A generic operational metatheory for algebraic effects

We provide a syntactic analysis of contextual preorder and equivalence for a polymorphic programming language with effects. Our approach applies uniformly across a range of algebraic effects, and incorporates, as instances: errors, input/output, global state, nondeterminism, probabilistic choice, and combinations thereof. Our approach is to extend Plotkin and Power’s structural operational semantics for algebraic effects (FoSSaCS 2001) with a primitive “basic preorder” on ground type computation trees. The basic preorder is used to derive notions of contextual preorder and equivalence on program terms. Under mild assumptions on this relation, we prove fundamental properties of contextual preorder (hence equivalence) including extensionality properties and a characterisation via applicative contexts, and we provide machinery for reasoning about polymorphism using relational parametricity

Strongly Complete Logics for Coalgebras

Coalgebras for a functor model different types of transition systems in a uniform way. This paper focuses on a uniform account of finitary logics for set-based coalgebras. In particular, a general construction of a logic from an arbitrary set-functor is given and proven to be strongly complete under additional assumptions. We proceed in three parts. Part I argues that sifted colimit preserving functors are those functors that preserve universal algebraic structure. Our main theorem here states that a functor preserves sifted colimits if and only if it has a finitary presentation by operations and equations. Moreover, the presentation of the category of algebras for the functor is obtained compositionally from the presentations of the underlying category and of the functor. Part II investigates algebras for a functor over ind-completions and extends the theorem of J{\'o}nsson and Tarski on canonical extensions of Boolean algebras with operators to this setting. Part III shows, based on Part I, how to associate a finitary logic to any finite-sets preserving functor T. Based on Part II we prove the logic to be strongly complete under a reasonable condition on T

Classical BI: Its Semantics and Proof Theory

We present Classical BI (CBI), a new addition to the family of bunched logics which originates in O'Hearn and Pym's logic of bunched implications BI. CBI differs from existing bunched logics in that its multiplicative connectives behave classically rather than intuitionistically (including in particular a multiplicative version of classical negation). At the semantic level, CBI-formulas have the normal bunched logic reading as declarative statements about resources, but its resource models necessarily feature more structure than those for other bunched logics; principally, they satisfy the requirement that every resource has a unique dual. At the proof-theoretic level, a very natural formalism for CBI is provided by a display calculus \`a la Belnap, which can be seen as a generalisation of the bunched sequent calculus for BI. In this paper we formulate the aforementioned model theory and proof theory for CBI, and prove some fundamental results about the logic, most notably completeness of the proof theory with respect to the semantics.Comment: 42 pages, 8 figure

Completeness of Flat Coalgebraic Fixpoint Logics

Modal fixpoint logics traditionally play a central role in computer science, in particular in artificial intelligence and concurrency. The mu-calculus and its relatives are among the most expressive logics of this type. However, popular fixpoint logics tend to trade expressivity for simplicity and readability, and in fact often live within the single variable fragment of the mu-calculus. The family of such flat fixpoint logics includes, e.g., LTL, CTL, and the logic of common knowledge. Extending this notion to the generic semantic framework of coalgebraic logic enables covering a wide range of logics beyond the standard mu-calculus including, e.g., flat fragments of the graded mu-calculus and the alternating-time mu-calculus (such as alternating-time temporal logic ATL), as well as probabilistic and monotone fixpoint logics. We give a generic proof of completeness of the Kozen-Park axiomatization for such flat coalgebraic fixpoint logics.Comment: Short version appeared in Proc. 21st International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 2010, Vol. 6269 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 2010, pp. 524-53

A formally verified compiler back-end

This article describes the development and formal verification (proof of semantic preservation) of a compiler back-end from Cminor (a simple imperative intermediate language) to PowerPC assembly code, using the Coq proof assistant both for programming the compiler and for proving its correctness. Such a verified compiler is useful in the context of formal methods applied to the certification of critical software: the verification of the compiler guarantees that the safety properties proved on the source code hold for the executable compiled code as well

Modal logic of planar polygons

We study the modal logic of the closure algebra $P_2$, generated by the set of all polygons in the Euclidean plane $\mathbb{R}^2$. We show that this logic is finitely axiomatizable, is complete with respect to the class of frames we call "crown" frames, is not first order definable, does not have the Craig interpolation property, and its validity problem is PSPACE-complete

Canonical extension and canonicity via DCPO presentations

The canonical extension of a lattice is in an essential way a two-sided completion. Domain theory, on the contrary, is primarily concerned with one-sided completeness. In this paper, we show two things. Firstly, that the canonical extension of a lattice can be given an asymmetric description in two stages: a free co-directed meet completion, followed by a completion by \emph{selected} directed joins. Secondly, we show that the general techniques for dcpo presentations of dcpo algebras used in the second stage of the construction immediately give us the well-known canonicity result for bounded lattices with operators.Comment: 17 pages. Definition 5 was revised slightly, without changing any of the result