Denotational semantics
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Semantics for probabilistic programming Open
We study the semantic foundation of expressive probabilistic programming languages, that support higher-order functions, continuous distributions, and soft constraints (such as Anglican, Church, and Venture). We define a metalanguage (an i…
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A Comparative Study of Ranking-Based Semantics for Abstract Argumentation Open
Argumentation is a process of evaluating and comparing a set of arguments. A way to compare them consists in using a ranking-based semantics which rank-order arguments from the most to the least acceptable ones. Recently, a number of such …
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A lambda-calculus foundation for universal probabilistic programming Open
International audience
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A Higher-Order Calculus of Computational Fields Open
The complexity of large-scale distributed systems, particularly when deployed in physical space, calls for new mechanisms to address composability and reusability of collective adaptive behaviour. Computational fields have been proposed as…
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Scaling exact inference for discrete probabilistic programs Open
Probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) are an expressive means of representing and reasoning about probabilistic models. The computational challenge of probabilistic inference remains the primary roadblock for applying PPLs in practice…
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Verified Decision Procedures for Modal Logics Open
We describe a formalization of modal tableaux with histories for the modal logics K, KT and S4 in Lean. We describe how we formalized the static and transitional rules, the non-trivial termination and the correctness of loop-checks. The fo…
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Acceptability Semantics for Weighted Argumentation Frameworks Open
The paper studies semantics that evaluate arguments in argumentation graphs, where each argument has a basic strength, and may be attacked by other arguments. It starts by defining a set of principles, each of which is a property that a se…
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Programming languages and dimensions Open
Scientists and engineers must ensure that the equations and formulae which they use are dimensionally consistent, but existing programming languages treat all numeric values as dimensionless. This thesis investigates the extension of progr…
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Denotational validation of higher-order Bayesian inference Open
We present a modular semantic account of Bayesian inference algorithms for probabilistic programming languages, as used in data science and machine learning. Sophisticated inference algorithms are often explained in terms of composition of…
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Differentials and Distances in Probabilistic Coherence Spaces Open
In probabilistic coherence spaces, a denotational model of probabilistic functional languages, morphisms are analytic and therefore smooth. We explore two related applications of the corresponding derivatives. First we show how derivatives…
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Fifty years of Hoare’s logic Open
We present a history of Hoare’s logic.
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Stratified synthesis: automatically learning the x86-64 instruction set Open
The x86-64 ISA sits at the bottom of the software stack of most desktop and server software. Because of its importance, many software analysis and verification tools depend, either explicitly or implicitly, on correct modeling of the seman…
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Grounding thin-air reads with event structures Open
The key challenge in defining the concurrency semantics of a programming language is how to enable the most efficient compilation to existing hardware architectures, and yet forbid programs from reading thin-air values, i.e., ones that do …
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A formal semantics of SQL queries, its validation, and applications Open
While formal semantics of theoretical languages underlying SQL have been provided in the past, they all made simplifying assumptions ranging from changes in the syntax to omitting bag semantics and nulls. This situation is reminiscent of w…
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A complete formal semantics of x86-64 user-level instruction set architecture Open
We present the most complete and thoroughly tested formal semantics of x86-64 to date. Our semantics faithfully formalizes all the non-deprecated, sequential user-level instructions of the x86-64 Haswell instruction set architecture. This …
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Formal Distributional Semantics: Introduction to the Special Issue Open
Formal Semantics and Distributional Semantics are two very influential semantic frameworks in Computational Linguistics. Formal Semantics is based on a symbolic tradition and centered around the inferential properties of language. Distribu…
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A simple differentiable programming language Open
Automatic differentiation plays a prominent role in scientific computing and in modern machine learning, often in the context of powerful programming systems. The relation of the various embodiments of automatic differentiation to the math…
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Axiomatic foundations of acceptability semantics Open
International audience
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Modular, compositional, and executable formal semantics for LLVM IR Open
This paper presents a novel formal semantics, mechanized in Coq, for a large, sequential subset of the LLVM IR. In contrast to previous approaches, which use relationally-specified operational semantics, this new semantics is based on mona…
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Semantics for probabilistic programming: higher-order functions, continuous distributions, and soft constraints Open
We study the semantic foundation of expressive probabilistic programming languages, that support higher-order functions, continuous distributions, and soft constraints (such as Anglican, Church, and Venture). We define a metalanguage (an i…
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Learning to Predict Denotational Probabilities For Modeling Entailment Open
We propose a framework that captures the denotational probabilities of words and phrases by embedding them in a vector space, and present a method to induce such an embedding from a dataset of denotational probabilities. We show that our m…
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On the expressive power of user-defined effects: effect handlers, monadic reflection, delimited control Open
We compare the expressive power of three programming abstractions for user-defined computational effects: Plotkin and Pretnar's effect handlers, Filinski's monadic reflection, and delimited control without answer-type-modification. This co…
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The clocks are ticking: No more delays! Open
Guarded recursion in the sense of Nakano allows general recursive types and terms to be added to type theory without breaking consistency. Recent work has demonstrated applications of guarded recursion such as programming with codata, reas…
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Modular Relaxed Dependencies in Weak Memory Concurrency Open
We present a denotational semantics for weak memory concurrency that avoids thin-air reads , provides data-race free programs with sequentially consistent semantics (DRF-SC), and supports a compositional refinement relation for validating …
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The distribution semantics for normal programs with function symbols Open
TThe distribution semantics integrates logic programming and probability theory using a possible worlds approach. Its intuitiveness and simplicity have made it the most widely used semantics for probabilistic logic programming, with succes…
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The concurrent game semantics of Probabilistic PCF Open
We define a new games model of Probabilistic PCF (PPCF) by enriching thin concurrent games with symmetry, recently introduced by Castellan et al, with probability. This model supports two interpretations of PPCF, one sequential and one par…
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Trace types and denotational semantics for sound programmable inference in probabilistic languages Open
Modern probabilistic programming languages aim to formalize and automate key aspects of probabilistic modeling and inference. Many languages provide constructs for programmable inference that enable developers to improve inference speed an…
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On the Semantics and Complexity of Probabilistic Logic Programs Open
We examine the meaning and the complexity of probabilistic logic programs that consist of a set of rules and a set of independent probabilistic facts (that is, programs based on Sato's distribution semantics). We focus on two semantics, re…
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Semantics for Specialising Attack Trees based on Linear Logic Open
peer reviewed
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CoqQ: Foundational Verification of Quantum Programs Open
CoqQ is a framework for reasoning about quantum programs in the Coq proof assistant. Its main components are: a deeply embedded quantum programming language, in which classic quantum algorithms are easily expressed, and an expressive progr…