Preservation Theorems Through the Lens of Topology

In this paper, we introduce a family of topological spaces that captures the existence of preservation theorems. The structure of those spaces allows us to study the relativisation of preservation theorems under suitable definitions of surjective morphisms, subclasses, sums, products, topological closures, and projective limits. Throughout the paper, we also integrate already known results into this new framework and show how it captures the essence of their proofs

Fixed Points and Noetherian Topologies

This paper provides a canonical construction of a Noetherian least fixed point topology. While such least fixed point are not Noetherian in general, we prove that under a mild assumption, one can use a topological minimal bad sequence argument to prove that they are. We then apply this fixed point theorem to rebuild known Noetherian topologies with a uniform proof. In the case of spaces that are defined inductively (such as finite words and finite trees), we provide a uniform definition of a divisibility topology using our fixed point theorem. We then prove that the divisibility topology is a generalisation of the divisibility preorder introduced by Hasegawa in the case of well-quasi-orders.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

Z-polyregular functions

Given an MSO formula $\phi$ with free variables $x_1, \dots, x_k$, one can define the function $\# \phi$ mapping a word $w$ to the number of valuations satisfying $\phi$ in $w$. In this paper, we introduce the class of $\mathbb{Z}$-linear combinations of such functions, that we call $\mathbb{Z}$-polyregular functions. Indeed, it turns out to be closely related to the well-studied class of polyregular functions. The main results of this paper solve two natural decision problems for $\mathbb{Z}$-polyregular functions. First, we show that one can minimise the number $k \ge 0$ of free variables which are needed to describe a function. Then, we show how to decide if a function can be defined using first-order formulas, by extending the notion of residual automaton and providing an original semantic characterisation based on aperiodicity. We also connect this class of functions to $\mathbb{Z}$-rational series.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figure

Diagrammatic Semantics for Digital Circuits

We introduce a general diagrammatic theory of digital circuits, based on connections between monoidal categories and graph rewriting. The main achievement of the paper is conceptual, filling a foundational gap in reasoning syntactically and symbolically about a large class of digital circuits (discrete values, discrete delays, feedback). This complements the dominant approach to circuit modelling, which relies on simulation. The main advantage of our symbolic approach is the enabling of automated reasoning about parametrised circuits, with a potentially interesting new application to partial evaluation of digital circuits. Relative to the recent interest and activity in categorical and diagrammatic methods, our work makes several new contributions. The most important is establishing that categories of digital circuits are Cartesian and admit, in the presence of feedback expressive iteration axioms. The second is producing a general yet simple graph-rewrite framework for reasoning about such categories in which the rewrite rules are computationally efficient, opening the way for practical applications

A structural and nominal syntax for diagrams

The correspondence between monoidal categories and graphical languages of diagrams has been studied extensively, leading to applications in quantum computing and communication, systems theory, circuit design and more. From the categorical perspective, diagrams can be specified using (name-free) combinators which enjoy elegant equational properties. However, conventional notations for diagrammatic structures, such as hardware description languages (VHDL, Verilog) or graph languages (Dot), use a different style, which is flat, relational, and reliant on extensive use of names (labels). Such languages are not known to enjoy nice syntactic equational properties. However, since they make it relatively easy to specify (and modify) arbitrary diagrammatic structures they are more popular than the combinator style. In this paper we show how the two approaches to diagram syntax can be reconciled and unified in a way that does not change the semantics and the existing equational theory. Additionally, we give sound and complete equational theories for the combined syntax.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2017, arXiv:1802.0973

Localité et théorèmes de préservation en logique du premier ordre

International audienceThis paper investigates the expressiveness of a fragment of firstorder sentences in Gaifman normal form, namely the positive Boolean combinations of basic local sentences. We show that they match exactly the first-order sentences preserved under local elementary embeddings, thus providing a new general preservation theorem and extending the Łós-Tarski Theorem. This full preservation result fails as usual in the finite, and we show furthermore that the naturally related decision problems are undecidable. In the more restricted case of preservation under extensions, it nevertheless yields new well-behaved classes of finite structures: we show that preservation under extensions holds if and only if it holds locally

Basic Operational Preorders for Algebraic Effects in General, and for Combined Probability and Nondeterminism in Particular

International audienceThe "generic operational metatheory" of Johann, Simpson and Voigtländer (LiCS 2010) defines contextual equivalence, in the presence of algebraic effects, in terms of a basic operational preorder on ground-type effect trees. We propose three general approaches to specifying such preorders: (i) operational (ii) denotational, and (iii) axiomatic; coinciding with the three major styles of program semantics. We illustrate these via a nontrivial case study: the combination of probabilistic choice with nondeterminism, for which we show that natural instantiations of the three specification methods (operational in terms of Markov decision processes, denotational using a powerdomain, and axiomatic) all determine the same canonical preorder. We do this in the case of both angelic and demonic nondeterminism

Infinitary Noetherian Constructions II. Transfinite Words and the Regular Subword Topology

International audienceWe show that the spaces of transfinite words, namely ordinalindexed words, over a Noetherian space, is also Noetherian, under a natural topology which we call the regular subword topology. We characterize its sobrification and its specialization ordering, and we give an upper bound on its sobrification rank and on its stature