Introduction SAMSON ABRAMSKY (samson@comlab.ox.ac.uk) Oxford University Computing Laboratory 1. Introduction Game Semantics has emerged as a powerful paradigm for giving semantics to a variety of programming languages and logical systems. It has been used to construct the first syntax-independent fully abstract models for a spectrum of programming languages ranging from purely functional languages to languages with non-functional features such as control operators and locally-scoped references [4, 21, 5, 19, 2, 22, 17, 11]. A substantial survey of the state of the art of Game Semantics circa 1997 was given in a previous Marktoberdorf volume [6]. Our aim in this tutorial presentation is to give a first indication of how Game Semantics can be developed in a new, algorithmic direction, with a view to applications in computer-assisted verification and program analysis. Some promising steps have already been taken in this

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version) A categorical model for PCF is a map J : ( of c-fix categories.

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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Abstract. We describe a game semantics for local names in a functional setting. It is based on a category of dialogue games acted upon by the automorphism group of the natural numbers; this allows properties of names such as freshness and locality to be characterized semantically. We describe a model of the nu-calculus in this category, and extend it with named references (without bad variables) using names as pointers to a store. After refining the semantics via a notion of garbage collection, we prove that the compact elements are definable as terms, and hence obtain a full abstraction result. 1 Introduction Local names are a pervasive and subtle feature of programming languages and other calculi. Not only are they used for manipulating important constructs such as locally bound references and exceptions, name-passing is itself a very expressive computational paradigm, as demonstrated by the ss-calculus, for example. Local names can also represent items of secret information which are dynamically generated, passed between agents and used to access further information or activity. They therefore have a key r^ole in specifying properties of secure systems [1, 24].

Connections between the sequentiality/concurrency distinction and the semantics of proofs are investigated, with particular reference to games and Linear Logic.

We discuss the conceptual problem of identifying the natural notions of computability at higher types (over the natural numbers). We argue for an eclectic approach, in which one considers a wide range of possible approaches to defining higher type computability and then looks for regularities. As a first step in this programme, we give an extended survey of the di#erent strands of research on higher type computability to date, bringing together material from recursion theory, constructive logic and computer science. The paper thus serves as a reasonably complete overview of the literature on higher type computability. Two sequel papers will be devoted to developing a more systematic account of the material reviewed here.

Call-by-push-value is a ”semantic machine code”, providing a set of simple primitives from which both the call-by-value and call-by-name paradigms are built. We present its operational semantics as a stack machine, suggesting a term judgement of stacks. We then see that CBPV, incorporating these stack terms, has a simple categorical semantics based on an adjunction between values and stacks. There are no coherence requirements. We describe this semantics incrementally. First, we introduce locally indexed categories and the opGrothendieck construction, and use these to give the basic structure for interpreting the three judgements: values, stacks and computations. Then we look at the universal property required to interpret each type constructor. We define a model to be a strong adjunction with countable coproducts, countable products and exponentials. We see a wide range of instances of this structure: we give examples for divergence, storage, erratic choice, continuations, possible worlds and games (with or without a bracketing condition), in each case resolving the strong monad from the literature into a strong adjunction. And we give ways of constructing models from other models. Finally, we see that call-by-value and call-by-name are interpreted within the Kleisli and co-Kleisli parts, respectively, of a call-by-push-value adjunction.

We present the call-by-push-value (CBPV) calculus, which decomposes the typed call-by-value (CBV) and typed call-by-name (CBN) paradigms into fine-grain primitives. On the operational side, we give big-step semantics and a stack machine for CBPV, which leads to a straightforward push/pop reading of CBPV programs. On the denotational side, we model CBPV using cpos and, more generally, using algebras for a strong monad. For storage, we present an O’Hearn-style “behaviour semantics” that does not use a monad. We present the translations from CBN and CBV to CBPV. All these translations straightforwardly preserve denotational semantics. We also study their operational properties: simulation and full abstraction. We give an equational theory for CBPV, and show it equivalent to a categorical semantics using monads and algebras. We use this theory to formally compare CBPV to Filinski’s variant of the monadic metalanguage, as well as to Marz’s language SFPL, both of which have essentially the same type structure as CBPV. We also discuss less formally the differences between the CBPV and monadic frameworks.