Volume 1 - Proceedings of MFPS XXXVIII
MFPS XXXXVIII, the 38th Conference on the Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics, took place on the campus Cornell University, USA, with a satellite event at IRIF, Denis Diderot university, Paris, and online. DOI: [10.46298/entics.proceedings.mfps38](https://doi.org/10.46298/entics.proceedings.mfps38)
1. Data Layout from a Type-Theoretic Perspective
The specifics of data layout can be important for the efficiency of functional programs and interaction with external libraries. In this paper, we develop a type-theoretic approach to data layout that could be used as a typed intermediate language in a compiler or to give a programmer more control. Our starting point is a computational interpretation of the semi-axiomatic sequent calculus for intuitionistic logic that defines abstract notions of cells and addresses. We refine this semantics so addresses have more structure to reflect possible alternative layouts without fundamentally departing from intuitionistic logic. We then add recursive types and explore example programs and properties of the resulting language.
2. Free Commutative Monoids in Homotopy Type Theory
We develop a constructive theory of finite multisets in Homotopy Type Theory, defining them as free commutative monoids. After recalling basic structural properties of the free commutative-monoid construction, we formalise and establish the categorical universal property of two, necessarily equivalent, algebraic presentations of free commutative monoids using 1-HITs. These presentations correspond to two different equational theories invariably including commutation axioms. In this setting, we prove important structural combinatorial properties of finite multisets. These properties are established in full generality without assuming decidable equality on the carrier set. As an application, we present a constructive formalisation of the relational model of classical linear logic and its differential structure. This leads to constructively establishing that free commutative monoids are conical refinement monoids. Thereon we obtain a characterisation of the equality type of finite multisets and a new presentation of the free commutative-monoid construction as a set-quotient of the list construction. These developments crucially rely on the commutation relation of creation/annihilation operators associated with the free commutative-monoid construction seen as a combinatorial Fock space.
3. Weakening and Iterating Laws using String Diagrams
Distributive laws are a standard way of combining two monads, providing a compositional approach for reasoning about computational effects in semantics. Situations where no such law exists can sometimes be handled by weakening the notion of distributive law, still recovering a composite monad. A celebrated result from Eugenia Cheng shows that combining $n$ monads is possible by iterating more distributive laws, provided they satisfy a coherence condition called the Yang-Baxter equation. Moreover, the order of composition does not matter, leading to a form of associativity. The main contribution of this paper is to generalise the associativity of iterated composition to weak distributive laws in the case of $n = 3$ monads. To this end, we use string-diagrammatic notation, which significantly helps make increasingly complex proofs more readable. We also provide examples of new weak distributive laws arising from iteration.
4. A Complete Diagrammatic Calculus for Boolean Satisfiability
We propose a calculus of string diagrams to reason about satisfiability of Boolean formulas, and prove it to be sound and complete. We then showcase our calculus in a few case studies. First, we consider SAT-solving. Second, we consider Horn clauses, which leads us to a new decision method for propositional logic programs equivalence under Herbrand model semantics.
5. The Internal Operads of Combinatory Algebras
We argue that operads provide a general framework for dealing with polynomials and combinatory completeness of combinatory algebras, including the classical $\mathbf{SK}$-algebras, linear $\mathbf{BCI}$-algebras, planar $\mathbf{BI}(\_)^\bullet$-algebras as well as the braided $\mathbf{BC^\pm I}$-algebras. We show that every extensional combinatory algebra gives rise to a canonical closed operad, which we shall call the internal operad of the combinatory algebra. The internal operad construction gives a left adjoint to the forgetful functor from closed operads to extensional combinatory algebras. As a by-product, we derive extensionality axioms for the classes of combinatory algebras mentioned above.
6. The Functional Machine Calculus
This paper presents the Functional Machine Calculus (FMC) as a simple model of higher-order computation with "reader/writer" effects: higher-order mutable store, input/output, and probabilistic and non-deterministic computation. The FMC derives from the lambda-calculus by taking the standard operational perspective of a call-by-name stack machine as primary, and introducing two natural generalizations. One, "locations", introduces multiple stacks, which each may represent an effect and so enable effect operators to be encoded into the abstraction and application constructs of the calculus. The second, "sequencing", is known from kappa-calculus and concatenative programming languages, and introduces the imperative notions of "skip" and "sequence". This enables the encoding of reduction strategies, including call-by-value lambda-calculus and monadic constructs. The encoding of effects into generalized abstraction and application means that standard results from the lambda-calculus may carry over to effects. The main result is confluence, which is possible because encoded effects reduce algebraically rather than operationally. Reduction generates the familiar algebraic laws for state, and unlike in the monadic setting, reader/writer effects combine seamlessly. A system of simple types confers termination of the machine.
7. A Categorical Normalization Proof for the Modal Lambda-Calculus
We investigate a simply typed modal $\lambda$-calculus, $\lambda^{\to\square}$, due to Pfenning, Wong and Davies, where we define a well-typed term with respect to a context stack that captures the possible world semantics in a syntactic way. It provides logical foundation for multi-staged meta-programming. Our main contribution in this paper is a normalization by evaluation (NbE) algorithm for $\lambda^{\to\square}$ which we prove sound and complete. The NbE algorithm is a moderate extension to the standard presheaf model of simply typed $\lambda$-calculus. However, central to the model construction and the NbE algorithm is the observation of Kripke-style substitutions on context stacks which brings together two previously separate concepts, structural modal transformations on context stacks and substitutions for individual assumptions. Moreover, Kripke-style substitutions allow us to give a formulation for contextual types, which can represent open code in a meta-programming setting. Our work lays the foundation for extending the logical foundation by Pfenning, Wong, and Davies towards building a practical, dependently typed foundation for meta-programming.
8. Extended Addressing Machines for PCF, with Explicit Substitutions
Addressing machines have been introduced as a formalism to construct models of the pure, untyped lambda-calculus. We extend the syntax of their programs by adding instructions for executing arithmetic operations on natural numbers, and introduce a reflection principle allowing certain machines to access their own address and perform recursive calls. We prove that the resulting extended addressing machines naturally model a weak call-by-name PCF with explicit substitutions. Finally, we show that they are also well-suited for representing regular PCF programs (closed terms) computing natural numbers.
9. Sufficient Statistics and Split Idempotents in Discrete Probability Theory
A sufficient statistic is a deterministic function that captures an essential property of a probabilistic function (channel, kernel). Being a sufficient statistic can be expressed nicely in terms of string diagrams, as Tobias Fritz showed recently, in adjoint form. This reformulation highlights the role of split idempotents, in the Fisher-Neyman factorisation theorem. Examples of a sufficient statistic occur in the literature, but mostly in continuous probability. This paper demonstrates that there are also several fundamental examples of a sufficient statistic in discrete probability. They emerge after some combinatorial groundwork that reveals the relevant dagger split idempotents and shows that a sufficient statistic is a deterministic dagger epi.
10. Revisiting Decidable Bounded Quantification, via Dinaturality
We use a semantic interpretation to investigate the problem of defining an expressive but decidable type system with bounded quantification. Typechecking in the widely studied System Fsub is undecidable thanks to an undecidable subtyping relation, for which the culprit is the rule for subtyping bounded quantification. Weaker versions of this rule, allowing decidable subtyping, have been proposed. One of the resulting type systems (Kernel Fsub) lacks expressiveness, another (System Fsubtop) lacks the minimal typing property and thus has no evident typechecking algorithm. We consider these rules as defining distinct forms of bounded quantification, one for interpreting type variable abstraction, and the other for type instantiation. By giving a semantic interpretation for both in terms of unbounded quantification, using the dinaturality of type instantiation with respect to subsumption, we show that they can coexist within a single type system. This does have the minimal typing property and thus a simple typechecking procedure. We consider the fragments of this unified type system over types which contain only one form of bounded quantifier. One of these is equivalent to Kernel Fsub, while the other can type strictly more terms than System Fsubtop but the same set of beta-normal terms. We show decidability of typechecking for this fragment, and thus for System Fsubtop typechecking of beta-normal terms.
11. Parsing as a lifting problem and the Chomsky-Schützenberger representation theorem
We begin by explaining how any context-free grammar encodes a functor of operads from a freely generated operad into a certain "operad of spliced words". This motivates a more general notion of CFG over any category $C$, defined as a finite species $S$ equipped with a color denoting the start symbol and a functor of operads $p : Free[S] \to W[C]$ into the operad of spliced arrows in $C$. We show that many standard properties of CFGs can be formulated within this framework, and that usual closure properties of CF languages generalize to CF languages of arrows. We also discuss a dual fibrational perspective on the functor $p$ via the notion of "displayed" operad, corresponding to a lax functor of operads $W[C] \to Span(Set)$. We then turn to the Chomsky-Schützenberger Representation Theorem. We describe how a non-deterministic finite state automaton can be seen as a category $Q$ equipped with a pair of objects denoting initial and accepting states and a functor of categories $Q \to C$ satisfying the unique lifting of factorizations property and the finite fiber property. Then, we explain how to extend this notion of automaton to functors of operads, which generalize tree automata, allowing us to lift an automaton over a category to an automaton over its operad of spliced arrows. We show that every CFG over a category can be pulled back along a ND finite state automaton over the same category, and hence that CF languages are closed under intersection with […]
12. Classifying topoi in synthetic guarded domain theory
Several different topoi have played an important role in the development and applications of synthetic guarded domain theory (SGDT), a new kind of synthetic domain theory that abstracts the concept of guarded recursion frequently employed in the semantics of programming languages. In order to unify the accounts of guarded recursion and coinduction, several authors have enriched SGDT with multiple "clocks" parameterizing different time-streams, leading to more complex and difficult to understand topos models. Until now these topoi have been understood very concretely qua categories of presheaves, and the logico-geometrical question of what theories these topoi classify has remained open. We show that several important topos models of SGDT classify very simple geometric theories, and that the passage to various forms of multi-clock guarded recursion can be rephrased more compositionally in terms of the lower bagtopos construction of Vickers and variations thereon due to Johnstone. We contribute to the consolidation of SGDT by isolating the universal property of multi-clock guarded recursion as a modular construction that applies to any topos model of single-clock guarded recursion.
13. Bi-invariance for Uniform Strategies on Event Structures
A recurring problem in game semantics is to enforce uniformity in strategies. Informally, a strategy is uniform when the Player's behaviour does not depend on the particular indexing of moves chosen by the Opponent. In game semantics, uniformity is used to define a resource modality !, that can be exploited for the semantics of programming languages. In this paper we give a new account of uniformity for strategies on event structures. This work is inspired by an older idea due to Melliès, that uniformity should be expressed as "bi-invariance" with respect to two interacting group actions. We explore the algebraic foundations of bi-invariance, adapt this idea to the language of event structures and define a general notion of uniform strategy in this context. Finally we revisit an existing approach to uniformity, and show how this arises as a special case of our constructions.
14. Call-By-Name Is Just Call-By-Value with Delimited Control
Delimited control operator shift0 exhibits versatile capabilities: it can express layered monadic effects, or equivalently, algebraic effects. Little did we know it can express lambda calculus too! We present $ \Lambda_\$ $, a call-by-value lambda calculus extended with shift0 and control delimiter $ \$ $ with carefully crafted reduction theory, such that the lambda calculus with beta and eta reductions can be isomorphically embedded into $ \Lambda_\$ $ via a right inverse of a continuation-passing style translation. While call-by-name reductions of lambda calculus can trivially simulate its call-by-value version, we show that addition of shift0 and $ \$ $ is the golden mean of expressive power that suffices to simulate beta and eta reductions while still admitting a simulation back. As a corollary, calculi $ \Lambda\mu_v $, $ \lambda_\$ $, $ \Lambda_\$ $ and $ \lambda $ all correspond equationally.
15. Category-Graded Algebraic Theories and Effect Handlers
We provide an effect system CatEff based on a category-graded extension of algebraic theories that correspond to category-graded monads. CatEff has category-graded operations and handlers. Effects in CatEff are graded by morphisms of the grading category. Grading morphisms represent fine structures of effects such as dependencies or sorts of states. Handlers in CatEff are regarded as an implementation of category-graded effects. We define the notion of category-graded algebraic theory to give semantics of CatEff and prove soundness and adequacy. We also give an example using category-graded effects to express protocols for sending receiving typed data.
16. Patch Locale of a Spectral Locale in Univalent Type Theory
Stone locales together with continuous maps form a coreflective subcategory of spectral locales and perfect maps. A proof in the internal language of an elementary topos was previously given by the second-named author. This proof can be easily translated to univalent type theory using resizing axioms. In this work, we show how to achieve such a translation without resizing axioms, by working with large, locally small, and small complete frames with small bases. This turns out to be nontrivial and involves predicative reformulations of several fundamental concepts of locale theory.
17. Continuous Functions on Final Comodels of Free Algebraic Theories
In 2009, Ghani, Hancock and Pattinson gave a tree-like representation of stream processors $A^{\mathbb{N}} \rightarrow B^{\mathbb{N}}$. In 2021, Garner showed that this representation can be established in terms of algebraic theory and comodels: the set of infinite streams $A^{\mathbb{N}}$ is the final comodel of the algebraic theory of $A$-valued input $\mathbb{T}_A$ and the set of stream processors $\mathit{Top}(A^{\mathbb{N}},B^{\mathbb{N}})$ can be seen as the final $\mathbb{T}_A$-$\mathbb{T}_B$-bimodel. In this paper, we generalize Garner's results to the case of free algebraic theories.
18. Guarded Kleene Algebra with Tests: Automata Learning
Guarded Kleene Algebra with Tests (GKAT) is the fragment of Kleene Algebra with Tests (KAT) that arises by replacing the union and iteration operations of KAT with predicate-guarded variants. GKAT is more efficiently decidable than KAT and expressive enough to model simple imperative programs, making it attractive for applications to e.g. network verification. In this paper, we further explore GKAT's automata theory, and present GL*, an algorithm for learning the GKAT automaton representation of a black-box, by observing its behaviour. A complexity analysis shows that it is more efficient to learn a representation of a GKAT program with GL* than with Angluin's existing L* algorithm. We implement GL* and L* in OCaml and compare their performances on example programs.