Applying G\"odel's Dialectica Interpretation to Obtain a Constructive Proof of Higman's Lemma

We use G\"odel's Dialectica interpretation to analyse Nash-Williams' elegant but non-constructive "minimal bad sequence" proof of Higman's Lemma. The result is a concise constructive proof of the lemma (for arbitrary decidable well-quasi-orders) in which Nash-Williams' combinatorial idea is clearly present, along with an explicit program for finding an embedded pair in sequences of words.Comment: In Proceedings CL&C 2012, arXiv:1210.289

Functional programming with bananas, lenses, envelopes and barbed wire

We develop a calculus for lazy functional programming based on recursion operators associated with data type definitions. For these operators we derive various algebraic laws that are useful in deriving and manipulating programs. We shall show that all example functions in Bird and Wadler's Introduction to Functional Programming can be expressed using these operators

An inverse of the evaluation functional for typed Lambda-calculus

In any model of typed λ-calculus conianing some basic arithmetic, a functional p - * (procedure—* expression) will be defined which inverts the evaluation functional for typed X-terms, Combined with the evaluation functional, p-e yields an efficient normalization algorithm. The method is extended to X-calculi with constants and is used to normalize (the X-representations of) natural deduction proofs of (higher order) arithmetic. A consequence of theoretical interest is a strong completeness theorem for βη-reduction, generalizing results of Friedman [1] and Statman [31: If two Xterms have the same value in some model containing representations of the primitive recursive functions (of level 1) then they are provably equal in the βη- calculus