12,606 research outputs found
Exhaustible sets in higher-type computation
We say that a set is exhaustible if it admits algorithmic universal
quantification for continuous predicates in finite time, and searchable if
there is an algorithm that, given any continuous predicate, either selects an
element for which the predicate holds or else tells there is no example. The
Cantor space of infinite sequences of binary digits is known to be searchable.
Searchable sets are exhaustible, and we show that the converse also holds for
sets of hereditarily total elements in the hierarchy of continuous functionals;
moreover, a selection functional can be constructed uniformly from a
quantification functional. We prove that searchable sets are closed under
intersections with decidable sets, and under the formation of computable images
and of finite and countably infinite products. This is related to the fact,
established here, that exhaustible sets are topologically compact. We obtain a
complete description of exhaustible total sets by developing a computational
version of a topological Arzela--Ascoli type characterization of compact
subsets of function spaces. We also show that, in the non-empty case, they are
precisely the computable images of the Cantor space. The emphasis of this paper
is on the theory of exhaustible and searchable sets, but we also briefly sketch
applications
Metric Semantics and Full Abstractness for Action Refinement and Probabilistic Choice
This paper provides a case-study in the field of metric semantics for probabilistic programming. Both an operational and a denotational semantics are presented for an abstract process language L_pr, which features action refinement and probabilistic choice. The two models are constructed in the setting of complete ultrametric spaces, here based on probability measures of compact support over sequences of actions. It is shown that the standard toolkit for metric semantics works well in the probabilistic context of L_pr, e.g. in establishing the correctness of the denotational semantics with respect to the operational one. In addition, it is shown how the method of proving full abstraction --as proposed recently by the authors for a nondeterministic language with action refinement-- can be adapted to deal with the probabilistic language L_pr as well
Causal categories: relativistically interacting processes
A symmetric monoidal category naturally arises as the mathematical structure
that organizes physical systems, processes, and composition thereof, both
sequentially and in parallel. This structure admits a purely graphical
calculus. This paper is concerned with the encoding of a fixed causal structure
within a symmetric monoidal category: causal dependencies will correspond to
topological connectedness in the graphical language. We show that correlations,
either classical or quantum, force terminality of the tensor unit. We also show
that well-definedness of the concept of a global state forces the monoidal
product to be only partially defined, which in turn results in a relativistic
covariance theorem. Except for these assumptions, at no stage do we assume
anything more than purely compositional symmetric-monoidal categorical
structure. We cast these two structural results in terms of a mathematical
entity, which we call a `causal category'. We provide methods of constructing
causal categories, and we study the consequences of these methods for the
general framework of categorical quantum mechanics.Comment: 43 pages, lots of figure
Extensional and Intensional Strategies
This paper is a contribution to the theoretical foundations of strategies. We
first present a general definition of abstract strategies which is extensional
in the sense that a strategy is defined explicitly as a set of derivations of
an abstract reduction system. We then move to a more intensional definition
supporting the abstract view but more operational in the sense that it
describes a means for determining such a set. We characterize the class of
extensional strategies that can be defined intensionally. We also give some
hints towards a logical characterization of intensional strategies and propose
a few challenging perspectives
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A general theory of action languages
We present a general theory of action-based languages as a paradigm, for the description, of those computational
systems which include elements of concurrency and networking, and extend this approach
to describe dist.ributed systems and also t,o describe the interaction of a system, with an environment.
As part of this approach we introduce the Action Language as a common model for the class of nondeterministic
concurrent programming languages and define its intensional and interaction semantics
in terrors of continuous transformation of environment behavior. This semantics i.s specialized for
programs with stores, and extended to describe distributed computations
A thread calculus with molecular dynamics
We present a theory of threads, interleaving of threads, and interaction
between threads and services with features of molecular dynamics, a model of
computation that bears on computations in which dynamic data structures are
involved. Threads can interact with services of which the states consist of
structured data objects and computations take place by means of actions which
may change the structure of the data objects. The features introduced include
restriction of the scope of names used in threads to refer to data objects.
Because that feature makes it troublesome to provide a model based on
structural operational semantics and bisimulation, we construct a projective
limit model for the theory.Comment: 47 pages; examples and results added, phrasing improved, references
replace
The Semantics of Graph Programs
GP (for Graph Programs) is a rule-based, nondeterministic programming
language for solving graph problems at a high level of abstraction, freeing
programmers from handling low-level data structures. The core of GP consists of
four constructs: single-step application of a set of conditional
graph-transformation rules, sequential composition, branching and iteration. We
present a formal semantics for GP in the style of structural operational
semantics. A special feature of our semantics is the use of finitely failing
programs to define GP's powerful branching and iteration commands
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