Traditionally, traces are the sequences of labels associated with paths in transition systems X # P(A X).

Abstract. Trace semantics has been defined for various kinds of state-based systems, notably with different forms of branching such as non-determinism vs. probability. In this paper we claim to identify one underlying mathematical structure behind these “trace

Coalgebras are categorical presentations of state-based systems. In investigating parallel composition of coalgebras (realizing concurrency), we observe that the same algebraic theory is interpreted in two different domains in a nested manner, namely: in the category of coalgebras, and in the final coalgebra as an object in it. This phenomenon is what Baez and Dolan have called the microcosm principle, a prototypical example of which is “a monoid in a monoidal category.” In this paper we obtain a formalization of the microcosm principle in which such a nested model is expressed categorically as a suitable lax natural transformation. An application of this account is a general compositionality result which supports modular verification of complex systems.

Trace semantics has been defined for various non-deterministic systems with different input/output types, or with different types of “non-determinism ” such as classical non-determinism (with a set of possible choices) vs. probabilistic nondeterminism. In this paper we claim that these various forms of “trace semantics” are instances of a single categorical construction, namely coinduction in a Kleisli category. This claim is based on our main technical result that an initial algebra in

We give a systematic treatment of distributivity for a monad and a comonad as arises in giving category theoretic accounts of operational and denotational semantics, and in giving an intensional denotational semantics. We do this axiomatically, in terms of a monad and a comonad in a 2-category, giving accounts of the Eilenberg-Moore and Kleisli constructions. We analyse the eight possible relationships, deducing that two pairs are isomorphic, but that the other pairs are all distinct. We develop those 2-categorical denitions necessary to support this analysis. This work is supported by EPSRC grants GR/J84205: Frameworks for programming language semantics and logic and GR/M56333: The structure of programming languages : syntax and semantics, and British Council grant 747 FCS R34807: Data and program renement using algebraic structure. y The author acknowledges the support of STA through COE budget for Global Information Processing Project. 1 1 Introduction In recent years, th...

Abstract. This paper extends bialgebraic semantics [1, 2] to take into account notions of behaviour that lead to process equivalences coarser than bisimulation. For that purpose, the requirement of finality for the characterisation of behaviours is relaxed to quasi-finality, which informally consists in relegating to the underlying category the conditions that finality must satisfy in the main category of coalgebras. This setting is then applied to the failure semantics of CSP. 1

In this paper, we study extensions of mathematical operational semantics with algebraic effects. Our starting point is an effect-free coalgebraic operational semantics, given by a natural transformation of syntax over behaviour. The operational semantics of the extended language arises by distributing program syntax over effects, again inducing a coalgebraic operational semantics, but this time in the Kleisli category for the monad derived from the algebraic effects. The final coalgebra in this Kleisli category then serves as the denotational model. For it to exist, we ensure that the the Kleisli category is enriched over CPOs by considering the monad of possibly infinite terms, extended with a bottom element. Unlike the effectless setting, not all operational specifications give rise to adequate and compositional semantics. We give a proof of adequacy and compositionality provided the specifications can be described by evaluation-in-context. We illustrate our techniques with a simple extension of (stateless) while programs with global store, i.e. variable lookup.