: This paper tries to explain why and how category theory is useful in computing science, by giving guidelines for applying seven basic categorical concepts: category, functor, natural transformation, limit, adjoint, colimit and comma category. Some examples, intuition, and references are given for each concept, but completeness is not attempted. Some additional categorical concepts and some suggestions for further research are also mentioned. The paper concludes with some philosophical discussion. 0 Introduction This paper tries to explain why category theory is useful in computing science. The basic answer is that computing science is a young field that is growing rapidly, is poorly organised, and needs all the help it can get, and that category theory can provide help with at least the following: ffl Formulating definitions and theories. In computing science, it is often more difficult to formulate concepts and results than to give a proof. The seven guidelines of this paper can h...

In the "little theories" version of the axiomatic method, different portions of mathematics are developed in various different formal axiomatic theories. Axiomatic theories may be related by inclusion or by theory interpretation. We argue that the little theories approach is a desirable way to formalize mathematics, and we describe how imps, an Interactive Mathematical Proof System, supports it.

: The structure of High-level nets is studied from an algebraic and a logical point of view using Algebraic nets as an example. First the category of Algebraic nets is defined and the semantics given through an unfolding construction. Other kinds of Highlevel net formalisms are then presented. It is shown that nets given in these formalisms can be transformed into equivalent Algebraic nets. Then the semantics of nets in terms of universal constructions is discussed. A definition of Algebraic nets in terms of structured transition systems is proposed. The semantics of the Algebraic net is then given as a free completion of this structured transition system to a category. As an alternative also a sheaf semantics of nets is examined. Here the semantics of the net arises as a limit of a diagram of sheaves. Next Algebraic nets are characterized as encodings of special morphisms called foldings. Each algebraic net gives rise to a surjective morphism between Petri nets and conversely each sur...

Abstract. We present a semantics for architectural specifications in Casl, including an extended static analysis compatible with modeltheoretic requirements. The main obstacle here is the lack of amalgamation for Casl models. To circumvent this problem, we extend the Casl logic by introducing enriched signatures, where subsort embeddings form a category rather than just a preorder. The extended model functor has amalgamation, which makes it possible to express the amalgamability conditions in the semantic rules in static terms. Using these concepts, we develop the semantics at various levels in an institution-independent fashion.

The paper addresses a notion of configuring systems, constructing them from specified component parts with stipulated sharing. This notion is independent of any underlying specification language and has been abstractly identified with the taking of colimits in category theory. In particular, Oriat has shown how to use a category of diagrams Diag(C) to express colimits of primitive specifications from a category C. Mathematically it is known that these can equally well be expressed by presheaves over C and the present paper applies this idea to configuration. We develop an algebraic account of presheaves, and show that Oriat's category Diag(C) is equivalent to the category of finitely presented presheaves over C. The presheaf structure is interpreted in terms of instances of specifications and instance reduction and a configuration language is outlined that expresses precisely the finite presentations of presheaves but also describes configuration in a natural way.