Some Remarks on Conway and Iteration Theories
We present an axiomatization of Conway theories which yields,as a corollary, a very concise axiomatization of iteration theories satisfying the functorial implication for base morphisms.
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Publications and source records attributed to Sergey Goncharov.
We present an axiomatization of Conway theories which yields,as a corollary, a very concise axiomatization of iteration theories satisfying the functorial implication for base morphisms.
Strong bisimulation for labelled transition systems is one of the most fundamental equivalences in process algebra, and has been generalised to numerous classes of systems that exhibit richer transition behaviour. Nearly all of the ensuing notions are instances of the more general notion of coalgebraic bisimulation. Weak bisimulation, however, has so far been much less amenable to a coalgebraic treatment. Here we attempt to close this gap by giving a coalgebraic treatment of (parametrized) weak equivalences, including weak bisimulation. Our analysis requires that the functor defining the transition type of the system is based on a suitable order-enriched monad, which allows us to capture weak equivalences by least fixpoints of recursive equations. Our notion is in agreement with existing notions of weak bisimulations for labelled transition systems, probabilistic and weighted systems, and simple Segala systems.
We study a composition operation on monads, equivalently presented as large equational theories. Specifically, we discuss the existence of tensors, which are combinations of theories that impose mutual commutation of the operations from the component theories. As such, they extend the sum of two theories, which is just their unrestrained combination. Tensors of theories arise in several contexts; in particular, in the semantics of programming languages, the monad transformer for global state is given by a tensor. We present two main results: we show that the tensor of two monads need not in general exist by presenting two counterexamples, one of them involving finite powerset (i.e. the theory of join semilattices); this solves a somewhat long-standing open problem, and contrasts with recent results that had ruled out previously expected counterexamples. On the other hand, we show that tensors with bounded powerset monads do exist from countable powerset upwards.
We present an abstract framework for concurrent processes in which atomic steps have generic side effects, handled according to the principle of monadic encapsulation of effects. Processes in this framework are potentially infinite resumptions, modelled using final coalgebras over the monadic base. As a calculus for such processes, we introduce a concurrent extension of Moggi's monadic metalanguage of effects. We establish soundness and completeness of a natural equational axiomatisation of this calculus. Moreover, we identify a corecursion scheme that is explicitly definable over the base language and provides flexible expressive means for the definition of new operators on processes, such as parallel composition. As a worked example, we prove the safety of a generic mutual exclusion scheme using a verification logic built on top of the equational calculus.
In semantics and in programming practice, algebraic concepts such as monads or, essentially equivalently, (large) Lawvere theories are a well-established tool for modelling generic side-effects. An important issue in this context are combination mechanisms for such algebraic effects, which allow for the modular design of programming languages and verification logics. The most basic combination operators are sum and tensor: while the sum of effects is just their non-interacting union, the tensor imposes commutation of effects. However, for effects with unbounded arity, such as continuations or unbounded nondeterminism, it is not a priori clear whether these combinations actually exist in all cases. Here, we introduce the class of uniform effects, which includes unbounded nondeterminism and continuations, and prove that the tensor does always exist if one of the component effects is uniform, thus in particular improving on previous results on tensoring with continuations. We then treat the case of nondeterminism in more detail, and give an order-theoretic characterization of effects for which tensoring with nondeterminism is conservative, thus enabling nondeterministic arguments such as a generic version of the Fischer-Ladner encoding of control operators.