The phenomena of branching time and true or noninterleaving concurrency find their respective homes in automata and schedules. But these two models of computation are formally equivalent via Birkhoff duality, an equivalence we expound on here in tutorial detail. So why should these phenomena prefer one home over the other? We identify dimension as the culprit: 1dimensional automata are skeletons permitting only interleaving concurrency, whereas true n-fold concurrency resides in transitions of dimension n. The truly concurrent automaton dual to a schedule is not a skeletal distributive lattice but a solid one. We introduce true nondeterminism and define it as monoidal homotopy; from this perspective nondeterminism in ordinary automata arises from forking and joining creating nontrivial homotopy. The automaton dual to a poset schedule is simply connected whereas that dual to an event structure schedule need not be, according to monoidal homotopy though not to group homotopy. We conclude...

In a similar way as 2-categories can be regarded as a special case of double categories, rewriting logic (in the unconditional case) can be embedded into the more general tile logic, where also side-effects and rewriting synchronization are considered. Since rewriting logic is the semantic basis of several language implementation efforts, it is useful to map tile logic back into rewriting logic in a conservative way, to obtain executable specifications of tile systems. We extend the results of earlier work by two of the authors, focusing on some interesting cases where the mathematical structures representing configurations (i.e., states) and effects (i.e., observable actions) are very similar, in the sense that they have in common some auxiliary structure (e.g., for tupling, projecting, etc.). In particular, we give in full detail the descriptions of two such cases where (net) process-like and usual term structures are employed. Corresponding to these two cases, we introduce two ca...

Tile systems offer a general paradigm for modular descriptions of concurrent systems, based on a set of rewriting rules with side-effects. Monoidal double categories are a natural semantic framework for tile systems, because the mathematical structures describing system states and synchronizing actions (called configurations and observations, respectively, in our terminology) are monoidal categories having the same objects (the interfaces of the system). In particular, configurations and observations based on net-process-like and term structures are usually described in terms of symmetric monoidal and cartesian categories, where the auxiliary structures for the rearrangement of interfaces correspond to suitable natural transformations. In this paper we discuss the lifting of these auxiliary structures to double categories. We notice that the internal construction of double categories produces a pathological asymmetric notion of natural transformation, which is fully exploited in one dimension only (for example, for configurations or for observations, but not for both). Following Ehresmann (1963), we overcome this biased definition, introducing the notion of generalized natural transformation between four double functors (rather than two). As a consequence, the concepts of symmetric monoidal and cartesian (with consistently chosen products) double categories arise in a natural way from the corresponding ordinary versions, giving a very good relationship between the auxiliary structures of configurations and observations. Moreover, the Kelly–Mac Lane coherence axioms can be lifted to our setting without effort, thanks to the characterization of two suitable diagonal categories that are always present in a double category. Then, symmetric monoidal and cartesian double categories are shown to offer an adequate semantic setting for process and term tile systems.

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this paper we discuss the lifting of these auxiliary structures to double categories. We notice that the internal construction of double categories produces a pathological asymmetric notion of natural transformation, which is fully exploited in one dimension only (e.g., for configurations or for effects, but not for both). Following Ehresmann (1963), we overcome this biased definition, introducing the notion of generalized natural transformation between four

Abstract. This paper gives a definition of an extended topological quantum field theory (TQFT) as a weak 2-functor Z: nCob2→2Vect, by analogy with the description of a TQFT as a functor Z: nCob→Vect. We also show how to obtain such a theory from any finite group G. This theory is related to a topological gauge theory, the Dijkgraaf-Witten model. To give this definition rigorously, we first define a bicategory of cobordisms between cobordisms. We also give some explicit description of a higher-categorical version of Vect, denoted 2Vect, a bicategory of 2-vector spaces. Along the way, we prove several results showing how to construct 2-vector spaces of Vect-valued presheaves on certain kinds of groupoids. In particular, we use the case when these are groupoids whose objects are connections, and whose morphisms are gauge transformations, on the manifolds on which the extended TQFT is to be defined. On cobordisms between these manifolds, we show how a construction of “pullback and pushforward ” of presheaves gives both the morphisms and 2-morphisms in 2Vect for the extended TQFT, and that these

The phenomena of branching time and true or noninterleaving concurrency find their respective homes in automata and schedules. But these two models of computation are formally equivalent via Birkhoff duality, an equivalence we expound on here in tutorial detail. So why should these phenomena prefer one home over the other? We identify dimension as the culprit: 1dimensional automata are skeletons permitting only interleaving concurrency, whereas true n-fold concurrency resides in transitions of dimension n. The truly concurrent automaton dual to a schedule is not a skeletal distributive lattice but a solid one. We introduce true nondeterminism and define it as monoidal homotopy; from this perspective nondeterminism in ordinary automata arises from forking and joining creating nontrivial homotopy. The automaton dual to a poset schedule is simply connected whereas that dual to an event structure schedule need not be, according to monoidal homotopy though not to group homotopy. We conclude with a formal definition of higher dimensional automaton as an n-complex or n-category, whose two essential axioms are associativity of concatenation within dimension and an interchange principle between dimensions. 1

2-categories and double categories are respectively the natural semantic ground for rewriting logic (rl) and tile logic (tl). Since 2-categories can be regarded as a special case of double categories, then rl can be easily embedded into tl, where also rewriting synchronization is considered. Since rl is the semantic basis of several existing languages, it is useful to map tl back into rl to have an executable framework for tile specifications. We extend the results of a previous work of two of the authors, focusing on tile systems where the algebraic structures for configurations and observations rely on some common auxiliary structure (e.g., for pairing, projecting, etc.). The new model theory required to relate the categorical models of the two logics is an extended version of the theory of 2-categories, and is defined using partial membership equational logic. More concretely, this semantic mapping yields a rewriting logic implementation of tile logic, where a meta-layer is requir...

The main result is that two possible structures which may be imposed on an edge symmetric double category, namely a connection pair and a thin structure, are equivalent. A full proof is also given of the theorem of Spencer, that the category of small 2-categories is equivalent to the category of edge symmetric double categories with thin structure.

Abstract. We develop a theory of double clubs which extends Kelly’s theory of clubs to the pseudo double categories of Paré and Grandis. We then show that the club for symmetric strict monoidal categories on Cat extends to a ‘double club ’ on the pseudo