Gallier, Jean H
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Publication Notes on Convex Sets, Polytopes, Polyhedra, Combinatorial Topology, Voronoi Diagrams and Delaunay Triangulations(2013-11-27) Gallier, Jean H.Some basic mathematical tools such as convex sets, polytopes and combinatorial topology are used quite heavily in applied fields such as geometric modeling, meshing, computer vision, medical imaging and robotics. This report may be viewed as a tutorial and a set of notes on convex sets, polytopes, polyhedra, combinatorial topology, Voronoi Diagrams and Delaunay Triangulations. It is intended for a broad audience of mathematically inclined readers. One of my (selfish!) motivations in writing these notes was to understand the concept of shelling and how it is used to prove the famous Euler-Poincare formula(Poincare, 1899) and the more recent Upper Bound Theorem (McMullen, 1970) for polytopes. Another of my motivations was to give a "correct" account of Delaunay triangulations and Voronoi diagrams in terms of (direct and inverse) stereographic projections onto a sphere and prove rigorously that the projective map that sends the (projective) sphere to the (projective) paraboloid works correctly, that is, maps the Delaunay triangulation and Voronoi diagram w.r.t. the lifting onto the sphere to the Delaunay diagram and Voronoi diagrams w.r.t. the traditional lifting onto the paraboloid. Here, the problem is that this map is only well defined (total) in projective space and we are forced to define the notion of convex polyhedron in projective space. It turns out that in order to achieve (even partially) the above goals, I found that it was necessary to include quite a bit of background material on convex sets, polytopes, polyhedra and projective spaces. I have included a rather thorough treatment of the equivalence of V-polytopes and H-polytopes and also of the equivalence of V-polyhedra and H-polyhedra, which is a bit harder. In particular, the Fourier-Motzkin elimination method (a version of Gaussian elimination for inequalities) is discussed in some detail. I also had to include some material on projective spaces, projective maps and polar duality w.r.t. a nondegenerate quadric in order to define a suitable notion of \projective polyhedron" based on cones. To the best of our knowledge, this notion of projective polyhedron is new. We also believe that some of our proofs establishing the equivalence of V-polyhedra and H-polyhedra are new.Publication Polymorphic Rewriting Conserves Algebraic Confluence(1992) Tannen, Val; Gallier, Jean HWe study combinations of many-sorted algebraic term rewriting systems and polymorphic lambda term rewriting. Algebraic and lambda terms are mixed by adding the symbols of the algebraic signature to the polymorphic lambda calculus, as higher-order constants. We show that if a many-sorted algebraic rewrite system R has the Church-Rosser property (is confluent), then R + β + type-β + type-η rewriting of mixed terms has the Church-Rosser property too. η reduction does not commute with algebraic reduction, in general. However, using long normal forms, we show that if R is canonical (confluent and strongly normalizing) then equational provability from R + β + η + type-β + type-η is still decidable.Publication Realizability, Covers, and Sheaves I. Application to the Simply-Typed Lambda-Calculus(1993-08-12) Gallier, Jean HWe present a general method for proving properties of typed λ-terms. This method is obtained by introducing a semantic notion of realizability which uses the notion of a cover algebra (as in abstract sheaf theory, a cover algebra being a Grothendieck topology in the case of a preorder). For this, we introduce a new class of semantic structures equipped with preorders, called pre-applicative structures. These structures need not be extensional. In this framework, a general realizability theorem can be shown. Kleene's recursive realizability and a variant of Kreisel's modified realizability both fit into this framework. Applying this theorem to the special case of the term model, yields a general theorem for proving properties of typed λ-terms, in particular, strong normalization and confluence. This approach clarifies the reducibility method by showing that the closure conditions on candidates of reducibility can be viewed as sheaf conditions. Part I of this paper applies the above approach to the simply-typed λ-calculus (with types →, ×, +, and ⊥). Part II of this paper deals with the second-order (polymorphic) λ-calculus (with types → and ∀).Publication Proving Properties of Typed Lambda-Terms Using Realizability, Covers, and Sheaves (Preliminary Version)(1993-11-10) Gallier, Jean HWe present a general method for proving properties of typed λ-terms. This method is obtained by introducing a semantic notion of realizability which uses the notion of a cover algebra (as in abstract sheaf theory). For this, we introduce a new class of semantic structures equipped with preorders, called pre-applicative structures. These structures need not be extensional. In this framework, a general realizability theorem can be shown. Kleene's recursive realizability and a variant of Kreisel's modified realizability both fit into this framework. Applying this theorem to the special case of the term model, yields a general theorem for proving properties of typed λ-terms, in particular, strong normalization and confluence. This approach clarifies the reducibility method by showing that the closure conditions on candidates of reducibility can be viewed as sheaf conditions. The above approach is applied to the simply-typed λ-calculus (with types →, x, +, and ⊥), and to the second-order (polymorphic λ-calculus (with types → and ∀2), for which it yields a new theorem.Publication Proving Properties of Typed Lambda Terms Using Realizability, Covers, and Sheaves(1995-09-01) Gallier, Jean HThe main purpose of this paper is to take apart the reducibility method in order to understand how its pieces fit together, and in particular, to recast the conditions on candidates of reducibility as sheaf conditions. There has been a feeling among experts on this subject that it should be possible to present the reducibility method using more semantic means, and that a deeper understanding would then be gained. This paper gives mathematical substance to this feeling, by presenting a generalization of the reducibility method based on a semantic notion of realizability which uses the notion of a cover algebra (as in abstract sheaf theory). A key technical ingredient is the introduction of a new class of semantic structures equipped with preorders, called pre-applicative structures. These structures need not be extensional. In this framework, a general realizability theorem can be shown. Kleene's recursive realizability and a variant of Kreisel's modified realizability both fit into this framework. We are then able to prove a meta-theorem which shows that if a property of realizers satisfies some simple conditions, then it holds for the semantic interpretations of all terms. Applying this theorem to the special case of the term model, yields a general theorem for proving properties of typed λ-terms, in particular, strong normalization and confluence. This approach clarifies the reducibility method by showing that the closure conditions on candidates of reducibility can be viewed as sheaf conditions. The above approach is applied to the simply-typed λ-calculus (with types →, x, +, and ┴), and to the second-order (polymorphic) λ-calculus (with types → and ∀2), for which it yields a new theorem.Publication Higher Order Unification Revisited: Complete Sets of Transformations(1989-02-01) Snyder, Wayne; Gallier, Jean HIn this paper, we reexamine the problem of general higher-order unification and develop an approach based on the method of transformations on systems of terms which has its roots in Herbrand's thesis, and which was developed by Martelli and Montanari in the context of first-order unification. This method provides an abstract and mathematically elegant means of analyzing the invariant properties of unification in various settings by providing a clean separation of the logical issues from the specification of procedural information. Our major contribution is three-fold. First, we have extended the Herbrand- Martelli-Montanari method of transformations on systems to higher-order unification and pre-unification; second, we have used this formalism to provide a more direct proof of the completeness of a method for higher-order unification than has previously been available; and, finally, we have shown the completeness of the strategy of eager variable elimination. In addition, this analysis provides another justification of the design of Huet's procedure, and shows how its basic principles work in a more general setting. Finally, it is hoped that this presentation might form a good introduction to higher-order unification for those readers unfamiliar with the field.Publication Reducibility Strikes Again, I!(1993-04-27) Gallier, Jean HIn these notes, we prove some general theorems for establishing properties of untyped λ-terms, using a variant of the reducibility method. These theorems apply to (pure) λ-terms typable in the systems of conjunctive types DΩ and D. As applications, we give simple proofs of the characterizations of the terms having head-normal forms, of the normalizable terms, and of the strongly normalizing terms. We also give a characterization of the terms having weak head-normal forms. This last result appears to be new.Publication On Some Quadratic Optimization Problems Arising in Computer Vision(2011-11-18) Gallier, Jean HPublication Typing untyped λ-terms, or Reducibility strikes again!(1995-12-01) Gallier, Jean HIt was observed by Curry that when (untyped) λ -terms can be assigned types,for example,simple types,these terms have nice properties (for example, they are strongly normalizing. Coppo, Dezani, and Veneri, introduced type systems using conjunctive types, and showed that several important classes of (untyped) terms can be characterized according to the shape of the types that can be assigned to these terms. For example, the strongly ormalizable terms, the normalizable terms, and the terms having head-normal forms, can be characterized in some systems D and DΩ. The proofs use variants of the method of reducibility. In this paper, we present a uniform approach for proving several meta-theorems relating properties of λ-terms and their typability in the systems D and DΩ. Our proofs use a new and more modular version of the reducibility method. As an application of our metatheorems, we show how the characterizations obtained by Coppo, Dezani, Veneri, and Pottinger, can be easily rederived. We also characterize the terms that have weak headnormal forms, which appears to be new. We conclude by stating a number of challenging open problems regarding possible generalizations of the realizability method.Publication Unification Procedures in Automated Deduction Methods Based on Matings: A Survey(1991-10-01) Gallier, Jean HUnification procedures arising in methods for automated theorem proving based on matings are surveyed. We begin by reviewing some fundamentals of automated deduction, including the Skolem form and the Skolem-Herbrand-Gödel theorem. Next, the method of matings for first-order languages without equality due to Andrews and Bibel is presented. Standard unification is described in terms of transformations on systems (following the approach of Martelli and Montanari, anticipated by Herbrand). Some fast unification algorithms are also sketched, in particular, a unification closure algorithm inspired by Paterson and Wegman's method. The method of matings is then extended to languages with equality. This extention leads naturally to a generalization of standard unification called rigid E-unification (due to Gallier, Narendran, Plaisted, and Snyder). The main properties of rigid E-unification, decidability, NP-completeness, and finiteness of complete sets, are discussed.