The purpose of this paper is to set up a theory of generalized operads and multicategories and to use it as a language in which to propose a definition of weak n-category. Included is a full explanation of why the proposed definition of n-category is a reasonable one, and of what happens when n <= 2. Generalized operads and multicategories play other parts in higher-dimensional algebra too, some of which are outlined here: for instance, they can be used to simplify the opetopic approach to n-categories expounded by Baez, Dolan and others, and are a natural language in which to discuss enrichment of categorical structures.

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Charity is a categorical programming language based on distributive categories (in the sense of Schanuel and Lawvere) with strong datatypes (in the sense of Hagino). Distributive categories come with a term logic which can express most standard programs; and they are fundamental to computer science because they permit proof by case analysis and, when strong datatypes are introduced, proof by structural induction. Charity is functional and polymorphic in style, and is strongly normalizing. As a categorical programming language it provides a unique marriage of computer science and mathematical thought. The above aspects are particularly important for the production of verified programs as the naturality of morphisms gives us "theorems for free", termination proofs are not required, and mathemathical specifications can be used. 1 Introduction Functional and logic programming languages have reduced the gap between theory and implementation by reducing the notational movement from mathema...

Vol. 2 (4:3) 2006, pp. 1–44 www.lmcs-online.org

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The generality of a derivation is an equivalence relation on the set of occurrences of variables in its premises and conclusion such that two occurrences of the same variable are in this relation if and only if they must remain occurrences of the same variable in every generalization of the derivation. The variables in question are propositional or of another type. A generalization of the derivation consists in diversifying variables without changing the rules of inference. This paper examines in the setting of categorial proof theory the conjecture that two derivations with the same premises and conclusions stand for the same proof if and only if they have the same generality. For that purpose generality is defined within a category of equivalence relations on finite ordinals, where composition is rather complicated. Several examples are given of deductive systems of derivations covering fragments of

Coherence is here demonstrated for sesquicartesian categories, which are categories with nonempty finite products and arbitrary finite sums, including the empty sum, where moreover the first and the second projection from the product of the initial object with itself are the same. (Every

In its most general meaning, a Boolean category is to categories what a Boolean algebra is to posets. In a more specific meaning a Boolean category should provide the abstract algebraic structure underlying the proofs in Boolean Logic, in the same sense as a Cartesian closed category captures the proofs in intuitionistic logic and a *-autonomous category captures the proofs in linear logic. However, recent work has shown that there is no canonical axiomatisation of a Boolean category. In this work, we will see a series (with increasing strength) of possible such axiomatisations, all based on the notion of *-autonomous category. We will particularly focus on the medial map, which has its origin in an inference rule in KS, a cut-free deductive system for Boolean logic in the calculus of structures. Finally, we will present a category proof nets as a particularly well-behaved example of a Boolean category.

In this paper, we give a novel abstract description of Szabo’s polycategories. We use the theory of double clubs – a generalisation of Kelly’s theory of clubs to ‘pseudo ’ (or ‘weak’) double categories – to construct a pseudo-distributive law of the free symmetric strict monoidal category pseudocomonad on Mod over itself qua pseudomonad, and show that monads in the ‘two-sided Kleisli bicategory’ of this pseudo-distributive law are precisely symmetric polycategories. 1

Abstract. Two constructions of paths in double categories are studied, providing algebraic versions of the homotopy groupoid of a space. Universal properties of these constructions are presented. The first is seen as the codomain of the universal oplax morphism of double categories and the second, which is a quotient of the first, gives the universal normal oplax morphism. Normality forces an equivalence relation on cells, a special case of which was seen before in the free adjoint construction. These constructions are the object part of 2-comonads which are shown to be oplax idempotent. The coalgebras for these comonads turn out to be Leinster’s fc-multicategories, with representable identities in the second case.