We discuss new ways of characterizing, as maximal fixed points of monotone operators, observational congruences on λ-terms and, more generally, equivalences on applicative structures. These characterizations naturally induce new forms of coinduction principles for reasoning on program equivalences, which are not based on Abramsky's applicative bisimulation. We discuss, in particular, what we call the cartesian coinduction principle, which arises when we exploit the elementary observation that functional behaviours can be expressed as cartesian graphs. Using the paradigm of final semantics, the soundness of this principle over an applicative structure can be expressed easily by saying that the applicative structure can be construed as a strongly extensional coalgebra for the functor ([Pscr ](- × -))[oplus ]([Pscr ](- × -)). In this paper we present two general methods for showing the soundness of this principle. The first applies to approximable applicative structures – many CPO λ-models in the literature and the corresponding quotient models of indexed terms turn out to be approximable applicative structures. The second method is based on Howe's congruence candidates, which applies to many observational equivalences. Structures satisfying cartesian coinduction are precisely those applicative structures that can be modelled using the standard set-theoretic application in non-wellfounded theories of sets, where the Foundation Axiom is replaced by the Axiom X1 of Forti and Honsell.

We show that there is a computably enumerable function f (that is, computably approximable from below) that dominates almost all functions, and f ⊕ W is incomplete for all incomplete computably enumerable sets W. Our main methodology is the LR equivalence relation on reals: A ≡LRB if and only if the notions of A-randomness and B-randomness coincide. We also show that there are c.e. sets that cannot be split into two c.e. sets of the same LR degree. Moreover, a c.e. set is low for random if and only if it computes no c.e. set with this property.

The uniform word problem for finitely presented ortholattices is shown to be solvable through a method of terminating proof search. The axioms of ortholattices are all Harrop formulas, and thus can be expressed in natural deduction style as single succedent rules. A system of natural deduction style rules for orthologic is given as an extension of the system for lattices presented by Negri and von Plato. By considering formal derivations of atomic formulas from a finite number of given atomic formulas, it is shown that proof search is bounded, and thus that the question of derivability of any atomic formula from any finite set of given atomic formulas is decidable.

We model micro-architectures with non-pipelined instruction processing and pipelined instruction processing using Maurer machines, basic thread algebra and program algebra. We show that stored programs are executed as intended with these micro-architectures. We believe that this work provides a new mathematical approach to the modelling of micro-architectures and the verification of their correctness and the anticipated speed-up results.

The symmetric interaction combinators are a variant of Lafont's interaction combinators. They enjoy a weaker universality property with respect to interaction nets, but are equally expressive. They are a model of deterministic distributed computation and share the good properties of Turing machines (elementary reductions) and of the λ-calculus (higher-order functions and parallel execution). We introduce a denotational semantics for this system, which is inspired by the relational semantics for linear logic, and prove an injectivity and full completeness result for it. We also consider the algebraic semantics defined by Lafont, and prove that the two are strongly related.

The calculus of Mobile Ambients was proposed by Cardelli and Gordon as a foundational calculus for mobile computing. Since its introduction, the computational strength and the decidability of properties have been investigated for several fragments and variants of the standard calculus. We consider the problem of reachability and characterise a public (that is, restriction-free) fragment for which it is decidable. This fragment is obtained by removing the open capability and restricting the application of the replication operator to guarded processes only. This decidability result may appear surprising in combination with the fact that the same fragment was shown to be Turing complete by Maffeis and Phillips. Finally, we extend our decidability result in two ways: we first prove the decidability of a more general property called target reachability (according to which the target of interest for the reachability analysis consists of a possibly infinite set of processes) and then show that our decidability results also hold for a more general calculus, which includes the sophisticated communication mechanisms of Boxed Ambients, which is the most relevant variant of Mobile Ambients without the open capability.

Every compact metric space $X$ is homeomorphically embedded in an $\omega$-algebraic domain $D$ as the set of minimal limit (that is, non-finite) elements. Moreover, $X$ is a retract of the set $L(D)$ of all limit elements of $D$. Such a domain $D$ can be chosen so that it has property M and finite-branching, and the height of $L(D)$ is equal to the small inductive dimension of $X$. We also show that the small inductive dimension of $L(D)$ as a topological space is equal to the height of $L(D)$ for domains with property M. These results give a characterisation of the dimension of a space $X$ as the minimal height of $L(D)$ in which $X$ is embedded as the set of minimal elements. The domain in which we embed an $n$-dimensional compact metric space $X$ ($n \leq \infinity$) has a concrete structure in that it consists of finite/infinite sequences in $\{0,1,\bot\}$ with at most $n$ copies of $\bot$.

We consider structured specifications built from flat specifications using union, translation and hiding with their standard model-class semantics in the context of an arbitrary institution. We examine the alternative of sound property-oriented semantics for such specifications, and study their relationship to model-class semantics. An exact correspondence between the two (completeness) is not achievable in general. We show through general results on property-oriented semantics that the semantics arising from the standard proof system is the strongest sound and compositional property-oriented semantics in a wide class of such semantics. We also sharpen one of the conditions that does guarantee completeness and show that it is a necessary condition.

We provide a realizability model based on infinite time Turing machines in which there is an injection from the internal Baire space, the object of infinite sequences of numbers, to the object of natural numbers.

We introduce the notion of implicative algebra, a simple algebraic structure intended to factorize the model-theoretic constructions underlying forcing and realizability (both in intuitionistic and classical logic). The salient feature of this structure is that its elements can be seen both as truth values and as (generalized) realizers, thus blurring the frontier between proofs and types. We show that each implicative algebra induces a (Set-based) tripos, using a construction that is reminiscent from the construction of a realizability tripos from a partial combinatory algebra. Relating this construction with the corresponding constructions in forcing and realizability, we conclude that the class of implicative triposes encompasses all forcing triposes (both intuitionistic and classical), all classical realizability triposes (in the sense of Krivine), and all intuitionistic realizability triposes built from partial combinatory algebras.

We survey the main results on computability and totality in Scott–Eršov-domains as well as their applications to the theory of functionals of higher types and the semantics of functional programming languages. A new density theorem is proved and applied to show the equivalence of the hereditarily computable total continuous functionals with the hereditarily effective operations over a large class of base types.

The compact-open topology on the set of continuous functionals from the Baire space to the natural numbers is well known to be zero-dimensional. We prove that the closely related sequential topology on this set is not even regular. The sequential topology arises naturally as the topology carried by the exponential formed in various cartesian closed categories of topological spaces. Moreover, we give an example of an effectively open subset of that violates regularity. The topological properties of are known to be closely related to an open problem in Computable Analysis. We also show that the sequential topology on the space of continuous real-valued functions on a Polish space need not be regular.

The Symmetric Circulant Travelling Salesman Problem asks for the minimum cost tour in a symmetric circulant matrix. The computational complexity of this problem is not known – only upper and lower bounds have been determined. This paper provides a characterisation of the two-stripe case. Instances where the minimum cost of a tour is equal to either the upper or lower bound are recognised. A new construction providing a tour is proposed for the remaining instances, and this leads to a new upper bound that is closer than the previous one.

We give an algebraic characterization of the syntax and semantics of a class of untyped functional programming languages.

To this end, we introduce a notion of 2-signature: such a signature specifies not only the terms of a language, but also reduction rules on those terms. To any 2-signature (S, A) we associate a category of ‘models’. We then prove that this category has an initial object, which integrates the terms freely generated by S, and which is equipped with reductions according to the rules given in A. We call this initial object the programming language generated by (S, A). Models of a 2-signature are built from relative monads and modules over such monads. Through the use of monads, the models – and in particular, the initial model – come equipped with a substitution operation that is compatible with reduction in a suitable sense.

The initiality theorem is formalized in the proof assistant Coq, yielding a machinery which, when fed with a 2-signature, provides the associated programming language with reduction relation and certified substitution.

In this paper we try to shed some light on the similarities and differences in the different approaches denning the notions of implementation and implementation correctness. For obvious reasons, we do not discuss all existing approaches individually. Instead, a formal framework is introduced in order to discuss the most important ones. Additionally, we discuss some issues, which in our opinion are often misunderstood, concerning transitivity of implementation correctness and its role in the software development process. In particular, on the one hand, we show that for reasonable notions of implementation, it is almost impossible to prove transitivity of implementation correctness at the specification level. On the other hand, we show that this is not really important if the programming language satisfies the properties of horizontal and vertical composition.

Modal and mixed transition systems are specification formalisms that allow the mixing of over- and under-approximation. We discuss three fundamental decision problems for such specifications:

• — whether a set of specifications has a common implementation;

• — whether an individual specification has an implementation; and

• — whether all implementations of an individual specification are implementations of another one.

This special issue of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science is dedicated to the theory and applications of explicit substitutions, which have attracted a growing community of researchers in the last decade, especially in the study of explicit substitutions as a means of bridging the gap between theory and practice in the implementation of programming languages, as well as theorem provers and proof checkers.

Such implementations typically rely on formal calculi defined using implicit substitution operations that are left at the meta-level, so that they need to turn these meta-level operations into efficient executable code, and this is often fairly intricate and distant from the formal calculi. This causes a significant gap between theory and practice.

Explicit substitutions considerably reduce this gap by bringing the meta-level operations down to the object-level calculus – where they are represented explicitly – allowing us in this way to give formal and robust models for the techniques actually used in implementations, and providing at the same time a more flexible tool for controlling the intermediate steps of evaluation.

All the papers in this issue were invited on the basis of their quality and relevance to the domain, and subjected to the refereeing process of MSCS. Most of them are substantially expanded and revised versions of work originally presented at Westapp'98 and Westapp'99, the first and second ‘Workshop on Explicit Substitutions: Theory and Applications to Programs and Proofs’, which were held in conjunction with RTA'98 in Tsukuba, Japan, and with Floc'99 in Trento, Italy, respectively.

As guest editor, I would like to express my warm thanks both to the authors, for their high-quality contributions to this special issue, and to the referees, whose scientific role was essential in improving the presentation of these contributions.

We show that Friedman's proof of the existence of non-trivial βη-complete models of λ→ can be extended to system F. We isolate a set of conditions that are sufficient to ensure βη-completeness for a model of F (and α-completeness at the level of types), and we discuss which class of models we get. In particular, the model introduced in Barbanera and Berardi (1997), having as polymorphic maps exactly all possible Scott continuous maps, is βη-complete, and is hence the first known complete non-syntactic model of F. In order to have a suitable framework in which to express the conditions and develop the proof, we also introduce the very natural notion of ‘polymax models’ of System F.

A random multivariate polynomial system with more equations than variables is likely to be unsolvable. On the other hand, if there are more variables than equations, the system has at least one solution with high probability. In this paper we study in detail the phase transition between these two regimes, which occurs when the number of equations equals the number of variables. In particular, the limiting probability for no solution is 1/e at the phase transition, over a prime field.

We also study the probability of having exactly s solutions, with s ≥ 1. In particular, the probability of a unique solution is asymptotically 1/e if the number of equations equals the number of variables. The probability decreases very rapidly if the number of equations increases or decreases.

Our motivation is that many cryptographic systems can be expressed as large multivariate polynomial systems (usually quadratic) over a finite field. Since decoding is unique, the solution of the system must also be unique. Knowing the probability of having exactly one solution may help us to understand more about these cryptographic systems. For example, whether attacks should be evaluated by trying them against random systems depends very much on the likelihood of a unique solution.

We present a novel approach to computing the context-sensitive flow of values through procedures and data structures. Our approach combines and extends techniques from two seemingly disparate areas: polymorphic subtyping and interprocedural dataflow analysis based on context-free language reachability. The resulting technique offers several advantages over previous approaches: it works directly on higher-order programs; provides demand-driven interprocedural queries; and improves the asymptotic complexity of a known algorithm based on polymorphic subtyping from O(n8) to O(n3) for computing all queries. For intra-procedural flow restricted to equivalence classes, our algorithm yields linear inter-procedural flow queries.