Higher-dimensional rewriting systems are tools to analyse the structure of formally reducing terms to normal forms, as well as comparing the different reduction paths that lead to those normal forms. This higher structure can be captured by finding a homotopy basis for the rewriting system. We show that the basic notions of confluence and wellfoundedness are sufficient to recursively build such a homotopy basis, with a construction reminiscent of an argument by Craig C. Squier. We then go on to translate this construction to the setting of homotopy type theory, where managing equalities between paths is important in order to construct functions which are coherent with respect to higher dimensions. Eventually, we apply the result to approximate a series of open questions in homotopy type theory, such as the characterisation of the homotopy groups of the free group on a set and the pushout of 1-types. This paper expands on our previous conference contribution Coherence via Wellfoundedness by laying out the construction in the language of higher-dimensional rewriting.

This paper gives a new proof of confluence for Carraro and Guerrieri’s call-by-value lambda calculus λ v σ with permutation rules. We adapt the compositional Z theorem to λ v σ .

In this paper, we address the problem of proving confluence for string diagram rewriting, which was previously shown to be characterised combinatorially as double-pushout rewriting with interfaces (DPOI) on (labelled) hypergraphs. For standard DPO rewriting without interfaces, confluence for terminating rewriting systems is, in general, undecidable. Nevertheless, we show here that confluence for DPOI, and hence string diagram rewriting, is decidable. We apply this result to give effective procedures for deciding local confluence of symmetric monoidal theories with and without Frobenius structure by critical pair analysis. For the latter, we introduce the new notion of path joinability for critical pairs, which enables finitely many joins of a critical pair to be lifted to an arbitrary context in spite of the strong non-local constraints placed on rewriting in a generic symmetric monoidal theory.

We consider matching, rewriting, critical pairs and the Knuth–Bendix confluence test on rewrite rules in a nominal setting extended by atom-variables. We utilize atom-variables instead of atoms to formulate and rewrite rules on constrained expressions, which is an improvement of expressiveness over previous approaches. Nominal unification and nominal matching are correspondingly extended. Rewriting is performed using nominal matching, and computing critical pairs is done using nominal unification. We determine the complexity of several problems in a quantified freshness logic. In particular we show that nominal matching is $$\prod _2^p$$ -complete. We prove that the adapted Knuth–Bendix confluence test is applicable to a nominal rewrite system with atom-variables, and thus that there is a decidable test whether confluence of the ground instance of the abstract rewrite system holds. We apply the nominal Knuth–Bendix confluence criterion to the theory of monads and compute a convergent nominal rewrite system modulo alpha-equivalence.

We consider the application of Constraint Handling Rules (CHR) for the specification of type inference systems, such as that used by Haskell. Confluence of CHR guarantees that the answer provided by type inference is correct and consistent. The standard method for establishing confluence relies on an assumption that the CHR program is terminating. However, many examples in practice give rise to non-terminating CHR programs, rendering this method inapplicable. Despite no guarantee of termination or confluence, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) supports options that allow the user to proceed with type inference anyway, e.g. via the use of the UndecidableInstances flag. In this paper we formally identify and verify a set of relaxed criteria, namely range-restrictedness, local confluence, and ground termination, that ensure the consistency of CHR-based type inference that maps to potentially non-terminating CHR programs.

Program transformation is an appealing technique which allows to improve run-time efficiency, space-consumption, and more generally to optimize a given program. Essentially, it consists of a sequence of syntactic program manipulations which preserves some kind of semantic equivalence. Unfolding is one of the basic operations used by most program transformation systems and consists of the replacement of a procedure call by its definition. While there is a large body of literature on the transformation and unfolding of sequential programs, very few papers have addressed this issue for concurrent languages. This paper defines an unfolding system for Constraint Handling Rules programs. We define an unfolding rule, show its correctness and discuss some conditions that can be used to delete an unfolded rule while preserving the program meaning. We also prove that, under some suitable conditions, confluence and termination are preserved by the above transformation.

Confluence is a fundamental property of Constraint Handling Rules (CHR) since, as in other rewriting formalisms, it guarantees that the computations are not dependent on rule application order, and also because it implies the logical consistency of the program declarative view. In this paper we are concerned with proving the confluence of non-terminating CHR programs. For this purpose, we derive from van Oostrom's decreasing diagrams method a novel criterion on CHR critical pairs that generalizes all preexisting criteria. We subsequently improve on a result on the modularity of CHR confluence, which permits modular combinations of possibly non-terminating confluent programs, without loss of confluence.

Methods for mapping and determining the condition of archaeological resources while they are still underground have been in development for nearly half a century. The authors here offer an example from the frontiers of the art: the application of a package of remote sensing procedures not only designed to locate sites but to model the valley deposits which contain and cover them. The variation in success of different methods in different deposits offers a guide to the design of evaluation projects on sand and gravel terrain everywhere.

We develop the theory of p-adic confluence of q-difference equations. The main result is the fact that, in the p-adic framework, a function is a (Taylor) solution of a differential equation if and only if it is a solution of a q-difference equation. This fact implies an equivalence, called confluence, between the category of differential equations and those of q-difference equations. We develop this theory by introducing a category of sheaves on the disk D−(1,1), for which the stalk at 1 is a differential equation, the stalk at q isa q-difference equation if q is not a root of unity, and the stalk at a root of unity ξ is a mixed object, formed by a differential equation and an action of σξ.