The Biequivalence of Locally Cartesian Closed Categories and Martin-L\"of Type Theories

Seely's paper "Locally cartesian closed categories and type theory" contains a well-known result in categorical type theory: that the category of locally cartesian closed categories is equivalent to the category of Martin-L\"of type theories with Pi-types, Sigma-types and extensional identity types. However, Seely's proof relies on the problematic assumption that substitution in types can be interpreted by pullbacks. Here we prove a corrected version of Seely's theorem: that the B\'enabou-Hofmann interpretation of Martin-L\"of type theory in locally cartesian closed categories yields a biequivalence of 2-categories. To facilitate the technical development we employ categories with families as a substitute for syntactic Martin-L\"of type theories. As a second result we prove that if we remove Pi-types the resulting categories with families are biequivalent to left exact categories.Comment: TLCA 2011 - 10th Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications, Novi Sad : Serbia (2011

The maximum of Brownian motion with parabolic drift

We study the maximum of a Brownian motion with a parabolic drift; this is a random variable that often occurs as a limit of the maximum of discrete processes whose expectations have a maximum at an interior point. We give series expansions and integral formulas for the distribution and the first two moments, together with numerical values to high precision.Comment: 37 page

Randomness Relative to Cantor Expansions

Imagine a sequence in which the first letter comes from a binary alphabet, the second letter can be chosen on an alphabet with 10 elements, the third letter can be chosen on an alphabet with 3 elements and so on. When such a sequence can be called random? In this paper we offer a solution to the above question using the approach to randomness proposed by Algorithmic Information Theory.Comment: several small change

Dependent Types for Pragmatics

This paper proposes the use of dependent types for pragmatic phenomena such as pronoun binding and presupposition resolution as a type-theoretic alternative to formalisms such as Discourse Representation Theory and Dynamic Semantics.Comment: This version updates the paper for publication in LEU

Two kinds of procedural semantics for privative modification

In this paper we present two kinds of procedural semantics for privative modification. We do this for three reasons. The first reason is to launch a tough test case to gauge the degree of substantial agreement between a constructivist and a realist interpretation of procedural semantics; the second is to extend Martin-L ̈f’s Constructive Type Theory to privative modification, which is characteristic of natural language; the third reason is to sketch a positive characterization of privation

On the strength of dependent products in the type theory of Martin-L\"of

One may formulate the dependent product types of Martin-L\"of type theory either in terms of abstraction and application operators like those for the lambda-calculus; or in terms of introduction and elimination rules like those for the other constructors of type theory. It is known that the latter rules are at least as strong as the former: we show that they are in fact strictly stronger. We also show, in the presence of the identity types, that the elimination rule for dependent products--which is a "higher-order" inference rule in the sense of Schroeder-Heister--can be reformulated in a first-order manner. Finally, we consider the principle of function extensionality in type theory, which asserts that two elements of a dependent product type which are pointwise propositionally equal, are themselves propositionally equal. We demonstrate that the usual formulation of this principle fails to verify a number of very natural propositional equalities; and suggest an alternative formulation which rectifies this deficiency.Comment: 18 pages; v2: final journal versio

Asymptotic normality of the size of the giant component via a random walk

In this paper we give a simple new proof of a result of Pittel and Wormald concerning the asymptotic value and (suitably rescaled) limiting distribution of the number of vertices in the giant component of $G(n,p)$ above the scaling window of the phase transition. Nachmias and Peres used martingale arguments to study Karp's exploration process, obtaining a simple proof of a weak form of this result. We use slightly different martingale arguments to obtain a much sharper result with little extra work.Comment: 11 pages; slightly expanded, reference adde