arXiv subjects

Taro Sekiyama

Publications and source records attributed to Taro Sekiyama.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Unifying Function- and Argument-First Bidirectional Type Systems

Bidirectional typing mixes type synthesis and type checking into a single process. Existing bidirectional type systems can be classified into two styles based on whether, given a function application, a bidirectional typing algorithm synthesizes the function's type first and typechecks the argument against the synthesized argument type, or it synthesizes the arguments' types first and typechecks the function against the synthesized arguments' types. We call the former _function-first_ and the latter _argument-first_. Not only do the two styles significantly differ in how the type systems and typing algorithms are formalized, but also they lead to incompatible typeabilities, forcing a language designer to select one style and to give up the other's typeabilities. In this paper, we unify the two styles and develop \lang with a new bidirectional type system for higher-rank polymorphism. Key ideas of the unification are twofold. Each function application is annotated with a bit of information to represent whether function- or argument-first typing is used, to allow a language designer (or even a programmer) to switch between the two styles at their discretion. We reformulate the function- and argument-first type systems by using ideas from colored types and boxy types, which can specify which part of a type should be synthesized or used for checking in a flexible manner. We also develop a typing algorithm based on the worklist approach by Zhao et al. The (declarative) type system of $λ^{BH}$ is shown to be sound and to subsume two representative function- and argument-first systems. Our typing algorithm is shown to be sound with respect to the type system of $λ^{BH}$ and complete with respect to representative function- and argument-first systems. We mechanically prove the metatheorems using the Abella theorem prover.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2026

When Types Intersect and Effects Get Handled

We introduce a novel intersection type system for a $λ$-calculus with algebraic effects and handlers. The system, inherently behavioral in nature, enjoys the classical properties of intersection type systems, in particular subject reduction and expansion. It thus characterizes the set of terms whose evaluation process terminates and, at the same time, allows reducing the reachability problem to type inference. This new system, the first with these features for a calculus with handlers, induces a system of simple types which, although not guaranteeing termination, is type sound and admits a decidable HOMC problem, unlike similar type systems like Dal Lago and Ghyselen's HEPCF.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2026

Powerdomains and nondeterminism in synthetic domain theory

Synthetic domain theory is an axiomatization of domain theory within a constructive universe of sets such that all definable maps between domains are continuous. In this paper we construct the counterparts to the well-known lower, upper, and convex powerdomains in the setting of synthetic domain theory and prove that they produce computationally adequate denotational models of nondeterminism. By developing the theory of powerdomains in synthetic domain theory, we obtain a nondeterministic metalanguage that directly embeds into dependent type theory, where the latter serves as an expressive logic for reasoning about the metalanguage. Moreover, the computational adequacy results imply that denotational reasoning through the metalanguage may be used to study operational behaviors of actual programs.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2026

Validated Code Translation for Projects with External Libraries

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promise for program translation, particularly for migrating systems code to memory-safe languages such as Rust. However, existing approaches struggle when source programs depend on external libraries: LLMs frequently hallucinate non-existent target APIs and fail to generate call-enabling imports; moreover, validating semantic equivalence is challenging when the code manipulates opaque, library-defined types. We present a translation and validation framework for translating Go projects with external dependencies to Rust. Our approach combines (i) a retrieval mechanism that maps Go library APIs to Rust APIs, and (ii) a cross-language validation pipeline that establishes language interoperability in the presence of opaque library types by synthesising adapters exclusively from public library APIs, prior to validating I/O equivalence. We evaluate our system on six real-world Go repositories with non-trivial external dependencies. Our approach significantly increases both the compilation and equivalence success rate (up to 100% in the most dependency-heavy case; approx. 2x on average) by enabling validated translation that manipulate opaque, library-defined types.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2026

A Category-Theoretic Framework for Dependent Effect Systems

Graded monads refine traditional monads using effect annotations in order to describe quantitatively the computational effects that a program can generate. They have been successfully applied to a variety of formal systems for reasoning about effectful computations. However, existing categorical frameworks for graded monads do not support effects that may depend on program values, which we call dependent effects, thereby limiting their expressiveness. We address this limitation by introducing indexed graded monads, a categorical generalization of graded monads inspired by the fibrational "indexed" view and by classical categorical semantics of dependent type theories. We show how indexed graded monads provide semantics for a refinement type system with dependent effects. We also show how this type system can be instantiated with specific choices of parameters to obtain several formal systems for reasoning about specific program properties. These instances include, in particular, cost analysis, probability-bound reasoning, expectation-bound reasoning, and temporal safety verification.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2025

A Denotational Product Construction for Temporal Verification of Effectful Higher-Order Programs

We propose a categorical framework for linear-time temporal verification of effectful higher-order programs, including probabilistic higher-order programs. Our framework provides a generic denotational reduction -- namely, a denotational product construction -- from linear-time safety verification of effectful higher-order programs to computation of weakest pre-conditions of product programs. This reduction enables us to apply existing algorithms for such well-studied computations of weakest pre-conditions, some of which are available as off-the-shelf solvers. We show the correctness of our denotational product construction by proving a preservation theorem under strong monad morphisms and an existence of suitable liftings along a fibration. We instantiate our framework with both probabilistic and angelic nondeterministic higher-order programs, and implement an automated solver for the probabilistic case based on the existing solver developed by Kura and Unno. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first automated verifier for linear-time temporal verification of probabilistic higher-order programs with recursion.

cs.LO↗

arXiv2024

Learning Weighted Finite Automata over the Max-Plus Semiring and its Termination

Active learning of finite automata has been vigorously pursued for the purposes of analysis and explanation of black-box systems. In this paper, we study an L*-style learning algorithm for weighted automata over the max-plus semiring. The max-plus setting exposes a "consistency" issue in the previously studied semiring-generic extension of L*: we show that it can fail to maintain consistency of tables, and can thus make equivalence queries on obviously wrong hypothesis automata. We present a theoretical fix by a mathematically clean notion of column-closedness. We also present a nontrivial and reasonably broad class of weighted languages over the max-plus semiring in which our algorithm terminates.

cs.FL↗

arXiv2024

Abstracting Effect Systems for Algebraic Effect Handlers

Many effect systems for algebraic effect handlers are designed to guarantee that all invoked effects are handled adequately. However, respective researchers have developed their own effect systems that differ in how to represent the collections of effects that may happen. This situation results in blurring what is required for the representation and manipulation of effect collections in a safe effect system. In this work, we present a language ${λ_{\mathrm{EA}}}$ equipped with an effect system that abstracts the existing effect systems for algebraic effect handlers. The effect system of ${λ_{\mathrm{EA}}}$ is parameterized over effect algebras, which abstract the representation and manipulation of effect collections in safe effect systems. We prove the type-and-effect safety of ${λ_{\mathrm{EA}}}$ by assuming that a given effect algebra meets certain properties called safety conditions. As a result, we can obtain the safety properties of a concrete effect system by proving that an effect algebra corresponding to the concrete system meets the safety conditions. We also show that effect algebras meeting the safety conditions are expressive enough to accommodate some existing effect systems, each of which represents effect collections in a different style. Our framework can also differentiate the safety aspects of the effect collections of the existing effect systems. To this end, we extend ${λ_{\mathrm{EA}}}$ and the safety conditions to lift coercions and type-erasure semantics, propose other effect algebras including ones for which no effect system has been studied in the literature, and compare which effect algebra is safe and which is not for the extensions.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2023

Answer Refinement Modification: Refinement Type System for Algebraic Effects and Handlers

Algebraic effects and handlers are a mechanism to structure programs with computational effects in a modular way. They are recently gaining popularity and being adopted in practical languages, such as OCaml. Meanwhile, there has been substantial progress in program verification via refinement type systems. However, thus far there has not been a satisfactory refinement type system for algebraic effects and handlers. In this paper, we fill the void by proposing a novel refinement type system for algebraic effects and handlers. The expressivity and usefulness of algebraic effects and handlers come from their ability to manipulate delimited continuations, but delimited continuations also complicate programs' control flow and make their verification harder. To address the complexity, we introduce a novel concept that we call answer refinement modification (ARM for short), which allows the refinement type system to precisely track what effects occur and in what order when a program is executed, and reflect such information as modifications to the refinements in the types of delimited continuations. We formalize our type system that supports ARM (as well as answer type modification, or ATM) and prove its soundness. Additionally, as a proof of concept, we have implemented a corresponding type checking and inference algorithm for a subset of OCaml 5, and evaluated it on a number of benchmark programs. The evaluation demonstrates that ARM is conceptually simple and practically useful. Finally, a natural alternative to directly reasoning about a program with delimited continuations is to apply a continuation passing style (CPS) transformation that transforms the program to a pure program. We investigate this alternative, and show that the approach is indeed possible by proposing a novel CPS transformation for algebraic effects and handlers that enjoys bidirectional (refinement-)type-preservation.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2022

Temporal Verification with Answer-Effect Modification

Type-and-effect systems are a widely-used approach to program verification, verifying the result of a computation using types, and the behavior using effects. This paper extends an effect system for verifying temporal, value-dependent properties on event sequences yielded by programs to the delimited control operators shift0/reset0. While these delimited control operators enable useful and powerful programming techniques, they hinder reasoning about the behavior of programs because of their ability to suspend, resume, discard, and duplicate delimited continuations. This problem is more serious in effect systems for temporal properties because these systems must be capable of identifying what event sequences are yielded by captured continuations. Our key observation for achieving effective reasoning in the presence of the delimited control operators is that their use modifies answer effects, which are temporal effects of the continuations. Based on this observation, we extend an effect system for temporal verification to accommodate answer-effect modification. Allowing answer-effect modification enables easily reasoning about traces that captured continuations yield. Another novel feature of our effect system is the support for dependently-typed continuations, which allows us to reason about programs more precisely. We prove soundness of the effect system for finite event sequences via type safety and that for infinite event sequences using a logical relation.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2022

Learning Heuristics for Template-based CEGIS of Loop Invariants with Reinforcement Learning

Loop-invariant synthesis is the basis of program verification. Due to the undecidability of the problem in general, a tool for invariant synthesis necessarily uses heuristics. Despite the common belief that the design of heuristics is vital for the performance of a synthesizer, heuristics are often engineered by their developers based on experience and intuition, sometimes in an \emph{ad-hoc} manner. In this work, we propose an approach to systematically learning heuristics for template-based CounterExample-Guided Inductive Synthesis (CEGIS) with reinforcement learning. As a concrete example, we implement the approach on top of PCSat, which is an invariant synthesizer based on template-based CEGIS. Experiments show that PCSat guided by the heuristics learned by our framework not only outperforms existing state-of-the-art CEGIS-based solvers such as HoICE and the neural solver Code2Inv, but also has slight advantages over non-CEGIS-based solvers such as Eldarica and Spacer in linear Constrained Horn Clause (CHC) solving.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2021

Toward Neural-Network-Guided Program Synthesis and Verification

We propose a novel framework of program and invariant synthesis called neural network-guided synthesis. We first show that, by suitably designing and training neural networks, we can extract logical formulas over integers from the weights and biases of the trained neural networks. Based on the idea, we have implemented a tool to synthesize formulas from positive/negative examples and implication constraints, and obtained promising experimental results. We also discuss two applications of our synthesis method. One is the use of our tool for qualifier discovery in the framework of ICE-learning-based CHC solving, which can in turn be applied to program verification and inductive invariant synthesis. Another application is to a new program development framework called oracle-based programming, which is a neural-network-guided variation of Solar-Lezama's program synthesis by sketching.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2020

Signature Restriction for Polymorphic Algebraic Effects

The naive combination of polymorphic effects and polymorphic type assignment has been well known to break type safety. Existing approaches to this problem are classified into two groups: one for restricting how effects are triggered and the other for restricting how they are implemented. This work explores a new approach to ensuring the safety of polymorphic effects in polymorphic type assignment. A novelty of our work lies in finding a restriction on effect interfaces. To formalize our idea, we employ algebraic effects and handlers, where an effect interface is given by a set of operations coupled with type signatures. We propose signature restriction, a new notion to restrict the type signatures of operations, and show that signature restriction is sufficient to ensure type safety of an effectful language equipped with unrestricted polymorphic type assignment. We also develop a type-and-effect system to enable the use of both operations that satisfy and do not satisfy the signature restriction in a single program.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2020

Handling polymorphic algebraic effects

Algebraic effects and handlers are a powerful abstraction mechanism to represent and implement control effects. In this work, we study their extension with parametric polymorphism that allows abstracting not only expressions but also effects and handlers. Although polymorphism makes it possible to reuse and reason about effect implementations more effectively, it has long been known that a naive combination of polymorphic effects and let-polymorphism breaks type safety. Although type safety can often be gained by restricting let-bound expressions---e.g., by adopting value restriction or weak polymorphism---we propose a complementary approach that restricts handlers instead of let-bound expressions. Our key observation is that, informally speaking, a handler is safe if resumptions from the handler do not interfere with each other. To formalize our idea, we define a call-by-value lambda calculus that supports let-polymorphism and polymorphic algebraic effects and handlers, design a type system that rejects interfering handlers, and prove type safety of our calculus.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2019

Weighted Automata Extraction from Recurrent Neural Networks via Regression on State Spaces

We present a method to extract a weighted finite automaton (WFA) from a recurrent neural network (RNN). Our algorithm is based on the WFA learning algorithm by Balle and Mohri, which is in turn an extension of Angluin's classic \lstar algorithm. Our technical novelty is in the use of \emph{regression} methods for the so-called equivalence queries, thus exploiting the internal state space of an RNN to prioritize counterexample candidates. This way we achieve a quantitative/weighted extension of the recent work by Weiss, Goldberg and Yahav that extracts DFAs. We experimentally evaluate the accuracy, expressivity and efficiency of the extracted WFAs.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2019

Gradual Typing for Extensibility by Rows

This work studies gradual typing for row types and row polymorphism. Key ingredients in this work are the dynamic row type, which represents a statically unknown part of a row, and consistency for row types, which allows injecting static row types into the dynamic row type and, conversely, projecting the dynamic row type to any static row type. While consistency captures the behavior of the dynamic row type statically, it makes the semantics of a gradually typed language incoherent when combined with row equivalence which identifies row types up to field reordering. To solve this problem, we develop consistent equivalence, which characterizes composition of consistency and row equivalence. Using consistent equivalence, we propose a polymorphic blame calculus for row types and row polymorphism. In our blame calculus, casts perform not only run-time checking with the dynamic row type but also field reordering in row types. To simplify our technical development for row polymorphism, we adopt scoped labels, which are employed by the language Koka and are also emerging in the context of effect systems. We give the formal definition of our blame calculus with these technical developments and prove its type soundness. We also sketch the gradually typed surface language and type-preserving translation from the surface language to the blame calculus and discuss conservativity of the surface language over typing of a statically typed language with row types and row polymorphism.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2018

Dynamic Type Inference for Gradual Hindley--Milner Typing

Garcia and Cimini study a type inference problem for the ITGL, an implicitly and gradually typed language with let-polymorphism, and develop a sound and complete inference algorithm for it. Soundness and completeness mean that, if the algorithm succeeds, the input term can be translated to a well-typed term of an explicitly typed blame calculus by cast insertion and vice versa. However, in general, there are many possible translations depending on how type variables that were left undecided by static type inference are instantiated with concrete static types. Worse, the translated terms may behave differently---some evaluate to values but others raise blame. In this paper, we propose and formalize a new blame calculus $λ^{\textsf{DTI}}_{\textsf{B}}$ that avoids such divergence as an intermediate language for the ITGL. A main idea is to allow a term to contain type variables (that have not been instantiated during static type inference) and defer instantiation of these type variables to run time. We introduce dynamic type inference (DTI) into the semantics of $λ^{\textsf{DTI}}_{\textsf{B}}$ so that type variables are instantiated along reduction. The DTI-based semantics not only avoids the divergence described above but also is sound and complete with respect to the semantics of fully instantiated terms in the following sense: if the evaluation of a term succeeds (i.e., terminates with a value) in the DTI-based semantics, then there is a fully instantiated version of the term that also succeeds in the explicitly typed blame calculus and vice versa. Finally, we prove the gradual guarantee, which is an important correctness criterion of a gradually typed language, for the ITGL.

cs.PL↗

arXiv2018

Reasoning about Polymorphic Manifest Contracts

Manifest contract calculi, which integrate cast-based dynamic contract checking and refinement type systems, have been studied as foundations for hybrid contract checking. In this article, we study techniques to reasoning about a polymorphic manifest contract calculus, including a few program transformations related to static contract verification. We first define a polymorphic manifest contract calculus $\mathrm{F}_{H}$, which is much simpler than a previously studied one with delayed substitution, and a logical relation for it and prove that the logical relation is sound with respect to contextual equivalence. Next, we show that the upcast elimination property, which has been studied as correctness of subtyping-based static cast verification, holds for $\mathrm{F}_{H}$. More specifically, we give a subtyping relation (which is not part of the calculus) for $\mathrm{F}_{H}$ types and prove that a term obtained by eliminating upcasts---casts from one type to a supertype of it---is logically related and so contextually equivalent to the original one. We also justify two other program transformations for casts: selfification and static cast decomposition, which help upcast elimination. A challenge is that, due to the subsumption-free approach to manifest contracts, these program transformations do not always preserve well-typedness of terms. To address it, the logical relation and contextual equivalence in this work are defined as semityped relations: only one side of the relations is required to be well typed and the other side may be ill typed.

cs.PL↗