing the meta-theory of formal systems with binders and coinductive relations in constructive type theory. While constructive type theory offers support for reasoning about formal systems built out of inductive definitions, support for syntax with binders and coinductive relations is lacking. We provide this support. We implement syntax with binders using well-scoped de Bruijn terms and parallel substitutions. We solve substitution lemmas automatically using the rewriting theory of the -calculus. We present the Autosubst library to automate our approach in the proof assistant Coq. Our approach to coinductive relations is based on an inductive tower construction, which is a type-theoretic form of transfinite induction. The tower construction allows us to reduce coinduction to induction. This leads to a symmetric treatment of induction and coinduction and allows us to give a novel construction of the companion of a monotone function on a complete lattice. We demonstrate our methods with a series of case studies. In particular, we present a proof of type preservation for CC!, a proof of weak and strong normalization for System F, a proof that systems of weakly guarded equations have unique solutions in CCS, and a compiler verification for a compiler from a non-deterministic language into a deterministic language. All technical results in the thesis are formalized in Coq.In dieser Dissertation beschreiben wir praktische Techniken um Formale Systeme mit Bindern und koinduktiven Relationen in Konstruktiver Typtheorie zu implementieren. Während Konstruktive Typtheorie bereits gute Unterstützung für Induktive Definition bietet, gibt es momentan kaum Unterstützung für syntaktische Systeme mit Bindern, oder koinduktiven Definitionen. Wir kodieren Syntax mit Bindern in Typtheorie mit einer de Bruijn Darstellung und zeigen alle Substitutionslemmas durch Termersetzung mit dem -Kalkül. Wir präsentieren die Autosubst Bibliothek, die unseren Ansatz im Beweisassistenten Coq implementiert. Für koinduktive Relationen verwenden wir eine induktive Turmkonstruktion, welche das typtheoretische Analog zur Transfiniten Induktion darstellt. Auf diese Art erhalten wir neue Beweisprinzipien für Koinduktion und eine neue Konstruktion von Pous’ “companion” einer monotonen Funktion auf einem vollständigen Verband. Wir validieren unsere Methoden an einer Reihe von Fallstudien. Alle technischen Ergebnisse in dieser Dissertation sind mit Coq formalisiert