The costructure–cosemantics adjunction for comodels for computational effects

It is well established that equational algebraic theories and the monads they generate can be used to encode computational effects. An important insight of Power and Shkaravska is that comodels of an algebraic theory $\mathbb{T}$ – i.e., models in the opposite category $\mathcal{S}\mathrm{et}^{\mathrm{op}}$ – provide a suitable environment for evaluating the computational effects encoded by $\mathbb{T}$ . As already noted by Power and Shkaravska, taking comodels yields a functor from accessible monads to accessible comonads on $\mathcal{S}\mathrm{et}$ . In this paper, we show that this functor is part of an adjunction – the “costructure–cosemantics adjunction” of the title – and undertake a thorough investigation of its properties. We show that, on the one hand, the cosemantics functor takes its image in what we term the presheaf comonads induced by small categories; and that, on the other, costructure takes its image in the presheaf monads induced by small categories. In particular, the cosemantics comonad of an accessible monad will be induced by an explicitly-described category called its behaviour category that encodes the static and dynamic properties of the comodels. Similarly, the costructure monad of an accessible comonad will be induced by a behaviour category encoding static and dynamic properties of the comonad coalgebras. We tie these results together by showing that the costructure–cosemantics adjunction is idempotent, with fixpoints to either side given precisely by the presheaf monads and comonads. Along the way, we illustrate the value of our results with numerous examples drawn from computation and mathematics.

On generalized algebraic theories and categories with families

We give a syntax independent formulation of finitely presented generalized algebraic theories as initial objects in categories of categories with families (cwfs) with extra structure. To this end, we simultaneously define the notion of a presentation Σ of a generalized algebraic theory and the associated category CwFΣ of small cwfs with a Σ-structure and cwf-morphisms that preserve Σ-structure on the nose. Our definition refers to the purely semantic notion of uniform family of contexts, types, and terms in CwFΣ. Furthermore, we show how to syntactically construct an initial cwf with a Σ-structure. This result can be viewed as a generalization of Birkhoff’s completeness theorem for equational logic. It is obtained by extending Castellan, Clairambault, and Dybjer’s construction of an initial cwf. We provide examples of generalized algebraic theories for monoids, categories, categories with families, and categories with families with extra structure for some type formers of Martin-Löf type theory. The models of these are internal monoids, internal categories, and internal categories with families (with extra structure) in a small category with families. Finally, we show how to extend our definition to some generalized algebraic theories that are not finitely presented, such as the theory of contextual cwfs.

Graded Algebraic Theories

We provide graded extensions of algebraic theories and Lawvere theories that correspond to graded monads. We prove that graded algebraic theories, graded Lawvere theories, and finitary graded monads are equivalent via equivalence of categories, which extends the equivalence for monads. We also give sums and tensor products of graded algebraic theories to combine computational effects as an example of importing techniques based on algebraic theories to graded monads.

Continuous cohomology of topological quandles

A continuous cohomology theory for topological quandles is introduced, and compared to the algebraic theories. Extensions of topological quandles are studied with respect to continuous 2-cocycles, and used to show the differences in second cohomology groups for specific topological quandles. A method of computing the cohomology groups of the inverse limit is applied to quandles.

How to prove decidability of equational theories with second-order computation analyser SOL

We present a general methodology of proving the decidability of equational theory of programming language concepts in the framework of second-order algebraic theories. We propose a Haskell-based analysis tool, i.e. Second-Order Laboratory, which assists the proofs of confluence and strong normalisation of computation rules derived from second-order algebraic theories. To cover various examples in programming language theory, we combine and extend both syntactical and semantical results of the second-order computation in a non-trivial manner. We demonstrate how to prove decidability of various algebraic theories in the literature. It includes the equational theories of monad and λ-calculi, Plotkin and Power’s theory of states and bits, and Stark’s theory of π-calculus. We also demonstrate how this methodology can solve the coherence of monoidal categories.