. The dynamic behavior of rule-based systems (like term rewriting systems [24], process algebras [27], and so on) can be traditionally determined in two orthogonal ways. Either operationally, in the sense that a way of embedding a rule into a state is devised, stating explicitly how the result is built: This is the role played by (the application of) a substitution in term rewriting. Or inductively, showing how to build the class of all possible reductions from a set of basic ones: For term rewriting, this is the usual definition of the rewrite relation as the minimal closure of the rewrite rules. As far as graph transformation is concerned, the operational view is by far more popular: In this paper we lay the basis for the orthogonal view. We first provide an inductive description for graphs as arrows of a freely generated dgs-monoidal category. We then apply 2-categorical techniques, already known for term and term graph rewriting [29, 7], recasting in this framework the...

. Rational terms (possibly infinite terms with finitely many subterms) can be represented in a finite way via -terms, that is, terms over a signature extended with self-instantiation operators. For example, f ! = f(f(f(: : :))) can be represented as x :f(x) (or also as x :f(f(x)), f(x :f(x)), . . . ). Now, if we reduce a -term t to s via a rewriting rule using standard notions of the theory of Term Rewriting Systems, how are the rational terms corresponding to t and to s related? We answer to this question in a satisfactory way, resorting to the definition of infinite parallel rewriting proposed in [7]. We also provide a simple, algebraic description of -term rewriting through a variation of Meseguer's Rewriting Logic formalism. 1 Introduction Rational terms are possibly infinite terms with a finite set of subterms. They show up in a natural way in Theoretical Computer Science whenever some finite cyclic structures are of concern (for example data flow diagrams, cyclic te...

. We present a categorical formulation of the rewriting of possibly cyclic term graphs, based on a variation of algebraic 2-theories. We show that this presentation is equivalent to the well-accepted operational definition proposed by Barendregt et alii---but for the case of circular redexes, for which we propose (and justify formally) a different treatment. The categorical framework allows us to model in a concise way also automatic garbage collection and rules for sharing/unsharing and folding/unfolding of structures, and to relate term graph rewriting to other rewriting formalisms. R'esum'e. Nous pr'esentons une formulation cat'egorique de la r'e'ecriture des graphes cycliques des termes, bas'ee sur une variante de 2-theorie alg'ebrique. Nous prouvons que cette pr'esentation est 'equivalente `a la d'efinition op'erationnelle propos'ee par Barendregt et d'autres auteurs, mais pas dons le cas des radicaux circulaires, pour lesquels nous proposons (et justifions formellem...

We present a categorical formulation of the rewriting of possibly cyclic term graphs, and the proof that this presentation is equivalent to the well-accepted operational definition proposed in [3] -- but for the case of circular redexes, for which we propose (and justify formally) a different treatment. The categorical framework, based on suitable 2-categories, allows to model also automatic garbage collection and rules for sharing/unsharing and folding/unfolding of structures. Furthermore, it can be used for defining various extensions of term graph rewriting, and for relating it to other rewriting formalisms.