Domain theory, which was introduced by Dana Scott in the early 1970s, works on the principle of incorporating partial elements into denotational domains. The resulting structures are ordered by a natural notion of refinement or approximation, and they carry a topology that expresses the process of passing to a limit.

In Girard (2001), J.-Y. Girard presents a new theory, The Ludics, which is a model of realisibility of logic that associates proofs with designs, and formulas with behaviours. In this article we study the interpretation in this semantics of formulas with first-order quantifications and their proofs. We extend to the first-order quantifiers the full completeness theorem obtained in Girard (2001) for $MALL_2$. A significant part of this article is devoted to the study of a uniformity property for the families of designs that represent proofs of formulas depending on a first-order free variable.

A reactive system can be specified by a labelled transition system, which indicates static structure, along with temporal-logic formulas, which assert dynamic behaviour. But refining the former while preserving the latter can be difficult, because:

(i) Labelled transition systems are ‘total’ – characterised up to bisimulation – meaning that no new transition structure can appear in a refinement.

(ii) Alternatively, a refinement criterion not based on bisimulation might generate a refined transition system that violates the temporal properties.

In response, Larsen and Thomson proposed modal transition systems, which are ‘partial’, and defined a refinement criterion that preserved formulas in Hennessy–Milner logic. We show that modal transition systems are, up to a saturation condition, exactly the mixed transition systems of Dams that meet a mix condition, and we extend such systems to non-flat state sets. We then solve a domain equation over the mixed powerdomain whose solution is a bifinite domain that is universal for all saturated modal transition systems and is itself fully abstract when considered as a modal transition system. We demonstrate that many frameworks of partial systems can be translated into the domain: partial Kripke structures, partial bisimulation structures, Kripke modal transition systems, and pointer-shape-analysis graphs.

This Special Issue of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science contains selected papers from ConCoord, the International Workshop on Concurrency and Coordination held in Lipari, Italy, on July 6–8, 2001 and associated to the 13th Lipari School for Computer Science Researchers on the Foundations of Wide Area Network Programming.

We recast dataflow in a modern categorical light using profunctors as a generalisation of relations. The well-known causal anomalies associated with relational semantics of indeterminate dataflow are avoided, but still we preserve much of the intuitions of a relational model. The development fits with the view of categories of models for concurrency and the general treatment of bisimulation they provide. In particular, it fits with the recent categorical formulation of feedback using traced monoidal categories. The payoffs are: (1) explicit relations to existing models and semantics, especially the usual axioms of monotone IO automata are read off from the definition of profunctors; (2) a new definition of bisimulation for dataflow, the proof of the congruence of which benefits from the preservation properties associated with open maps; and (3) a treatment of higher-order dataflow as a biproduct, essentially by following the geometry of interaction programme.

This paper initiates the study of a process algebra based on atomic actions that are assigned resources, and that supports true concurrency. By true concurrency we mean that the parallel composition of concurrent processes does not rely on an interleaving of concurrent actions for its definition. Our process algebra includes a number of interesting operators that can be defined using resources of atomic actions to control their behaviour: of particular note is a (weak) sequential composition operator that exploits the truly concurrent nature of the semantics; this operator extends significantly the operation of prefixing by atomic actions that is supported in most truly concurrent semantics. Our language also includes a parallel composition operator that allows local events to execute asynchronously, while requiring synchronising events to execute simultaneously. In addition, the language supports a restriction operator and includes (unguarded) recursion.

We present both a denotational semantics and a companion operational semantics for our language. The denotational semantics supports true concurrency, so that parallel composition is defined without non-determinism or interleaving. This semantics also is novel for its treatment of recursion. The meaning of a recursive process is defined using a least fixed point on a subdomain that is determined by the body of the recursion, and that varies from one process to another. Nonetheless, the recursion operators in the language have continuous interpretations in the denotational model. In fact, our denotational model is based on a domain-theoretic generalisation of Mazurkiewicz traces in which the concatenation operator, as well as the other operators from our language, can be given continuous interpretations.

The operational model is presented in a natural SOS style. We prove a congruence theorem relating the two semantics, which implies the operational model itself is compositional. The congruence theorem also implies the denotational model is adequate with respect to the operational semantics, and we characterise the relatively mild conditions under which the denotational semantics is fully abstract with respect to the operational semantics.

The ambient logic is a modal logic that was proposed for the description of the structural and computational properties of distributed and mobile computation. The structural part of the ambient logic is, essentially, a logic of labelled trees, hence it turns out to be a good foundation for query languages for semistructured data, much in the same way as first-order logic is a fitting foundation for relational query languages. We define here a query language for semistructured data that is based on the ambient logic, and we outline an execution model for this language. The language turns out to be quite expressive. Its strong foundations and the equivalences that hold in the ambient logic are helpful in the definition of the language semantics and execution model.

We study typed behavioural equivalences for the $\pi$-calculus in which the type system allows a form of subtyping. This enables processes to distribute different capabilities selectively on communication channels. The equivalences considered include typed versions of testing equivalences and barbed bisimulation equivalences.

We show that each of these equivalences can be characterised via standard techniques applied to a novel labelled transition system of configurations. These consist of a process term together with two related type environments; one constraining the process and the other its computing environment.

In this paper we interpret (fragments of) intuitionistic logic in categories with weak closure properties, such as quasi left exact categories and locally cartesian closed categories (LCCC) with sums. We also interpret the full choice scheme in an LCCC. The interpretation can be seen as a categorical form of the usual Brouwer–Heyting– Kolmogorov (BHK) interpretation. The standard interpretation of geometric logic in a pretopos is obtained by applying the image functor to the BHK-interpretation.

We introduce a domain-theoretic framework for differential calculus. We define the set of primitive maps as well as the derivative of an interval-valued Scott continuous function on the domain of intervals, and show that they are dually related, providing an extension of the classical duality of differentiation and integration as in the fundamental theorem of calculus. It is shown that, for locally Lipschitz functions of a real variable, the domain-theoretic derivative coincides with the Clarke's derivative. We then construct a domain for differentiable real-valued functions of a real variable by pairing consistent information about the function and information about its derivative. The set of classical $C^1$ functions, equipped with its $C^1$ norm, is embedded into the set of maximal elements of this countably based, bounded complete continuous domain. This domain also provides a model for the differential properties of piecewise $C^1$ functions, locally Lipschitz functions and more generally of all continuous functions. We prove that consistency of function information and derivative information is decidable on rational step functions, which shows that our domain can be given an effective structure. We thus obtain a data type for differential calculus. As an immediate application, we present a domain-theoretic formulation of Picard's theorem, which provides a data type for solving differential equations.

A formulation of lattice theory as a system of rules added to sequent calculus is given. The analysis of proofs for the contraction-free calculus of classical predicate logic known as G3c extends to derivations with the mathematical rules of lattice theory. It is shown that minimal derivations of quantifier-free sequents enjoy a subterm property: all terms in such derivations are terms in the endsequent.

An alternative formulation of lattice theory as a system of rules in natural deduction style is given, both with explicit meet and join constructions and as a relational theory with existence axioms. A subterm property for the latter extends the standard decidable classes of quantificational formulas of pure predicate calculus to lattice theory.

We compare two deforestation techniques: short cut fusion formalised in category theory and the syntactic composition of tree transducers. The former strongly depends on types and uses the parametricity property or free theorem, whereas the latter makes no use of types at all and allows more general compositions. We introduce the notion of a categorical transducer, which is a generalisation of a catamorphism, and show a corresponding fusion result, which is a generalisation of the ‘acid rain theorem’. We prove the following main theorems: (i) The class of all categorical transducers builds a category where composition is fusion; (ii) The semantics of categorical transducers is a functor. (iii) The subclass of top-down categorical transducers is a subcategory. (iv) Syntactic composition of top-down tree transducers is equivalent to the fusion of top-down categorical transducers.

The context of this article is a program studying the bicategory of spans of graphs as an algebra of processes, with applications to concurrency theory. The objective here is to study functorial aspects of reachability, minimisation and minimal realisation. The compositionality of minimisation has application to model-checking.

We propose the design of a programming language for quantum computing. Traditionally, quantum algorithms are frequently expressed at the hardware level, for instance in terms of the quantum circuit model or quantum Turing machines. These approaches do not encourage structured programming or abstractions such as data types. In this paper, we describe the syntax and semantics of a simple quantum programming language with high-level features such as loops, recursive procedures, and structured data types. The language is functional in nature, statically typed, free of run-time errors, and has an interesting denotational semantics in terms of complete partial orders of superoperators.

In this paper, we present Reo, which forms a paradigm for composition of software components based on the notion of mobile channels. Reo is a channel-based exogenous coordination model in which complex coordinators, called connectors, are compositionally built out of simpler ones. The simplest connectors in Reo are a set of channels with well-defined behaviour supplied by users. Reo can be used as a language for coordination of concurrent processes, or as a ‘glue language’ for compositional construction of connectors that orchestrate component instances in a component-based system. The emphasis in Reo is just on connectors and their composition, and not on the entities that connect to, communicate and cooperate through these connectors. Each connector in Reo imposes a specific coordination pattern on the entities (for example, components) that perform I/O operations through that connector, without the knowledge of those entities. Channel composition in Reo is a very powerful mechanism for construction of connectors. We demonstrate the expressive power of connector composition in Reo through a number of examples. We show that exogenous coordination patterns that can be expressed as (meta-level) regular expressions over I/O operations can be composed in Reo out of a small set of only five primitive channel types.

We show that real-number computations in the interval-domain environment are ‘inherently parallel’ in a precise mathematical sense. We do this by reducing computations of the weak parallel-or operation on the Sierpinski domain to computations of the addition operation on the interval domain.

In the paper Métayer (2001), Métayer transforms multiplicative proof-structures into orientable surfaces with boundaries. He investigates the link between the topological complexity and the number of exchanges in a sequentialisation. The theorem he achieves is about a particular rule of exchange (transpositions by blocks). We complete his approach by showing that the topological complexity does not provide any information in other cases (arbitrary exchange, upper bound of the number of exchanges). Then, we show that, on the other hand, the surface associated to a proof-structure is the surface of minimal complexity on which the proof can be drawn without crossing and respecting the local orientation.

A purely syntactic and untyped variant of Normalisation by Evaluation for the $\lambda$-calculus is presented in the framework of a two-level $\lambda$-calculus with rewrite rules to model the inverse of the evaluation functional. Among its operational properties there is a standardisation theorem that formally establishes the adequacy of implementation in functional programming languages. An example implementation in Haskell is provided. The relation to the usual type-directed Normalisation by Evaluation is highlighted, using a short analysis of $\eta$-expansion that leads to a perspicuous strong normalisation and confluence proof for $\beta\eta\!\up$-reduction as a byproduct.

This article surveys a variety of approaches to integration theory that have arisen in the context of continuous domain theory. The presentation is set in a broader context of ‘positive’ analysis, analysis where order-theoretic notions and notions of positivity play a key role.

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.