The logic of bunched implications, BI, provides a logical analysis of a basic notion of resource that is rich enough, for example, to form the logical basis for ‘pointer logic’ and ‘separation logic’ semantics for programs that manipulate mutable data structures. We develop a theory of semantic tableaux for BI, so providing an elegant basis for efficient theorem proving tools for BI. It is based on the use of an algebra of labels for BI's tableaux to solve the resource-distribution problem, the labels being the elements of resource models. For BI with inconsistency, $\bot$, the challenge consists in dealing with BI's Grothendieck topological models within such a proof-search method, based on labels. We prove soundness and completeness theorems for a resource tableaux method TBI with respect to this semantics and provide a way to build countermodels from so-called dependency graphs. Then, from these results, we can define a new resource semantics of BI, based on partially defined monoids, and prove that this semantics is complete. Such a semantics, based on partiality, is closely related to the semantics of BI's (intuitionistic) pointer and separation logics. Returning to the tableaux calculus, we propose a new version with liberalised rules for which the countermodels are closely related to the topological Kripke semantics of BI. As consequences of the relationships between semantics of BI and resource tableaux, we prove two new strong results for propositional BI: its decidability and the finite model property with respect to topological semantics.

The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a dynamic logic formalism for reasoning about information flow in composite quantum systems. This builds on our previous work on a complete quantum dynamic logic for single systems. Here we extend that work to a sound (but not necessarily complete) logic for composite systems, which brings together ideas from the quantum logic tradition with concepts from (dynamic) modal logic and from quantum computation. This Logic of Quantum Programs (LQP) is capable of expressing important features of quantum measurements and unitary evolutions of multi-partite states, as well as giving logical characterisations to various forms of entanglement (for example, the Bell states, the GHZ states etc.). We present a finitary syntax, a relational semantics and a sound proof system for this logic. As applications, we use our system to give formal correctness proofs for the Teleportation protocol and for a standard Quantum Secret Sharing protocol; a whole range of other quantum circuits and programs, including other well-known protocols (for example, superdense coding, entanglement swapping, logic-gate teleportation etc.), can be similarly verified using our logic.

This paper introduces $\lambda^\widehat$, a simply typed lambda calculus supporting inductive types and recursive function definitions with termination ensured by types. The system is shown to enjoy subject reduction, strong normalisation of typable terms and to be stronger than a related system $\lambda_{\mathcal{G}}$ in which termination is ensured by a syntactic guard condition. The system can, at will, be extended to support coinductive types and corecursive function definitions also.

This paper, a revised version of Rutten and Turi (1993), is part of a programme aiming at formulating a mathematical theory of structural operational semantics to complement the established theory of domains and denotational semantics to form a coherent whole (Turi 1996; Turi and Plotkin 1997). The programme is based on a suitable interplay between the induction principle, which pervades modern mathematics, and a dual, non-standard ‘coinduction principle’, which underlies many of the recursive phenomena occurring in computer science.

The aim of the present survey is to show that the elementary categorical notion of a final coalgebra is a suitable foundation for such a coinduction principle. The properties of coalgebraic coinduction are studied both at an abstract categorical level and in some specific categories used in semantics, namely categories of non-well-founded sets, partial orders and metric spaces.

We define a simple collection of operations for creating and manipulating record structures, where records are intended as finite associations of values to labels. A second-order type system over these operations supports both subtyping and polymorphism. We provide typechecking algorithms and limited semantic models.

Our approach unifies and extends previous notions of records, bounded quantification, record extension, and parametrization by row-variables. The general aim is to provide foundations for concepts found in object-oriented languages, within a framework based on typed lambda-calculus.

The concept of algebraic high-level net transformation systems combines two important lines of research recently introduced in the literature: algebraic high-level nets (AHL-nets for short) and high-level replacement systems (HLR-systems for short). In both cases a categorical formulation of the corresponding theory has turned out to be highly important and is also a good basis for the integration of these concepts in this paper.

AHL-nets combine Petri nets with algebraic specifications and provide a powerful specification technique for distributed systems including data types and processes.

HLR-systems are transformation systems for high-level structures such as graphs, hypergraphs, algebraic specifications and different kinds of Petri nets. The theory of HLRsystems - formulated already in a categorical framework - is applied in this paper to AHLnets. Thus we obtain AHL-net transformation systems as an instantiation of HLR-systems to AHL-nets. This allows us to build up AHL-nets from basic components and to transform the net structure using rules or productions in the sense of graph grammars. This concept is illustrated by extending the well-known example of ‘dining philosophers’. We are able to show that AHL-net-transformation systems satisfy several important compatibility properties. On the one hand we obtain a local Church-Rosser and Parallelism Theorem, which is well-known for graph grammars and has recently been generalized to HLR-systems. This allows us to analyse concurrency in AHL-nets not only on the token level but also on the level of transformations of the net structure. On the other hand, we consider the ‘fusion’ and ‘union’ constructions for high-level structures, motivated by corresponding concepts for high-level Petri nets in the literature, and we show compatibility of these constructions with derivations of HLR-systems in general and AHL-nettransformations in particular. This means compatibility of vertical and horizontal structuring in terms of software development.

Resources and their use and consumption form a central part of our life. Many branches of science and engineering are concerned with the question of which given resource objects can be converted into which target resource objects. For example, information theory studies the conversion of a noisy communication channel instance into an exchange of information. Inspired by work in quantum information theory, we develop a general mathematical toolbox for this type of question. The convertibility of resources into other ones and the possibility of combining resources is accurately captured by the mathematics of ordered commutative monoids. As an intuitive example, we consider chemistry, where chemical reaction equations such as

\mathrm{2H_2 + O_2} \lra \mathrm{2H_2O,}

While closely related to both Girard's linear logic and to Deutsch's constructor theory, our framework also produces results very reminiscent of the utility theorem of von Neumann and Morgenstern in decision theory and of a theorem of Lieb and Yngvason on the foundations of thermodynamics.

Concerning pure algebra, our observation is that some pieces of algebra can be developed in a context in which equality is not necessarily symmetric, i.e. in which the equality relation is replaced by an ordering relation. For example, notions like cancellativity or torsion-freeness are still sensible and very natural concepts in our ordered setting.

We show that an orthogonal basis for a finite-dimensional Hilbert space can be equivalently characterised as a commutative †-Frobenius monoid in the category FdHilb, which has finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces as objects and continuous linear maps as morphisms, and tensor product for the monoidal structure. The basis is normalised exactly when the corresponding commutative †-Frobenius monoid is special. Hence, both orthogonal and orthonormal bases are characterised without mentioning vectors, but just in terms of the categorical structure: composition of operations, tensor product and the †-functor. Moreover, this characterisation can be interpreted operationally, since the †-Frobenius structure allows the cloning and deletion of basis vectors. That is, we capture the basis vectors by relying on their ability to be cloned and deleted. Since this ability distinguishes classical data from quantum data, our result has important implications for categorical quantum mechanics.

Following work of Ehrhard and Regnier, we introduce the notion of a differential category: an additive symmetric monoidal category with a comonad (a ‘coalgebra modality’) and a differential combinator satisfying a number of coherence conditions. In such a category one should imagine the morphisms in the base category as being linear maps and the morphisms in the coKleisli category as being smooth (infinitely differentiable). Although such categories do not necessarily arise from models of linear logic, one should think of this as replacing the usual dichotomy of linear vs. stable maps established for coherence spaces.

After establishing the basic axioms, we give a number of examples. The most important example arises from a general construction, a comonad $S_\infty$ on the category of vector spaces. This comonad and associated differential operators fully capture the usual notion of derivatives of smooth maps. Finally, we derive additional properties of differential categories in certain special cases, especially when the comonad is a storage modality, as in linear logic. In particular, we introduce the notion of a categorical model of the differential calculus, and show that it captures the not-necessarily-closed fragment of Ehrhard–Regnier differential $\lambda$-calculus.

The asynchronous $\pi$-calculus has been considered as the basis of experimental programming languages (or proposals for programming languages) like Pict, Join and TyCO. However, on closer inspection, these languages are based on an even simpler calculus, called Localised$\pi$ (L$\pi$), where: (a) only the output capability of names may be transmitted; (b) there is no matching or similar constructs for testing equality between names.

We study the basic operational and algebraic theory of L$\pi$. We focus on bisimulation-based behavioural equivalences, more precisely, on barbed congruence. We prove two coinductive characterisations of barbed congruence in L$\pi$, and some basic algebraic laws. We then show applications of this theory, including: the derivability of the delayed input; the correctness of an optimisation of the encoding of call-by-name $\lambda$-calculus; the validity of some laws for Join; the soundness of Thielecke's axiomatic semantics of the Continuation Passing Style calculus.

This paper surveys several different variants of order sorted algebra (abbreviated OSA), comparing some of the main approaches (overloaded OSA, universe OSA, unified algebra, term declaration algebra, etc.), emphasising motivation and intuitions, and pointing out features that distinguish the original ‘overloaded’ OSA approach from some later developments. These features include sort constraints and retracts; the latter is particularly useful for handling multiple data representations (including automatic coercions among them). Many examples are given, for most of which, runs are shown on the OBJ3 system.

This paper also significantly generalises overloaded OSA by dropping the regularity and monotonicity assumptions, and by adding signatures of non-monotonicities, which support simple semantics for some aspects of object oriented programming. A number of new results for this generalisation are proved, including initiality, variety, and quasi-variety theorems. Axiomatisability results à la Birkhoff are also proved for unified algebras.

The introduction of first-class type classes in the Coq system calls for a re-examination of the basic interfaces used for mathematical formalisation in type theory. We present a new set of type classes for mathematics and take full advantage of their unique features to make practical a particularly flexible approach that was formerly thought to be unfeasible. Thus, we address traditional proof engineering challenges as well as new ones resulting from our ambition to build upon this development a library of constructive analysis in which any abstraction penalties inhibiting efficient computation are reduced to a minimum.

The basis of our development consists of type classes representing a standard algebraic hierarchy, as well as portions of category theory and universal algebra. On this foundation, we build a set of mathematically sound abstract interfaces for different kinds of numbers, succinctly expressed using categorical language and universal algebra constructions. Strategic use of type classes lets us support these high-level theory-friendly definitions, while still enabling efficient implementations unhindered by gratuitous indirection, conversion or projection.

Algebra thrives on the interplay between syntax and semantics. The Prolog-like abilities of type class instance resolution allow us to conveniently define a quote function, thus facilitating the use of reflective techniques.

The notions of disintegration and Bayesian inversion are fundamental in conditional probability theory. They produce channels, as conditional probabilities, from a joint state, or from an already given channel (in opposite direction). These notions exist in the literature, in concrete situations, but are presented here in abstract graphical formulations. The resulting abstract descriptions are used for proving basic results in conditional probability theory. The existence of disintegration and Bayesian inversion is discussed for discrete probability, and also for measure-theoretic probability – via standard Borel spaces and via likelihoods. Finally, the usefulness of disintegration and Bayesian inversion is illustrated in several examples.

A polynomial-time algorithm is presented for deciding bisimulation equivalence of so-called Basic Parallel Processes: multisets of elementary processes combined by a commutative parallel-composition operator.

Topological methods have yielded a variety of lower bounds and impossibility results for distributed computing. In this paper, we introduce a new tool for proving impossibility results, which is based on a core theorem of algebraic topology, the acyclic carrier theorem, and unifies, generalizes and extends earlier results.

We consider the following two properties of a functor F from a presheaf topos to the category of sets: (a) F preserves connected limits, and (b) the Artin glueing of F is again a presheaf topos. We show that these two properties are in fact equivalent. In the process, we develop a general technique for associating categorical properties of a category obtained by Artin glueing with preservation properties of the functor along which the glueing takes place. We also give a syntactic characterization of those monads on Set whose functor parts have the above properties, and whose units and multiplications are cartesian natural transformations.

Iterative theories, which were introduced by Calvin Elgot, formalise potentially infinite computations as unique solutions of recursive equations. One of the main results of Elgot and his coauthors is a description of a free iterative theory as the theory of all rational trees. Their algebraic proof of this fact is extremely complicated. In our paper we show that by starting with ‘iterative algebras’, that is, algebras admitting a unique solution of all systems of flat recursive equations, a free iterative theory is obtained as the theory of free iterative algebras. The (coalgebraic) proof we present is dramatically simpler than the original algebraic one. Despite this, our result is much more general: we describe a free iterative theory on any finitary endofunctor of every locally presentable category $\cal{A}$.

Reportedly, a blow from the welterweight boxer Norman Selby, also known as Kid McCoy, left one victim proclaiming,

‘It's the real McCoy!’.

Nested application conditions generalise the well-known negative application conditions and are important for several application domains. In this paper, we present Local Church–Rosser, Parallelism, Concurrency and Amalgamation Theorems for rules with nested application conditions in the framework of $\mathcal{M}$-adhesive categories, where $\mathcal{M}$-adhesive categories are slightly more general than weak adhesive high-level replacement categories. Most of the proofs are based on the corresponding statements for rules without application conditions and two shift lemmas stating that nested application conditions can be shifted over morphisms and rules.

Gamma is a programming model in which computation can be seen as chemical reactions between data represented as molecules floating in a chemical solution. This model can be formalised as associative, commutative, conditional rewritings of multisets where rewrite rules and multisets represent chemical reactions and solutions, respectively. In this article we generalise the notion of multiset used by Gamma and present applications through various programming examples. First, multisets are generalised to include rewrite rules, which become first-class citizens. This extension is formalised by the $\gamma$-calculus, which is a chemical model that summarises in a few rules the essence of higher-order chemical programming. By extending the $\gamma$-calculus with constants, operators, types and expressive patterns, we build a higher-order chemical programming language called HOCL. Finally, multisets are further generalised by allowing elements to have infinite and negative multiplicities. Semantics, implementation and applications of this extension are considered.

The traditional notions of strong and weak normalization refer to properties of a binary reduction relation. In this paper we explore an alternative approach to normalization, in which we bypass the reduction relation and instead focus on the normalization function, that is, the function that maps a term to its normal form. We work in an intuitionistic metalanguage, and characterize a normalization function as an algorithm that picks a canonical representative from the equivalence class of convertible terms. This means that we also get a decision algorithm for convertibility.Such a normalization function can be constructed by building an appropriate model and a function quote, which inverts the interpretation function. The normalization function is then obtained by composing the quote function with the interpretation function. We also discuss how to get a simple proof of the property that constructors are one-to-one, which is usually obtained as a corollary of Church–Rosser and normalization in the traditional sense.We illustrate this approach by showing how a glueing model (closely related to the glueing construction used in category theory) gives rise to a normalization algorithm for a combinatory formulation of Gödel System T. We then show how the method extends in a straightforward way when we add cartesian products and disjoint unions (full intuitionistic propositional logic under a Curry–Howard interpretation) and transfinite inductive types such as the Brouwer ordinals.