The Structure of First-Order Causality

Game semantics describe the interactive behavior of proofs by interpreting formulas as games on which proofs induce strategies. Such a semantics is introduced here for capturing dependencies induced by quantifications in first-order propositional logic. One of the main difficulties that has to be faced during the elaboration of this kind of semantics is to characterize definable strategies, that is strategies which actually behave like a proof. This is usually done by restricting the model to strategies satisfying subtle combinatorial conditions, whose preservation under composition is often difficult to show. Here, we present an original methodology to achieve this task, which requires to combine advanced tools from game semantics, rewriting theory and categorical algebra. We introduce a diagrammatic presentation of the monoidal category of definable strategies of our model, by the means of generators and relations: those strategies can be generated from a finite set of atomic strategies and the equality between strategies admits a finite axiomatization, this equational structure corresponding to a polarized variation of the notion of bialgebra. This work thus bridges algebra and denotational semantics in order to reveal the structure of dependencies induced by first-order quantifiers, and lays the foundations for a mechanized analysis of causality in programming languages

Smart matching

One of the most annoying aspects in the formalization of mathematics is the need of transforming notions to match a given, existing result. This kind of transformations, often based on a conspicuous background knowledge in the given scientific domain (mostly expressed in the form of equalities or isomorphisms), are usually implicit in the mathematical discourse, and it would be highly desirable to obtain a similar behavior in interactive provers. The paper describes the superposition-based implementation of this feature inside the Matita interactive theorem prover, focusing in particular on the so called smart application tactic, supporting smart matching between a goal and a given result.Comment: To appear in The 9th International Conference on Mathematical Knowledge Management: MKM 201

Type classes for efficient exact real arithmetic in Coq

Floating point operations are fast, but require continuous effort on the part of the user in order to ensure that the results are correct. This burden can be shifted away from the user by providing a library of exact analysis in which the computer handles the error estimates. Previously, we [Krebbers/Spitters 2011] provided a fast implementation of the exact real numbers in the Coq proof assistant. Our implementation improved on an earlier implementation by O'Connor by using type classes to describe an abstract specification of the underlying dense set from which the real numbers are built. In particular, we used dyadic rationals built from Coq's machine integers to obtain a 100 times speed up of the basic operations already. This article is a substantially expanded version of [Krebbers/Spitters 2011] in which the implementation is extended in the various ways. First, we implement and verify the sine and cosine function. Secondly, we create an additional implementation of the dense set based on Coq's fast rational numbers. Thirdly, we extend the hierarchy to capture order on undecidable structures, while it was limited to decidable structures before. This hierarchy, based on type classes, allows us to share theory on the naturals, integers, rationals, dyadics, and reals in a convenient way. Finally, we obtain another dramatic speed-up by avoiding evaluation of termination proofs at runtime.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1105.275

Nominal Abstraction

Recursive relational specifications are commonly used to describe the computational structure of formal systems. Recent research in proof theory has identified two features that facilitate direct, logic-based reasoning about such descriptions: the interpretation of atomic judgments through recursive definitions and an encoding of binding constructs via generic judgments. However, logics encompassing these two features do not currently allow for the definition of relations that embody dynamic aspects related to binding, a capability needed in many reasoning tasks. We propose a new relation between terms called nominal abstraction as a means for overcoming this deficiency. We incorporate nominal abstraction into a rich logic also including definitions, generic quantification, induction, and co-induction that we then prove to be consistent. We present examples to show that this logic can provide elegant treatments of binding contexts that appear in many proofs, such as those establishing properties of typing calculi and of arbitrarily cascading substitutions that play a role in reducibility arguments.Comment: To appear in the Journal of Information and Computatio