• Media type: E-Article; Text; Electronic Conference Proceeding
  • Title: Proof Techniques for Program Equivalence in Probabilistic Higher-Order Languages (Invited Talk)
  • Contributor: Vignudelli, Valeria [Author]
  • imprint: Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik, 2018
  • Language: English
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.FSCD.2018.4
  • Keywords: Lambda Calculus ; Probabilistic Programming Languages ; Contextual Equivalence ; Bisimulation
  • Origination:
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  • Description: While the theory of functional higher-order languages, starting from lambda-calculi, is a well-established research field, it is only in recent years that the operational semantics of higher-order languages with probabilistic operators has started to be extensively studied. A fundamental notion in the semantics of programming languages is that of program equivalence. In higher-order languages, program equivalence is generally formalized as a contextual equivalence [Morris, 1968], which can be hard to prove directly. This has motivated the study of proof techniques for contextual equivalence, from inductive ones, such as logical relations [Andrew Pitts, 2005], to coinductive ones, mainly in the form of bisimulations [Abramsky, 1990]. In this talk I will discuss proof techniques for program equivalence in languages combining higher-order and probabilistic features. Several operational methods, traditionally developed in a deterministic setting, have been adapted to probabilistic higher-order languages [Ales Bizjak and Lars Birkedal, 2015; Dal Lago et al., 2014; Raphaëlle Crubillé and Ugo Dal Lago, 2014]. I will discuss these proof methods and focus on bisimulation-based techniques, showing how probabilities, combined with different language features, force a number of modifications to the definition of bisimulation [Crubillé et al., 2015; Sangiorgi and Vignudelli, 2016].
  • Access State: Open Access