A permutation group G (acting on a set Ω, usually infinite) is said to be oligomorphic if G has only finitely many orbits on Ω n (the set of n-tuples of elements of Ω). Such groups have traditionally been linked with model theory and combinatorial enumeration; more recently their group-theoretic properties have been studied, and links with graded algebras, Ramsey theory, topological dynamics, and other areas have emerged. This paper is a short summary of the subject, concentrating on the enumerative and algebraic aspects but with an account of grouptheoretic properties. The first section gives an introduction to permutation groups and to some of the more specific topics we require, and the second describes the links to model theory and enumeration. We give a spread of examples, describe results on the growth rate of the counting functions, discuss a graded algebra associated with an oligomorphic group, and finally discuss group-theoretic properties such as simplicity, the small index property, and “almost-freeness”.

We give a definition of weak n-categories based on the theory of operads. We work with operads having an arbitrary set S of types, or ‘S-operads’, and given such an operad O, we denote its set of operations by elt(O). Then for any S-operad O there is an elt(O)-operad O + whose algebras are S-operads over O. Letting I be the initial operad with a one-element set of types, and defining I 0+ = I, I (i+1)+ = (I i+) +, we call the operations of I (n−1)+ the ‘n-dimensional opetopes’. Opetopes form a category, and presheaves on this category are called ‘opetopic sets’. A weak n-category is defined as an opetopic set with certain properties, in a manner reminiscent of Street’s simplicial approach to weak ω-categories. In a similar manner, starting from an arbitrary operad O instead of I, we define ‘n-coherent O-algebras’, which are n times categorified analogs of algebras of O. Examples include ‘monoidal n-categories’, ‘stable n-categories’, ‘virtual n-functors ’ and ‘representable n-prestacks’. We also describe how n-coherent O-algebra objects may be defined in any (n + 1)-coherent O-algebra. 1

Shapely types separate data, represented by lists, from shape, or structure. This separation supports shape polymorphism, where operations are defined for arbitrary shapes, and shapely operations, for which the shape of the result is determined by that of the input, permitting static shape checking. The shapely types are closed under the formation of fixpoints, and hence include the usual algebraic types of lists, trees, etc. They also include other standard data structures such as arrays, graphs and records. 1 Introduction The values of a shapely type are uniquely determined by their shape and their data. The shape can be thought of as a structure with holes or positions, into which data elements (stored in a list) can be inserted. The use of shape in computing is widespread, but till now it has not, apparently, been the subject of independent study. The body of the paper presents a semantics for shape, based on elementary ideas from category theory. First, let us consider some examp...

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An increasing tree is a labelled rooted tree in which labels along any branch from the root go in increasing order. Under various guises, such trees have surfaced as tree representations of permutations, as data structures in computer science, and as probabilistic models in diverse applications. We present a unified generating function approach to the enumeration of parameters on such trees. The counting generating functions for several basic parameters are shown to be related to a simple ordinary differential equation which is non linear and autonomous. Singularity analysis applied to the intervening generating functions then permits to analyze asymptotically a number of parameters of the trees, like: root degree, number of leaves, path length, and level of nodes. In this way it is found that various models share common features: path length is O(n log n), the distributions of node levels and number of leaves are asymptotically normal, etc.

Streams, (automata and) languages, and formal power series are viewed coalgebraically. In summary, this amounts to supplying these sets with a deterministic automaton structure, which has the universal property of being final. Finality then forms the basis for both definitions and proofs by coinduction, the coalgebraic counterpart of induction. Coinductive definitions take the shape of what we have called behavioural differential equations, after Brzozowski's notion of input derivative. A calculus is developed for coinductive reasoning about all of the afore mentioned structures, closely resembling (and at times generalising) calculus from classical analysis. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 68Q10, 68Q55, 68Q85 1998 ACM Computing Classification System: F.1, F.3 Keywords & Phrases: Coalgebra, automaton, finality, coinduction, stream, formal language, formal power series, differential equation, input derivative, behaviour, semiring, max-plus algebra 1 Contents 1 Introductio...

‘Categorification ’ is the process of replacing equations by isomorphisms. We describe some of the ways a thoroughgoing emphasis on categorification can simplify and unify mathematics. We begin with elementary arithmetic, where the category of finite sets serves as a categorified version of the set of natural numbers, with disjoint union and Cartesian product playing the role of addition and multiplication. We sketch how categorifying the integers leads naturally to the infinite loop space Ω ∞ S ∞ , and how categorifying the positive rationals leads naturally to a notion of the ‘homotopy cardinality ’ of a tame space. Then we show how categorifying formal power series leads to Joyal’s espèces des structures, or ‘structure types’. We also describe a useful generalization of structure types called ‘stuff types’. There is an inner product of stuff types that makes the category of stuff types into a categorified version of the Hilbert space of the quantized harmonic oscillator. We conclude by sketching how this idea gives a nice explanation of the combinatorics of Feynman diagrams. 1

INTRODUCTION Unrestricted exchange rules of Girard's linear logic [8] force the commutativity of the multiplicative connectives\Omega (times, conjunction) and & (par, disjunction) , and henceforth the commutativity of all logic. This a priori commutativity is not always desirable --- it is quite problematic in applications like linguistics or computer science ---, and actually the desire of a non-commutative logic goes back to the very beginning of LL [9]. Previous works on non-commutativity deal essentially with non-commutative fragments of LL, obtained by removing the exchange rule at all. At that point, a simple remark on the status of exchange in the sequent calculus is necessary to be clear: there are two presentations of exchange in commutative LL, either sequents are finite sets of occurrences of formulas and exchange is obviously implicit, or sequents are fini

Given an arbitrary distribution on a countable set S consider the number of independent samples required until the first repeated value is seen. Exact and asymptotic formulae are derived for the distribution of this time and of the times until subsequent repeats. Asymptotic properties of the repeat times are derived by embedding in a Poisson process. In particular, necessary and sufficient conditions for convergence are given and the possible limits explicitly described. Under the same conditions the finite dimensional distributions of the repeat times converge to the arrival times of suitably modified Poisson processes, and random trees derived from the sequence of independent Research supported in part by N.S.F. Grants DMS 92-24857, 94-04345, 92-24868 and 97-03691 trials converge in distribution to an inhomogeneous continuum random tree. 1 Introduction Recall the classical birthday problem: given that each day of the year is equally likely as a possible birthday, and that birth...

Let G be a Galton-Watson tree, and for 0 u 1 let G u be the subtree of G obtained by retaining each edge with probability u. We study the tree-valued Markov process (G u ; 0 u 1) and an analogous process (G u ; 0 u 1) in which G 1 is a critical or subcritical Galton-Watson tree conditioned to be infinite. Results simplify and are further developed in the special case of Poisson() offspring distribution. Running head. Tree-valued Markov chains. Key words. Borel distribution, branching process, conditioning, GaltonWatson process, generalized Poisson distribution, h-transform, pruning, random tree, size-biasing, spinal decomposition, thinning. AMS Subject classifications 05C80, 60C05, 60J27, 60J80 Research supported in part by N.S.F. Grants DMS9404345 and 9622859 1 Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Related topics : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4 2 Background and technical set-up 5 2.1 Notation and terminology for trees : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :...