Abstract Nondeterminism is a pervasive phenomenon in computation. Often it arises as an emergent property of a complex system, typically as the result of contention for access to shared resources. In such circumstances, we cannot always know, in advance, exactly what will happen. In other circumstances, nondeterminism is explicitly introduced as a means of abstracting away from implementation details such as precise command scheduling and control flow. However, the kind of behaviours exhibited by nondeterministic computations can be extremely subtle in comparison to those of their deterministic counterparts and reasoning about such programs is notoriously tricky as a result. It is therefore important to develop semantic tools to improve our understanding of, and aid our reasoning about, such nondeterministic programs. In this thesis, we extend the framework of game semantics to encompass nondeterministic computation. Game semantics is a relatively recent development in denotational semantics; its main novelty is that it views a computation not as a static entity, but rather as a dynamic process of interaction. This perspective makes the theory well-suited to modelling many aspects of computational processes: the original use of game semantics in modelling the simple functional language PCF has subsequently been extended to handle more complex control structures such as references and continuations.

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This paper surveys a part of the theory of fi-reduction in -calculus which might aptly be called perpetual reductions. The theory is concerned with perpetual reduction strategies, i.e., reduction strategies that compute infinite reduction paths from -terms (when possible), and with perpetual redexes, i.e., redexes whose contraction in -terms preserves the possibility (when present) of infinite reduction paths. The survey not only recasts classical theorems in a unified setting, but also offers new results, proofs, and techniques, as well as a number of applications to problems in -calculus and type theory. 1. Introduction Considerable attention has been devoted to classification of reduction strategies in type-free -calculus [4, 6, 7, 15, 38, 44, 81]---see also [2, Ch. 13]. We are concerned with strategies differing in the length of reduction paths. This paper draws on several sources. In late 1994, van Raamsdonk and Severi [59] and Srensen [66, 67] independently developed ...

Extending the λ-calculus with either explicit substitution or generalized reduction has been the subject of extensive research recently, and still has many open problems. This paper is the first investigation into the properties of a calculus combining both generalized reduction and explicit substitutions. We present a calculus, gs, that combines a calculus of explicit substitution, s, and a calculus with generalized reduction, g. We believe that gs is a useful extension of the - calculus, because it allows postponement of work in two different but complementary ways. Moreover, gs (and also s) satisfies properties desirable for calculi of explicit substitutions and generalized reductions. In particular, we show that gs preserves strong normalization, is a conservative extension of g, and simulates fi-reduction of g and the classical -calculus. Furthermore, we study the simply typed versions of s and gs, and show that well-typed terms are strongly normalizing and that other properties,...

This paper surveys a part of the theory of fi-reduction in λ-calculus which might aptly be called perpetual reductions. The theory is concerned with perpetual reduction strategies, i.e., reduction strategies that compute infinite reduction paths from λ-terms (when possible), and with perpetual redexes, i.e., redexes whose contraction in λ-terms preserves the possibility (when present) of infinite reduction paths. The survey not only recasts classical theorems in a unified setting, but also offers new results, proofs, and techniques, as well as a number of applications to problems in λ-calculus and type theory.

A maximal reduction strategy in untyped λ-calculus computes for a term a longest (finite or infinite) reduction path. Some types of reduction strategies in untyped λ-calculus have been studied, but maximal strategies have received less attention. We give a systematic study of maximal strategies, recasting the few known results in our framework and giving a number of new results, the most important of which is an effective maximal strategy in fij. We also present a number of applications illustrating the relevance and usefulness of maximal strategies.

Abstract. Logical systems in natural deduction style are usually presented in the Gentzen style. A different definition of natural deduction, that corresponds more closely to proofs in ordinary mathematical practice, is given in [Fitch 1952]. We define precisely a Curry-Howard interpretation that maps Fitch style deductions to simply typed terms, and we analyze why it is not an isomorphism. We then describe three reduction relations on Fitch style natural deductions: one that removes garbage (subproofs that are not needed for the conclusion), one that removes repeats and one that unshares shared subproofs. We also define an equivalence relation that allows to interchange independent steps. We prove that two Fitch deductions are mapped to the same λ-term if and only if they are equal via the congruence closure of the aforementioned relations (the reduction relations plus the equivalence relation). This gives a Curry-Howard isomorphism between equivalence classes of Fitch deductions and simply typed λ-terms. Then we define the notion of cut-elimination on Fitch deductions, which is only possible for deductions that are completely unshared (normal forms of the unsharing reduction). For conciseness, we restrict in this paper to the implicational fragment of propositional logic, but we believe that our results extend to full first order predicate logic. 1

Abstract. We give a decomposition of the equational theory of call-byvalue λ-calculus into a confluent rewrite system made of three independent subsystems that refines Moggi’s computational calculus: – the purely operational system essentially contains Plotkin’s βv rule and is necessary and sufficient for the evaluation of closed terms; – the structural system contains commutation rules that are necessary and sufficient for the reduction of all “computational ” redexes of a term, in a sense that we define; – the observational system contains rules that have no proper computational content but are necessary to characterize the valid observational equations on finite normal forms. We extend this analysis to the case of λ-calculus with control and provide with the first presentation as a confluent rewrite system of Sabry-Felleisen and Hofmann’s equational theory of λ-calculus with control. Incidentally, we give an alternative definition of standardization in callby-value λ-calculus that, unlike Plotkin’s original definition, prolongs weak head reduction in an unambiguous way.

This article is a brief review of the type free λ-calculus and its basic rewriting notions, and of the pure type system framework which generalises many type systems. Both the type free λ-calculus and the pure type systems are presented using variable names and de Bruijn indices. Using the presentation of the λ-calculus with de Bruijn indices, we illustrate how a calculus of explicit substitutions can be obtained. In addition, de Bruijn's notation for the λ-calculus is introduced and some of its advantages are outlined.

We present a simple term calculus with an explicit control of erasure and duplication of substitutions, enjoying a sound and complete correspondence with the intuitionistic fragment of Linear Logic’s proof-nets. We show the operational behaviour of the calculus and some of its fundamental properties such as confluence, preservation of strong normalisation, strong normalisation of simply-typed terms, step by step simulation of β-reduction and full composition.