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From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar  1 23:18:44 2007 -0400
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John Baez wrote:

>Marco wrote:
>
>
>
>>what you are calling a "dagger-category", i.e.
>>
>>   a category equipped with a contravariant involutive
>>   endofunctor, which is the identity on objects,
>>
>>has been called "a category with involution", at least from Burgin
>>1969 to Lambek 2001. "Involutive category" has also been used, if
>>less.
>>
>>I think it would be better to come back to the old term, which is
>>meaningful, translatable, and old.
>>
>>
>
>There's also a body of work, mainly from mathematical physics, that
>calls these categories "star-categories".
>
>But, by now there's enough literature using the term "dagger-categories"
>that the genie is out of the bottle.
>
>Best,
>jb
>
>
>
>
>
>
Dear John, just my view: this is not a good argument.

I do not know about these dagger categories though
i read about the compact closed ones.
So may be I miss the point but, if this is the case, why
introducing a new terminology if the concepts are not?
That just creates confusion.


Best,
Vincent



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Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 19:34:24 -0800
From: John Baez <baez@math.ucr.edu>
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Subject: categories: terminology: dagger and involution
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On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 09:21:55AM +0000, V. Schmitt wrote:

> John Baez wrote:

> >by now there's enough literature using the term "dagger-categories"
> >that the genie is out of the bottle.

> Dear John, just my view: this is not a good argument.

It's not an argument - I'm just reporting on what I see.

I don't really like the term "dagger-categories", and I gently
tried to get people to stop using it, but it didn't work.  They're
already comfortable with it.

> I do not know about these dagger categories though
> i read about the compact closed ones.
> So may be I miss the point but, if this is the case, why
> introducing a new terminology if the concepts are not?
> That just creates confusion.

I hope this is clear: "dagger-categories" are completely different
from "compact closed categories".  We need *some* term for them;
we're just arguing about whether to call them "star-categories",
"dagger-categories", or "categories with involution".  I like
"star-categories", because in analysis and quantum topology the
special case of "C*-categories" is very important.  But, I doubt
we'll reach any sort of agreement!

Best,
jb




From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Mar  3 14:25:59 2007 -0400
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Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2007 16:53:58 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert Seely <rags@math.mcgill.ca>
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Subject: categories: Re: terminology: dagger and involution
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On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, John Baez wrote:

> I hope this is clear: "dagger-categories" are completely different
> from "compact closed categories".  We need *some* term for them;
> we're just arguing about whether to call them "star-categories",
> "dagger-categories", or "categories with involution".  I like
> "star-categories", because in analysis and quantum topology the
> special case of "C*-categories" is very important.  But, I doubt
> we'll reach any sort of agreement!

You are completely right, of course - but one thing was clear from the
start: naming a structure from the notation used is rarely a smart
move; instead one should try to capture the essence of the structure
in the name.  (For that reason, "star-categories" isn't a whole lot
better than "dagger-categories", though admittedly, it's hard to think
of a worse name!  However, "star-categories" is likely to make folks
think "dagger = star", and that would be unhelpful.  That is probably
partially why getting a good name was tricky - after all, "dagger-
categories" sounds like the act of a desparate person failing to come
up with a good name.)

But by now, too many folks are probably unwilling to change (and there
isn't really an obvious better name anyway), and their collegues and
students will probably follow suit, making a name revision even less
likely.  Pity though ...

-= rags =-


-- 
<rags@math.mcgill.ca>
<www.math.mcgill.ca/rags>



From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Mar  3 14:25:59 2007 -0400
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Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:52:43 -0800
From: Dusko Pavlovic <dusko@kestrel.edu>
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deciding whether the involution on a category should be written as a
dagger or as a star sounds to me a bit like deciding whether a
polynomial should be in x or in y. i worked with people who use the
dagger, and didnt work with people who use the star, but it would be
good if i could keep my options open.

but anyway, denoting the math structures by the typographic symbols used
in them sounds like an amusing idea. after a hundred years of progress
in creating new structures, and metafonting new symbols for them, we'll
probably be in possession of a fairly rich new language of hieroglyphs.

-- dusko


John Baez wrote:

> [snip]
>
>I hope this is clear: "dagger-categories" are completely different
>from "compact closed categories".  We need *some* term for them;
>we're just arguing about whether to call them "star-categories",
>"dagger-categories", or "categories with involution".  I like
>"star-categories", because in analysis and quantum topology the
>special case of "C*-categories" is very important.  But, I doubt
>we'll reach any sort of agreement!
>
>Best,
>jb
>
>
>
>
>




From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Mar  3 14:25:59 2007 -0400
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Subject: categories: Re: terminology: dagger and involution
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 01:15:45 -0400 (AST)
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Hi Marco and John,

thanks for your comments. Although I am not sure how many people this
will interest, I should probably try to defend my choice of
terminology.

I originally invented the term "dagger category" because I was looking
for a flexible term that could be used both as an adjective and an
adverb. I wanted a term that could be applied not just to categories,
but also to many other categorical notions ("dagger categories",
"dagger functor", "dagger biproducts", "dagger subobject", "dagger
idempotent", "to dagger-split" etc).  Abramsky and Coecke had used the
term "strongly compact closed category", but "strongly" couldn't be
applied in most of these contexts.

If I had known about Burgin's erstwhile term "involutive category", I
would have probably used it. As it is, I have now been publicly using
the term "dagger categories" for over two years, including on this
list (first 8 Jun 2005), and the terminology has not drawn any
criticism until now (except from John Baez, see below). By now, the
term has found its way into published papers, and other have picked it
up. So, as John has already pointed out, the proverbial genie has left
the bottle.

Despite due respect for historical terminology, I have to say that I
don't much like the term "involutive category". Most importantly, this
leaves no good terminology for categories with an involution that is
not identity-on-objects, or not contravariant. I don't much like
terminologies that use the name "A" to mean "has properties A, B, and
C", just because the first example someone studied happened to have
those additional properties. Also, a functor between involutive
categories cannot be called an "involutive functor" for obvious
reasons. Similarly, one cannot say "involutive idempotent",
"involutive biproduct", etc. I think the "dagger" terminology is
elegant.

As John Baez has pointed out, the term "star category" has ample
precedent, and indeed, this shares all the useful grammatical
properties of "dagger category". Aside from the fact that star
categories are often assumed to satisfy additional properties, the two
terminologies are equivalent to each other.  The difference comes
about because mathematicians write "f^*" for the adjoint of a linear
map, whereas physicists write "f^\dagger". So why am I siding with the
physicists?  The choice was forced by the fact that category theorists
have long ago decided to write f^* : B^* -> A^* for the transpose of a
linear map f : A -> B (in compact closed categories).  This is good
notation, because functors should be written the same way on objects
as on morphisms. However, this makes it impossible to also write f^*
for the adjoint B -> A. So one has no choice but to use f^\dagger : B
-> A.  The difference between the transpose f^* : B^* -> A^* and the
adjoint f^\dagger : B -> A is probably the single most common source
of confusion about Hilbert spaces for category theorists and others.
Both functors are contravariant, and they have little else in common.
Sticking to the term "*-category" would have compounded these
problems.

Fortunately, the symbol $\dagger$ doesn't already have other meanings
in related contexts. So its adoption, at least, should not contradict
existing terminology. It is better to have two names for one concept
than to have one name for two different concepts.

Moreover, since $\dagger$ is only a symbol, and not a dictionary word,
there is nothing that prevents it from being pronounced differently by
different people. I propose that $\dagger$ can be pronounced (and even
translated) as "involutive" by those who prefer to do so. This way,
time-honored terminology can be used without a change of notation.

-- Peter

John Baez wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 01, 2007 at 09:21:55AM +0000, V. Schmitt wrote:
>
> > John Baez wrote:
>
> > >by now there's enough literature using the term "dagger-categories"
> > >that the genie is out of the bottle.
>
> > Dear John, just my view: this is not a good argument.
>
> It's not an argument - I'm just reporting on what I see.
>
> I don't really like the term "dagger-categories", and I gently
> tried to get people to stop using it, but it didn't work.  They're
> already comfortable with it.
>
> > I do not know about these dagger categories though
> > i read about the compact closed ones.
> > So may be I miss the point but, if this is the case, why
> > introducing a new terminology if the concepts are not?
> > That just creates confusion.
>
> I hope this is clear: "dagger-categories" are completely different
> from "compact closed categories".  We need *some* term for them;
> we're just arguing about whether to call them "star-categories",
> "dagger-categories", or "categories with involution".  I like
> "star-categories", because in analysis and quantum topology the
> special case of "C*-categories" is very important.  But, I doubt
> we'll reach any sort of agreement!
>
> Best,
> jb
>
>
>




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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2007 13:14:51 +0100
From: Aldo Ursini <ursini@unisi.it>
Subject: categories: Workshop (Dedicated to J-Y. Girard)
To: categories@mta.ca
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>>Workshop on
>>Linear Logic, Ludics, Implicit Complexity and Operator Algebras.
>>Dedicated to Jean-Yves  Girard on his 60th birthday.
>>
>>University of Siena (Italy) at the Certosa di Pontignano, May 17-20,
>>2007.
>>
>>
>>www.unisi.it/eventi/LOGIC


NEW: the deadline for contributed papers (extended abstract)
submission is updated to MARCH 18, 2007.

****************************************************************************
INVITED SPEAKERS:

Patrick Baillot,  Univ. Paris 13,
  http://www-lipn.univ-paris13.fr/~baillot/

Pierre-Louis Curien, Univ. Paris 7,
  www.pps.jussieu.fr/~curien/

Ugo Dal Lago, Univ. Bologna,
  www.cs.unibo.it/~dallago/

Claudia Faggian, Univ. Paris 7,
  www.math.unipd.it/~claudia/

Jean-Yves Girard, Univ. Marseille,
  http://iml.univ-mrs.fr/~girard/

Paul-Andre Mellies, Univ. Paris 7,
www.pps.jussieu.fr/~mellies/

Michele Pagani, Univ. Roma 3,
  http://logica.uniroma3.it/~pagani/

Laurent Regnier, Univ. Marseille,
http://iml.univ-mrs.fr/~regnier/


Kazushige Terui, National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo ,
http://research.nii.ac.jp/~terui/




Prof. Aldo Ursini,

Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche ed Informatiche
"Roberto Magari",
Universita' di Siena,
Pian dei Mantellini 44
53100 SIENA,  Italy

tel.(+39) 0577 233754
fax(+39) 0577  233701
e-mail: ursini at unisi dot it


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Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2007 13:49:40 -0500
From: "Zinovy Diskin" <zdiskin@cs.toronto.edu>
To: categories <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Re: dagger and involution
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On 3/2/07, Robert Seely <rags@math.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
>
> But by now, too many folks are probably unwilling to change (and there
> isn't really an obvious better name anyway), and their collegues and
> students will probably follow suit, making a name revision even less
> likely.  Pity though ...


synonyms (and even homonyms) are widely spread in natural languages simply
because they are convenient. In reasonable doses they could be useful in
math too. It would be worse if their use were implicit but if daggerists and
involutists know that they speak about the same thing, then why not?

I do not want to say that both terms are equally good, or equally bad...
what I'm trying to say is that so far we simply do not know. It will be seen
later whether the community will prefer one over the other, or will continue
to use both... Language is normally regulated by usage rather than by
directives. The current discussion is quite useful if it is about usage, but
I'm afraid that it would be less useful if it takes the modality of
prescribing one and proscribing the other.

--zd



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From: tholen@mathstat.yorku.ca
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Subject: categories: dagger vs involutive
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Here is an outsider's view on the debate which is all about a
formalistic (not to say meaningless) vs a meaningful name. There seem
to be only very few occasions in mathematics when the formalistic name
won, C*-algebras being a prominent example. In category theory, one is
reminded of the hot debate of triples vs monads of the 60s and 70s. I
guess that at the time of the "Zurich triple book" (SLNM 80) most
people would have predicted that triples had already won the race. Mac
Lane's book CWM appeared only 2 or 3 years later, after a vast amount
of literature on triples. But he consistently used the meaningful name
monad, even though (as far as I know) he had never directly published
on the subject. You be the judge who won!

Walter Tholen.



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Subject: categories: Re: dagger vs involutive
From:	Eduardo Dubuc <edubuc@dm.uba.ar>
Date:	Mon, 5 Mar 2007 19:19:05 -0300 (ART)
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>
> In category theory, one is
> reminded of the hot debate of triples vs monads of the 60s and 70s. I
> guess that at the time of the "Zurich triple book" (SLNM 80) most
> people would have predicted that triples had already won the race. Mac
> Lane's book CWM appeared only 2 or 3 years later, after a vast amount
> of literature on triples. But he consistently used the meaningful name
> monad, even though (as far as I know) he had never directly published
> on the subject. You be the judge who won!
>
> Walter Tholen.
>

"after a vast amount of literature on triples"

you should recall that also
                    after a vast amount of literature on monads


e.d.





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Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 16:58:31 -0600
From: Peter May <may@math.uchicago.edu>
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I do hope monads won!  But I thought I'd share the story of that.
At the same time Saunders was writing CWM, I was introducing
operads.  I coined that word as a portmanteau (look up Lewis
Carrol) of operations and monads, and I persuaded Saunders to
switch from triple to monad to go along.  He was not an easy
man to persuade.

Peter May




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From: "Philip Mulry" <pmulry@mail.colgate.edu>
To: <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: FMCS 2007 - Call for Participation
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2007 15:58:40 -0500
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First Announcement

FMCS 2007

Hamilton, N.Y. June 8 - 10, 2007

Local Organizer: Philip Mulry



Foundational Methods in Computer Science 2007 will be held on the campus of
Colgate University in Hamilton N.Y.

Dates: Arrival on Thursday June 7, 2007 (Reception in the evening).
            Scientific Program Friday June 8 - Sunday June 10 (ends
mid-day).

The workshop is an annual meeting meant to bring together researchers in
mathematics and computer science with a focus on the application of category
theory in computer science. The meeting will begin with a day of research
tutorials, followed by a day and a half of research talks.

Graduate student participation is particularly encouraged at FMCS 2007.

Further details on the meeting can be found at:
http://cs.colgate.edu/faculty/mulry/FMCS2007/FMCS2007.html

If you are interested in attending or giving a talk, you can send an email
to
fmcs2007@cs.colgate.edu







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From: "Prof. Peter Johnstone" <P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk>
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Subject: categories: Re: dagger vs involutive
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Walter is of course quite right about triples vs. monads. But it is
interesting to compare that with the truly awful example of the
term "comma category" (and of course the 2-categorical notion of
"comma object" which it has spawned). The awfulness derives from the
fact that the term is derived not just from a particular notation,
but from an obsolete notation (Mac Lane, for example, despite his
sterling efforts to kill off "triple", uses the term "comma category"
in his book, even though his notation for it doesn't involve a comma).
How is it that we have never managed to find a more descriptive name
for this concept?

While I'm on the subject, does anyone out there know who invented the
terms "pullback" and "pushout"? They have always seemed to me to be
splendid examples of descriptive terminology, but I've never seen
them attributed to a particular person. (And yes, I know that Peter
Freyd invented "Doolittle diagram"; but that joke wouldn't have been
possible if "pullback" and "pushout" hadn't already been established
terminology.)

Peter Johnstone

On Mon, 5 Mar 2007 tholen@mathstat.yorku.ca wrote:

> Here is an outsider's view on the debate which is all about a
> formalistic (not to say meaningless) vs a meaningful name. There seem
> to be only very few occasions in mathematics when the formalistic name
> won, C*-algebras being a prominent example. In category theory, one is
> reminded of the hot debate of triples vs monads of the 60s and 70s. I
> guess that at the time of the "Zurich triple book" (SLNM 80) most
> people would have predicted that triples had already won the race. Mac
> Lane's book CWM appeared only 2 or 3 years later, after a vast amount
> of literature on triples. But he consistently used the meaningful name
> monad, even though (as far as I know) he had never directly published
> on the subject. You be the judge who won!
>
> Walter Tholen.
>
>
>



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1971, not 1982, was when operads were defined.
Certainly I did not know multicategories, but
they only correspond to non-sigma operads,
operads without permutations, and I would not
have bothered inventing a word just for them.
Precisely, multicategories are the many object
version of non-sigma operads.  The point is
that the applications for which operads were
invented depend vitally on the permutations.

Peter May



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From: Marco Grandis <grandis@dima.unige.it>
Subject: categories: meaningful and formalistic names
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 11:05:23 +0100
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Dear colleagues,

I apologise for commenting a third time on this point. I think I can
suggest a solution which could solve most of the problems mentioned
in this line (not all of them), and can be used in various similar
situations.

We have a meaningful name for a concept, say involutive category (or
category with involution). This term is even well established in
category theory (see (*) below). Its main drawback is that the
attribute "involutive" is not as flexible as we would like it to be,
in order to develop a theory of such things: an involution-preserving
functor cannot be called an "involutive functor", as Peter Selinger
points out; and so on.

On the other hand, typographical prefixes, like dagger or star, are
already used in the same sense. They are flexible (you can say dagger
category, dagger functor, and so on) and their authors do not want to
give up the terminology of their previous works. Their big drawback -
even forgetting about the fact that "category with involution" is an
old, well established term - is that, being meaningless (or
formalistic, as Walter Tholen prefers to say), nobody would search
for them unless (s)he is already aware of this use. Thus, papers
using such a terminology are often confined to some restricted
domain; and this terminology will be reinvented again and again, with
other acronyms or typographical signs.

The solution I suggest:

One can call such structures with a double name, a meaningful
(possibly well established) name and a flexible one. In the present
case this might be:

- involutive categories (say), alias "prefix"-categories,
- involution-preserving functors (say), alias "prefix"-functors,

where "prefix" stays for the letter or acronym or typographical sign
preferred by the author.

In a title one would only use the meaningful terms, which can be
easily retrieved in a search. In the body of a paper, one would use
both terminologies in the main definitions and the short, adaptable
prefix most of the time.

---

(*) Searching in MathSciNet, under "Anywhere", I find:

- category with involution: 41 items, starting with 1969
- involutive category: 5 items
- dagger category: 0 items  (including variants, like $\dagger$-category
- star category: 1 item  (all variants I can think of give the same
item)

(Of course, various dagger- or star- papers might be not yet on
MathSciNet.)

With best regards

Marco Grandis



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Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 14:37:30 -0500
From: "Zinovy Diskin" <zdiskin@cs.toronto.edu>
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Subject: categories: Re: dagger vs involutive
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On 3/5/07, tholen@mathstat.yorku.ca <tholen@mathstat.yorku.ca > wrote:
>
> Here is an outsider's view on the debate which is all about a
> formalistic (not to say meaningless) vs a meaningful name. There seem
> to be only very few occasions in mathematics when the formalistic name
> won, C*-algebras being a prominent example. In category theory, one is


why only few? Recall the Poisson bracket, or Dirac's delta-function, or
quaternions (though as a shorthand for 4D complex number it's probably more
meaningful than triples) or, say, derivative, which is a basic notion in
calculus yet is, in fact, quite a formalistic name.  If to talk about
general tendencies, then it seems the  winner would be a formalistic term
(unfortunately). Consider a competition between a meaningful  yet too long,
or hard to pronounce, or not smooth in some sense term and a meaningless yet
short and energetic term, who would win? Many attempts to make terminology
and notation in a particular domain entirely consistent failed as soon as
they went beyond some reasonable level of consistency.
Zinovy Diskin

And aren't left-right adjoints, vertical-horizontal morphisms in fibrations
of purely typographical ("blackboardial") origin?




reminded of the hot debate of triples vs monads of the 60s and 70s. I
> guess that at the time of the "Zurich triple book" (SLNM 80) most
> people would have predicted that triples had already won the race. Mac
> Lane's book CWM appeared only 2 or 3 years later, after a vast amount
> of literature on triples. But he consistently used the meaningful name
> monad, even though (as far as I know) he had never directly published
> on the subject. You be the judge who won!
>
> Walter Tholen.
>
>
>


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Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:11:31 -0800
From: David Karapetyan <dkarapetyan@ucdavis.edu>
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Hi, I've been trying to learn some category theory and I came upon the
example of a monic, epic in the category of monoids given by the
inclusion function of (N,0,+) into (Z,0,+). I know that in monoids every
monic arrow is also an injective function but the inclusion function of
N into Z provides a counterexample of every epic arrow being a
surjective function. I noticed that N is just a "folded" version of Z,
where by "folded" I mean take Z and throw away all the inverses of the
natural numbers. So does every monic, epic arrow determine such a
"folding" or are there monic, epics that can't be characterized in such
a way?



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From: Juergen Koslowski <koslowj@iti.cs.tu-bs.de>
Subject: categories: more dagger problems
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Besides their funny name, dagger-compact categories present, or
rather expose, another terminological dilemma: what's an adjoint?

Although the notion of dagger-compact category (dcc) was originally
defined for symmetric monoidal categories, let's try to makes sense of
it without symmetry. In fact, this should work in a (linear)
bicategory or even a poly-bicategory.

- The dagger operation flips 2-cells vertically (in view of the
  picture calculus).  f^{\dagger} is called the
  ``adjoint'' of f, which matches the terminology of functional
  analysis and physics.  In case of a linear bicategory, the two 1-cell
  compositions \tensor for the domain 1-cells and \par for the
  codomain 1-cells get interchanged as well.

- The definition of a dcc also calls for ``duals'' A^* of 1-cells,
  which in graphical terms flips 1-cells horizontally.=20

- Finally, there are``units'' (or ``Bell states'' in physics terms)=20
  \eta_A: I_Y =3D=3D> A^*\tensor A, when A:X --> Y.

The axioms for a symmetric dcc turn the ``duals'' turn into
categorical adjoints with unit \eta_A and counit (\eta_A)^{\dagger}
(the ``adjoint'' of the unit).  This seems to require symmetry, but it
really does not.  The correct interpretation of A^* should be that of
a 2-sided (categorical) adjoint for A (linear adjoint in the case of
poly-bicategories), i.e., A^* -| A -| A^*.  Hence there are 2
categorical adjunctions and hence 2 units, besides \eta_A also
\eta_A^*: I_X =3D=3D> A\tensor A^*.  Without symmetry (\eta_A)^{\dagger}
cannot be the counit for the adjunction A^* -| A, but for the other
adjunction A -| A^*.  Unfortunately, the functional analysis
terminology would refer to the counit of the second adjunction as the
adjoint of the first adjunction's unit, which I find rather confusing.

This bicategorical view also clarifies that the star operation is an
involution on 1-cells, while dagger is an involution on 2-cells.
While the name ``{1,2}-involutive bicategory'' may be adequate,
``{1,2}-involutive monoidal category'' is quite a mouthful.

I seem to recall reading not too long ago that Kahn did _not_ pursue
an (often rumoured) analogy with functional analysis when introducing
(categorical) adjunctions, and here we see the actual mismatch.

-- J=FCrgen

--=20
Juergen Koslowski               If I don't see you no more on this world
ITI, TU Braunschweig               I'll meet you on the next one
koslowj@iti.cs.tu-bs.de               and don't be late!
http://www.iti.cs.tu-bs.de/~koslowj      Jimi Hendrix (Voodoo Child, SR)



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From: Peter Freyd <pjf@seas.upenn.edu>
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 17:12:31 -0500
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: the term "pushout"
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Peter Johnstone asks who coined  the term "pushout".

On page 156 of Abelian Categories I wrote (43 years ago!):

  The word "pullback" and the ubiquity of the concept I learned from
  Lang, who also pointed out the pullback theorem and its importance.
  I plead guilty to "pushout"...
            (www.tac.mta.ca/tac/reprints/articles/3/tr3abs.html)

MathSciNet lists Alex Heller's review of Abelian Categories as its
second oldest use of the term "pullback" and its oldest use of
"pushout". (Its first use of "pullback" is in Alex's review of John
Gray's 1962 paper "Category-valued sheaves" -- no the stalks were not
categoies.)

It was my impression that Serge Lang invented the term "pullback" (his
term for the dual notion was "co-pullback"). Note that I refrained
from stating this impression. But I do claim to have invented the term
"pushout" -- indeed, I've been know to cite this as my most visible
contribution to mathematics.



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Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:09:33 -0500
From: "Fred E.J.  Linton" <fejlinton@usa.net>
To:  <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Re: pullback ...
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Greetings!

As regards Peter <P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> Johnstone's query, =

 =

> ... does anyone out there know who invented the
> terms "pullback" and "pushout"? ...,

while I can't speak directly to the question of who invented those =

terms, I do recall that, in the late '50s already, fiber bundles =

were being "pulled back" along maps to their base spaces. And I can =

still hear the late Serge Lang, bless his soul, intoning "pooll-back" =

and "poosh-out" in his characeristic French accent, in Columbia =

courses and seminars from the late '50s and early '60s.

So the terms were pretty well established (and pull-back, anyway, =

pretty well motivated), at least at Columbia, that early.

Cheers,

-- Fred







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From: Lawrence Stout <lstout@iwu.edu>
Subject: categories: Re: monic epics
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 21:41:21 -0600
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The Goguen category of L-fuzzy sets on a lattice L (Objects are pairs
(A,\alpha) where \alpha:A\to L and morphisms are functions f:A\to B
such that \beta{f(a)) >= \alpha(a)) has all functions whose
underlying set function is an isomorphism both epic and monic, but
not, in general, isomorphisms, which must preserve the lattice valued
membership on the nose.  Since these monic, epic maps are the ones
which give the right subobjects to consider for fuzzy logic they are
of interest.  They do not determine a "folding" like the one you
describe.


On Mar 6, 2007, at 7:11 PM, David Karapetyan wrote:

>  So does every monic, epic arrow determine such a
> "folding" or are there monic, epics that can't be characterized in
> such
> a way?
>
>



Lawrence Stout
Professof of Mathematics
Illinois Wesleyan University





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From: Lawrence Stout <lstout@iwu.edu>
Subject: categories: re: dagger?
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I have a sneaking suspicion that dagger categories might be of
interest in some work I'm doing, but the term means absolutely
nothing to me.  Category with involution does have a meaning, which
is why I think they might be interesting.  Could someone please post
a definition of a dagger category and a reference for typical useful
examples?

For other examples of a notations promoted to the name of a concept:
K theory, L functions,  p matrices, H spaces (OK, that one is a bit
of a cheat, since it comes from the first letter of a name instead of
from the arbitrary choice of symbol), \lambda calculus.




Lawrence Stout
Professof of Mathematics
Illinois Wesleyan University





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Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:06:35 -0700
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Ah ... and do the larger dagger problems of a linear dagger bicategory=20
give a sword bicategory?
These little daggers are no match for this one!

-robin

Juergen Koslowski wrote:
>  In fact, this should work in a (linear)
> bicategory or even a poly-bicategory ...
>
>
> -- J=FCrgen
>
>  =20




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Category theory is too abstract for any such statement to be true (or even
make sense).  For example, in the category denoted . ---> . (with two
objects and one non-identity map), that map is monic and epic for want of
any test maps.  More concretely, the inclusion of Z into R is both in the
category of commtative rings.  In fact the following a characterization of
monic/epics in commutative rings is this: a subring R \inc S is epic
iff every element of of S can be written s = vAw where for some n, v is
an n-dimensional row vector, w is an n-dimensional column vector and A is
an n x n matrix of elements of S such that the entries of A, vA, and Aw
all belong to R.  In general, very little can be said about monic/epics.

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, David Karapetyan wrote:

> Hi, I've been trying to learn some category theory and I came upon the
> example of a monic, epic in the category of monoids given by the
> inclusion function of (N,0,+) into (Z,0,+). I know that in monoids every
> monic arrow is also an injective function but the inclusion function of
> N into Z provides a counterexample of every epic arrow being a
> surjective function. I noticed that N is just a "folded" version of Z,
> where by "folded" I mean take Z and throw away all the inverses of the
> natural numbers. So does every monic, epic arrow determine such a
> "folding" or are there monic, epics that can't be characterized in such
> a way?
>
>

-- 
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little
security will deserve neither and lose both.

            Benjamin Franklin



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From: Paul B Levy <P.B.Levy@cs.bham.ac.uk>
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Subject: categories: Re:  dagger vs involutive
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Oh dear, I think I might have recently increased the set of synonyms.

A couple of years ago, in conversation with Weng Kin Ho, I suggested the
following terminology.

Involutive category:

a category C, with a functor c : C^op --> C and an isomorphism alpha : c^2
--> id_C

Strictly involutive category:

a category C with a functor c : C^op --> C such that c^2 = id_C

Locally involutive category:

a category C with an identity-on-objects functor c : C^op --> C such that
c^2 = id_C.

Weng Kin used this terminology in his PhD thesis (pp 17-18)

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~wkh/papers/thesis.pdf

I wasn't aware of the other terminologies.

Paul




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Dear David,

There are more complicated examples. Here's one.

Take A to be the semigroup {0,a,b,c} in which x0=0x=0 for all x, aa=a,
cc=c, ab = bc = b, and all other products are 0. (This of this as being
derived from a category with two objects and three morphisms, so a and c
represent the two identities and b is a morphism between the two
objects. 0 takes care of products of non-composable pairs.)

Take B = A u {d}, with cd = da = d, bd=a, db=c and all other binary
products involving d give 0. (Think of adjoining an inverse to b in the
category.)

Now the inclusion A -> B is a semigroup epi. To see this, suppose f: A
-> C is a semigroup homomorphism, and x in C satisfies

    xf(a) = f(c)x = x
    f(b)x = f(a)
    xf(b) = f(c)

Then x is the unique such. For if x' is another then

    x' = x'f(a) = x'f(b)x = f(c)x = x

If g: B -> C is a semigroup homomorphism agreeing with f on A, then g(d)
does satisfy those equations for x, and so any two such g's must be equal.

This semigroup example can be easily turned into monoids by adjoining a
unit element.

There is still the same idea that B is got by adjoining inverses to
elements of A, but they are not inverses in the monoid sense and it is
not clear to me in general how one would formalize the idea that they
are inverses when embedded in some category.

There is a related epi in rings: the inclusion of upper triangular 2x2
matrices (over any ring) into all 2x2 matrices.

Regards,

Steve Vickers.


David Karapetyan wrote:
> Hi, I've been trying to learn some category theory and I came upon the
> example of a monic, epic in the category of monoids given by the
> inclusion function of (N,0,+) into (Z,0,+). I know that in monoids every
> monic arrow is also an injective function but the inclusion function of
> N into Z provides a counterexample of every epic arrow being a
> surjective function. I noticed that N is just a "folded" version of Z,
> where by "folded" I mean take Z and throw away all the inverses of the
> natural numbers. So does every monic, epic arrow determine such a
> "folding" or are there monic, epics that can't be characterized in such
> a way?
>
>




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Subject: categories: Re: monic epics
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> Yes.  Another common example of a morphism that is both a monomorphis and
> an
> epimorphism but not an isomorphism is the inclusion of the rational
> numbers
> into the real numbers in the category of topological spaces.

i understand that such arrows exist and i'm trying to get an intuitive feel
for why they are epic. one way i think of a surjective function is that it
is a map that entirely covers the codomain so any two function that agree
on all of the codomain must be the same. it is not the case with epic
arrows that they cover the entire codomain as set functions but that is i
think because most categories are much more structured than the category of
sets so it is enough to cover certain parts of the codomain and the rest of
the structure can be recovered. i think that is what happens with the
inclusion of the rationals into the reals because the reals are defined as
equivalence classes of sequences of rationals so if two functions agree on
the rationals and they are continuous then they automatically agree on the
reals.



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Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2007 20:44:58 -0800
From: John Baez <baez@math.ucr.edu>
To: categories <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: more dagger problems
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Juergen Koslowski wrote:

>This bicategorical view also clarifies that the star operation is an
>involution on 1-cells, while dagger is an involution on 2-cells.
>While the name ``{1,2}-involutive bicategory'' may be adequate,
>``{1,2}-involutive monoidal category'' is quite a mouthful.

I call them "monoidal categories with duals".  If you only have
your "star", I often call them "monoidal categories with duals
for objects".  If you only have your "dagger", I often call them
"monoidal categories with duals for morphisms".

They're a special case of a fascinating notion, "k-tuply monoidal
n-categories with duals", which so far only been precisely defined
for low values of n and k.  The "tangle hypothesis" proposes a nice
topological description of the free k-tuply monoidal n-category with
duals on one object.  Here are some places to read about this stuff:

John Baez and James Dolan, Higher-dimensional algebra and topological
quantum field theory, http://arxiv.org/abs/q-alg/9503002

John Baez and Laurel Langford, Higher-dimensional algebra IV: 2-Tangles,
http://arxiv.org/abs/math.QA/9811139

John Baez, Quantum computation and symmetric monoidal categories,
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2006/08/quantum_computation_and_symmet.html

One can also listen to lectures:

Eugenia Cheng, n-categories with duals and TQFT,
http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/audio/#crs-ncategories

The cases that have been precisely defined include:

n = 1, k = 0 categories with duals
n = 1, k = 1 monoidal categories with duals
n = 1, k = 2 braided monoidal categories with duals
n = 1, k = 3 symmetric monoidal categories with duals

n = 2, k = 0 weak 2-categories with duals
n = 2, k = 1 semistrict monoidal 2-categories with duals
n = 2, k = 2 semistrict braided monoidal 2-categories with duals

Here "weak 2-categories" means "bicategories" and "semistrict monoidal
2-categories" means "one-object Gray-categories".

For n = 1 we have up to 2 layers of duality (your "stars" and "daggers"),
while for n = 2 we have up to 3.

Best,
jb




From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Mar  7 19:30:47 2007 -0400
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Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 13:45:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: categories: Re: epic monics
From: Flinton@wesleyan.edu
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For David <dkarapetyan@ucdavis.edu> Karapetyan, who asked,

> ... the inclusion function of
> N into Z provides a counterexample [to] every epic arrow being a
> surjective function. I noticed that N is just a "folded" version of Z,
> where by "folded" I mean take Z and throw away all the inverses of the
> natural numbers. So does every monic, epic arrow determine such a
> "folding" or are there monic, epics that can't be characterized in such
> a way?

let me offer two further examples of monic epic arrows, not surjective
(and both pretty standard):

1) in Hausdorff topological spaces, the inclusion of the rationals
 in the reals;

2) in boolean rngs (i.e., units not required, and not necessarily
preserved when present) with countable intersections, and boolean
homomorphisms preserving those intersections, the inclusion of the
boolean rng of finite subsets of N in the whole power-set of N
(this is epic because boolean homomorphisms (between such boolean rngs)
that preserve countable intersections will also preserve whatever
countable joins may be available, and every subset of N is the join
of all its finite subsets).

Does your "folding" insight still stand up? Or must it be modified?

-- Fred Linton





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To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: Assoc. Professorship Opening
From: Lars Birkedal <birkedal@itu.dk>
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 20:31:08 +0100
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    Associate Professorship in
    Programming, Logic and Semantics at the
    IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The IT University of Copenhagen invites applications for a position as
Associate Professor in the Programming, Logic, and Semantics Group.
The position is available from August 2007.

The Programming, Logic and Semantics (PLS) group at the IT University of
Copenhagen conducts research in semantics of logics and programming
languages; models for concurrent, mobile and distributed systems; logical
frameworks, modular software verification; programming language
implementation techniques; program analysis; and programming language
technology for distributed and mobile applications, in particular for
context-aware mobile computing.

The successful candidate must document internationally recognized research
in the research areas of the PLS group. Moreover, the applicant should be
willing and able to teach in a wide variety of courses at all levels.

Please see
	http://www1.itu.dk/sw58262.asp

for the full official announcement.

Application deadline is April 16, 2007.

Best wishes,
Lars Birkedal




From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Mar  7 19:33:14 2007 -0400
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From: "Dr. Cyrus F Nourani" <projectm2@lycos.com>
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Subject: categories: Re: pullback ...
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:18:56 -0500 (EST)
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Hello, there might be references on a paper I had written with
<br>late Prof. Joseph Goguen U California and Oxford on that subject,
<br>UCLA 1978.
<br>When was that invented?
<br>Cyrus
<br>
<br><br><br><br><br><br><blockquote style='border-top: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0.8ex 0pt 0pt 0pt; padding-bottom: 1ex;'>
<br>---------[ Received Mail Content ]----------<br>
<br> <b>Subject : </b>categories: Re: pullback ...<br>
<br> <b>Date : </b>Tue, 06 Mar 2007 21:09:33 -0500<br>
<br> <b>From : </b>&quot;Fred E.J.  Linton&quot; &lt;fejlinton@usa.net&gt;<br>
<br> <b>To : </b>&lt;categories@mta.ca&gt;<br>
<br><br>
<br>Greetings!
<br><br>
<br><br>As regards Peter <P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> Johnstone's query,
<br><br>
<br><br>> ... does anyone out there know who invented the
<br><br>> terms "pullback" and "pushout"? ...,
<br><br>
<br><br>while I can't speak directly to the question of who invented those
<br><br>terms, I do recall that, in the late '50s already, fiber bundles
<br><br>were being "pulled back" along maps to their base spaces. And I can
<br><br>still hear the late Serge Lang, bless his soul, intoning "pooll-back"
<br><br>and "poosh-out" in his characeristic French accent, in Columbia
<br><br>courses and seminars from the late '50s and early '60s.
<br><br>
<br><br>So the terms were pretty well established (and pull-back, anyway,
<br><br>pretty well motivated), at least at Columbia, that early.
<br><br>
<br><br>Cheers,
<br><br>
<br><br>-- Fred




From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Mar  7 19:34:13 2007 -0400
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Steve Vickers wrote:
> Dear David,
>
> There are more complicated examples. Here's one.
>
> Take A to be the semigroup {0,a,b,c} in which x0=0x=0 for all x, aa=a,
> cc=c, ab = bc = b, and all other products are 0. (This of this as
> being derived from a category with two objects and three morphisms, so
> a and c represent the two identities and b is a morphism between the
> two objects. 0 takes care of products of non-composable pairs.)
>
> Take B = A u {d}, with cd = da = d, bd=a, db=c and all other binary
> products involving d give 0. (Think of adjoining an inverse to b in
> the category.)
>
> Now the inclusion A -> B is a semigroup epi. To see this, suppose f: A
> -> C is a semigroup homomorphism, and x in C satisfies
>
>    xf(a) = f(c)x = x
>    f(b)x = f(a)
>    xf(b) = f(c)
>
> Then x is the unique such. For if x' is another then
>
>    x' = x'f(a) = x'f(b)x = f(c)x = x
>
> If g: B -> C is a semigroup homomorphism agreeing with f on A, then
> g(d) does satisfy those equations for x, and so any two such g's must
> be equal.
>
> This semigroup example can be easily turned into monoids by adjoining
> a unit element.
>
> There is still the same idea that B is got by adjoining inverses to
> elements of A, but they are not inverses in the monoid sense and it is
> not clear to me in general how one would formalize the idea that they
> are inverses when embedded in some category.
>
> There is a related epi in rings: the inclusion of upper triangular 2x2
> matrices (over any ring) into all 2x2 matrices.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve Vickers.
>
i like the example of the semigroups. i think in some sense the addition
of d does not add enough information to our monoid so if we have two
semigroup homomorphisms that agree on A then by using the properties of
semigroup homomorphisms we are forced to define how they behave on d in
only one way. i'm still trying to incorporate the inclusion of the 2x2
upper triangular matrices into all 2x2 matrices and Michael Barr's
example into this framework.



From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Mar  7 19:35:23 2007 -0400
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From: David Karapetyan <dkarapetyan@ucdavis.edu>
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Michael Barr wrote:
> Category theory is too abstract for any such statement to be true (or
> even make sense).  For example, in the category denoted . ---> . (with
> two objects and one non-identity map), that map is monic and epic for
> want of any test maps.  More concretely, the inclusion of Z into R is
> both in the category of commtative rings.  In fact the following a
> characterization of monic/epics in commutative rings is this: a
> subring R \inc S is epic iff every element of of S can be written s =
> vAw where for some n, v is an n-dimensional row vector, w is an
> n-dimensional column vector and A is an n x n matrix of elements of S
> such that the entries of A, vA, and Aw all belong to R.  In general,
> very little can be said about monic/epics.
>
ok i got it. in all the examples given the subobjects given by the
monics are "generators" for the object, where by "generators" i mean the
elements of the subobject in some way determine the elements of the
bigger object. so how about this then: any time we have the situation
described above the monic arrow will also be epic.



From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar  8 17:01:59 2007 -0400
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From: "Charles Wells" <Charles@abstractmath.org>
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It seems to me that Isbell's notion of "dominions" are something like a
precise way of saying "a complete set of generators" for the case of
epimorphisms in Cat.  Look at "Epimorphisms and Dominions III" by John
Isbell, American Journal of Mathematics, 1968.  That paper has
references to earlier papers about the case for semigroups and other
categories.

Charles Wells

> ok i got it. in all the examples given the subobjects given by the
> monics are "generators" for the object, where by "generators" i mean the
> elements of the subobject in some way determine the elements of the
> bigger object. so how about this then: any time we have the situation
> described above the monic arrow will also be epic.
>
>
--
Charles Wells
abstract math website: http://www.abstractmath.org/MM//MMIntro.htm
professional website: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/math/wells/home.html
personal website:  http://www.abstractmath.org/Personal/index.html
genealogical website: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/e/l/Charles-Wells/
NE Ohio Sacred Harp website: http://www.abstractmath.org/fasola/index.html




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I just discovered the following paper through Google Scholar:

"On Functors which are lax epimorphisms" bu Jiri Adamek, Robert El
Bashir, Manuelas Sobral and Jiri Velebril, in Theory and Applications of
Categories, Vol. 8, No. 20, 2001, pp. 509=96521.

Charles Wells
--
Charles Wells
abstract math website: http://www.abstractmath.org/MM//MMIntro.htm
professional website: http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/math/wells/home.html
personal website:  http://www.abstractmath.org/Personal/index.html
genealogical website: http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/e/l/Char=
les-Wells/
NE Ohio Sacred Harp website: http://www.abstractmath.org/fasola/index.html




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Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 12:31:00 -0500 (EST)
Subject: categories: Final Announcement-Traces Workshop
From: rblute@uottawa.ca
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This is a final announcement for A Field's Institute Sponsored Workshop,
entitled:

             Applications of traces to algebra, analysis and
                              categorical logic

to be held at the University of Ottawa from April 28-30, 2007. It will be
hosted by the Ottawa Logic and Foundations of Computing Group. The local
organizers are Rick Blute, Pieter Hofstra and Phil Scott. A description of
the purpose of the conference is below, and can be found on the conference
website  http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~scpsg/Fields07/workshop.html .

The conference will begin with tutorials, including a minicourse on traced
monoidal categories, and an introduction to various notions of trace in
functional analysis. We will have the following invited speakers:

Samson Abramsky  (Oxford)
Robin Cockett (Calgary)
Andre Joyal (UQAM)
Louis Kauffman (Illinois)
Claus Koestler (Carleton)
Paul-Andre Mellies (Paris7)
Matthias Neufang (Carleton)
Timothy Porter (Bangor)

as well as contributed talks from various researchers, including

Rick Blute (Ottawa)
Greg Meredith (Oxford)
Prakash Panangaden (McGill)
Eric Paquette (U.Montreal)
Tarmo Uustalu (Tallinn University of Technology)

We note the following new information:

1) We have room for a few more contributed talks. Anyone interested
should contact the organizers.

2) We have a very small number of rooms on campus still available. These
are in the university dorms, but are suites, rather than typical rooms.
They are 80 dollars per night, and hold either one or two people.
Anyone interested should contact Rick Blute immediately.

3) We ask that anyone attending please notify us by April 10th, so we
may order food.

Rick Blute,  613-562-5800, ext. 3535 (rblute@mathstat.uottawa)
Pieter Hofstra, 613-562-5800, ext. 3494 (phofstra@uottawa.ca)
Philip Scott,   613-562-5800, ext. 3502 (phil@site.uottawa.ca)






From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar  8 17:01:59 2007 -0400
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Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 15:15:57 +0000 (GMT)
From: John Stell <jgs@comp.leeds.ac.uk>
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: relations on graphs
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For a set, X, relations on X are equivalent to
join-preserving functions on the powerset P(X).

If we replace X by a graph, the usual notion
of a relation on a graph is  a pair of relations
one on edges and one on nodes subject to an
obvious compatibility condition. However such
relations are not as general as the join-preserving
functions on the bi-Heyting algebra of subgraphs
(consider for example the one node, one edge graph).
If we mean relations in this more general sense
could there be a notion of converse? (anything
for which R** = R, and 1* = 1, and (RS)* = S*R*)

Is there any literature which discusses different
possible notions for relations on graphs?

John Stell



From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar  8 17:02:00 2007 -0400
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Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:37:29 -0500
From: michaeln.gurski@yale.edu
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: Tricategories
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Dear colleagues -
After taking far too long, I have made a modified version of my thesis entitled
"An algebraic theory of tricategories" available at
www.math.yale.edu/~mg622/tricats.pdf.  If you have questions, comments, find
more typos, or anything of that sort, I encourage you to write to me at
michaeln.gurski@yale.edu.  Thanks to everyone who bugged me about making this
available, and thanks for being patient.
Nick Gurski



From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Mar  9 09:17:46 2007 -0400
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Subject: categories: Re: dagger?
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 23:31:45 -0400 (AST)
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Lawrence Stout wrote:
>
> Could someone please post a definition of a dagger category and a
> reference for typical useful examples?

For reference: an involutive category (or dagger category) is a
category C equipped with a contravariant, involutive,
identity-on-objects functor "+" (my ASCII rendition of the TeX symbol
$\dagger$).

The main reason to consider dagger structure is that it allows the
following definitions (and other similar ones):

* a morphism f:A->B is _unitary_ if f is invertible and f^{-1} = f^+

* a morphism f:A->A is _hermitian_ if f = f^+.

* a morphism f:A->A is _hermitian positive_ if there exists some
  object B and g:A->B such that f = g^+ o g.

* a morphism f:A->B is called an _isometry_ if f^+ o f = id.
  ("Isometry" is to "unitary" like "mono" to "iso").

The main example is the category of finite-dimensional Hilbert
spaces. In it, for a map f : A -> B, the map f^+ : B -> A is given as
the adjoint of f (in the linear-algebra sense). Note that the
definition of the adjoint requires inner products, hence *Hilbert* and
not just vector spaces.

The category of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces is additionally
compact closed, so that for a morphism f : A -> B, we also have
f^* : B^* -> A^*.  While the functor (-)^* is also contravariant and
involutive, it is not to be confused with the dagger structure. A^* is
the dual space, which is not naturally isomorphic to A. Also, relative
to chosen bases, the matrix of f^* is the transpose of that of f,
whereas the matrix of f^+ is the adjoint (complex conjugate transpose).

Dagger compact closed categories were axiomatized by Abramsky and
Coecke [LICS 2004], and also by Baez and Dolan [ArXiV:q-alg/9503002,
1995].  One requires the following compatibilities between the two
structures:

* (f tensor g)^+ = f^+ tensor g^+,
* the structural natural isomorphisms (associativity, symmetry, etc)
  are unitary,
* the maps I -> (A^* tensor A) and (A^* tensor A) -> I are each
  other's adjoints.

As Abramsky and Coecke have shown, many interesting constructions from
Hilbert spaces can be done in a dagger compact closed category.

Another example of a dagger compact closed category is the category of
sets and relations, but it is degenerate, in the sense that A^* = A
and f^* = f^+.

-- Peter



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Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 10:01:41 +0000
From: "Jamie Vicary" <jamie.vicary@imperial.ac.uk>
Subject: categories: Re: relations on graphs
To: categories@mta.ca
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> Is there any literature which discusses different
> possible notions for relations on graphs?

In any regular category, and certainly any topos, there is a well
defined notion of relation, where a relation between two objects is a
subobject of their product. These admit a * operation and compose in a
well-behaved way; look towards the end of McLarty's category theory
textbook for info on this.

The category of directed graphs is certainly such a category, being
regular. The category of graphs is not a topos, I believe, but might
still be regular.

          Jamie Vicary.



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Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:02:23 -0800
From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt@cs.stanford.edu>
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> The category of directed graphs is certainly such a category, being
> regular. The category of graphs is not a topos, I believe, but might
> still be regular.

Suitably defined the category of undirected graphs is indeed a topos.
As came up a year ago on this list (thread beginning with my 2/27/06
inquiry about the history of the presheaf category of undirected
graphs), undirected or symmetric graphs can be defined as M-sets for the
monoid M = Set(2,2), endomorphisms of the doubleton in Set, aka the four
unary Boolean operations.  Of the latter, x and not-x together denote
the two directions of edge x while 0(x) and 1(x) denote its two vertices
(as self-loops).

One might imagine some sort of asymmetry between x and not-x that makes
x the primary direction, but x and not-x always travel together as a
group (quite literally: S_2) under graph homomorphism and their
inseparability justifies the view of the two as forming a single
undirected edge having two directed names, x and not-x.

The singleton splits 0 and 1 to make those self-loops vertices in their
own right, so by Morita equivalence the full subcategory of Set with
objects the positive cardinals up to 2 canonically represents the same
presheaf category up to equivalence.

Dusko Pavlovic, "A categorical setting for the 4-color theorem," JPAA
102, 1, 75--88 (1995), organizes undirected graphs as the above topos.
Section 10.3 (pp. 176--180) of Lawvere and Rosebrugh, Sets for
Mathematics, CUP 2003, develops this topos in more detail, pointing out
the two distinguished loops, an idiosyncrasy of this representation of
undirected graphs.

All this lifts readily to the topos of higher dimensional graphs:
simplicial sets in the directed case, symmetric simplicial sets in the
undirected.  Marco Grandis, in Finite sets and symmetric simplicial
sets, Theory Appl. Categ. 8 (2001), No. 8, 244-252, identified the
presheaves on FinSet with the undirected or symmetric simplicial sets,
which as Clemens Berger pointed out had been encountered much earlier in
another guise by Daniel Kan (Amer. J. Math. 79 (1957) 449-476 as the
barycentric subdivision of a simplicial set.

Vaughan


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From: "Ronnie Brown" <ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com>
To: 	<categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Re: relations on graphs
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 17:49:27 -0000
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Jamie Vicary states `the category of graphs is not a topos'. The situation
is not so simple, and is discussed for the combinatorially minded reader in
06.04 BROWN, R., MORRIS, I., SHRIMPTON, J. & WENSLEY, C.D.
Graphs of morphisms of graphs
http://www.informatics.bangor.ac.uk/public/mathematics/research/preprints/06/cathom06.html#06.04
There are categories of undirected graphs which are not toposes. But ...

Ronnie Brown

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jamie Vicary" <jamie.vicary@imperial.ac.uk>
To: <categories@mta.ca>
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 10:01 AM
Subject: categories: Re: relations on graphs


>> Is there any literature which discusses different
>> possible notions for relations on graphs?
>
> In any regular category, and certainly any topos, there is a well
> defined notion of relation, where a relation between two objects is a
> subobject of their product. These admit a * operation and compose in a
> well-behaved way; look towards the end of McLarty's category theory
> textbook for info on this.
>
> The category of directed graphs is certainly such a category, being
> regular. The category of graphs is not a topos, I believe, but might
> still be regular.
>
>          Jamie Vicary.
>


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From: "Jamie Vicary" <jamie.vicary@imperial.ac.uk>
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: Re: relations on graphs
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On 3/9/07, Jamie Vicary <jamie.vicary@imperial.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Is there any literature which discusses different
> > possible notions for relations on graphs?
>
> In any regular category, and certainly any topos, there is a well
> defined notion of relation, where a relation between two objects is a
> subobject of their product. These admit a * operation and compose in a
> well-behaved way; look towards the end of McLarty's category theory
> textbook for info on this.
>
> The category of directed graphs is certainly such a category, being
> regular. The category of graphs is not a topos, I believe, but might
> still be regular.

Dear all, before the flood of complaints begins: I should make it
clear that I am differentiating between the category of directed
graphs, which is certainly a topos, and the category of graphs (i.e.
edges have no orientation) which, as I have just managed to convince
myself, is certainly _not_ a topos.

The original poster was enquiring about the category of graphs, I
believe, rather than the category of directed graphs.

            JAmie.



From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Mar  9 16:56:00 2007 -0400
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From: Thomas Streicher <streicher@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de>
Subject: categories: relations on graphs
To: categories@mta.ca
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If one allows multiple edges with the same source and target then
they certainly form a topos, namely that of presheaves over the
category with 2 objects and 2 parallel nontrivial arrows.
The \neg\neg-separated objects in this topos are precisely those
graphs where there is at most one edge from one node to another one.
The latter category is not a topos but a quasitopos.
The non-full monos in this category are typical examples of
epic monos which are not isos.

All this can be found in Lawvere's "Qualitative distinctions between
toposes of graphs".

Thomas Streicher



From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Mar  9 20:08:33 2007 -0400
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Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 22:40:46 +0000 (GMT)
From: Richard Garner <rhgg2@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
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Subject: categories: Re: relations on graphs
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While we're on the topic of directed graphs, can
anyone provide a satisfactory conceptual
explanation for the following curiosity?

Let Ar(Set) be the arrow category of Set, and let
DGph be directed multigraphs, i.e., presheaves over
the parallel pair category as per Thomas' message.

Prop: DGph is comonadic over Ar(Set)

Proof: We have an adjunction U -| C as follows.

U: DGph -> Ar(Set) sends a directed graph
s, t : A -> V to the coproduct injection V -> V + A.

C: Ar(Set) -> DGph sends an arrow f : X -> Y to the
directed graph \pi_1, \pi_2 : X*X*Y -> X.

It's easy to check that this is an adjunction, and
so we induce a comonad T = UC on Ar(Set), the
functor part of which sends f: X --> Y to the
coproduct injection X --> X + X*X*Y. Thus a
coalgebra structure f --> Tf consists of specifying
a map p: Y --> X + X*X*Y satisfying three axioms.

These axioms force f: X --> Y to be an injection,
and the map p to be defined by cases: those y in Y
which lie in the image of f are sent to f^-1(y) in
the left-hand copy of X, whilst those y in Y that
are not in X are sent to some element (s(y), t(y),
y) of X*X*Y. Thus giving a T-coalgebra structure on
f:X --> Y is equivalent to giving a directed graph
structure s, t : Y \setminus f(X) --> X: and this
assignation extends to a functor T-Coalg --> DGph
which together with the canonical comparison
functor DGph --> T-Coalg gives us an equivalence of
categories, Q.E.D.

--

Richard Garner

--On 09 March 2007 20:10 Thomas Streicher wrote:

> If one allows multiple edges with the same source and target then
> they certainly form a topos, namely that of presheaves over the
> category with 2 objects and 2 parallel nontrivial arrows.
> The \neg\neg-separated objects in this topos are precisely those
> graphs where there is at most one edge from one node to another one.
> The latter category is not a topos but a quasitopos.
> The non-full monos in this category are typical examples of
> epic monos which are not isos.
>
> All this can be found in Lawvere's "Qualitative distinctions between
> toposes of graphs".
>
> Thomas Streicher
>
>
>



From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Mar  9 20:08:33 2007 -0400
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Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2007 14:22:47 -0800
From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt@cs.stanford.edu>
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Subject: categories: Early CT problems that are still open
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What early problems in category theory remain open today?  Who first
posed them, and when and where?

Context: In December the Journal of the AMS rejected the solution of the
half-century-old lattice theory problem of whether the congruence
lattices of lattices are exactly the distributive algebraic lattices.
Since these two classes coincide for all algebraic lattices with up to
aleph_1 compact generators [Huhn 1989], one would imagine that surely
the equivalence must extend to all cardinalities.  Fred Wehrung recently
showed it doesn't, refined by Pavel Ruzicka to show that they diverge
exactly at aleph_2.  For two such naturally defined classes it's very
unusual to first diverge at such a high cardinal.  (For elementary
classes it's impossible: if they're still together at aleph_0 they're
the same.)

Now JAMS doesn't ordinarily cater to either lattice theory or category
theory.  Yet its mission statement declares JAMS to be "devoted to ...
all areas of pure and applied mathematics."  The general feeling among
lattice theorists is that, whatever JAMS might think of those areas it
is unaccustomed to serving, rejecting the solution to so celebrated an
open problem is beyond the pale given their mission statement.  There is
no likelihood of their being overwhelmed with such so space can't be a
reason.  More on this at http://clp.stanford.edu .

My interest here in early open CT problems is to get a sense of how
comparable CT's situation is with lattice theory's.  On the one hand it
might seem insane for either category theorists or lattice theorists to
bother the JAMS audience if they're not interested.  On the other, if
it's a really neat result then why hide it under a bushel?  The
mathematical community at large ought to be sufficiently open-minded as
to appreciate such an achievement.  If a category theorist were to
publish the solution to a long-standing CT problem in JAMS, it would
reflect well on CT, and it would lend support to JAMS's mission statement.

Vaughan



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From: "Prof. Peter Johnstone" <P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk>
To: Categories mailing list <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: further on Garner's question
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A further attempt to provide a general context for Richard's
observation: let f: C --> D be a functor between small
categories having a right multi-adjoint in the sense of Diers,
i.e. such that, for each object b of D, the comma category
(f \downarrow b) is a disjoint union of categories with
terminal objects. (Note that this is always the case when
C is discrete, as in the example considered by Richard, since
then the (f \downarrow b) are also discrete.) Then the left
Kan extension functor
f_!: [C,Set] --> [D,Set] can be constructed using only
coproducts rather than more general colimits, from which it
follows easily that it is faithful and preserves equalizers.
Hence it is comonadic. (I suspect that this may be a
necessary as well as a sufficient condition for comonadicity
of f_!, but I don't yet have a proof.)

Incidentally, note that if C and D are any two categories with
the same set of objects, we can construct a comonadic
adjunction (in either direction) between [C,Set] and [D,Set],
by `interposing' the discrete category with the same objects, in the
manner of Richard's example. Indeed, we don't even need the
categories to have the same objects: all we need is to find a
set which surjects onto both ob C and ob D.

Peter Johnstone

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Prof. Peter Johnstone wrote:

> Here's at least a partial conceptual explanation of
> Richard Garner's "curiosity". There are really three
> categories involved, all of them toposes: they are
> the functor categories [2,Set] where 2 denotes the
> discrete two-object category, [I,Set] where I denotes the
> category (* --> *) and [G,Set] where G has two objects and
> two parallel arrows between them. The inclusions
> f: 2 --> I and g: 2 --> G of course induce essential
> geometric morphisms (strings of three adjoint functors)
>
>           f           g
> [I,Set] <--- [2,Set] ---> [G,Set]
>
> and Richard's functors are simply the composites
> g_*f^* and f_!g^*. So it's no surprise that they
> should be adjoint: also, the adjunction (g^* -| g_*)
> is comonadic, because g is surjective on objects.
> The only oddity is that (f_! -| f^*) is also
> comonadic (it's obviously monadic, again because f
> is surjective on objects). As far as I can see, this is
> just an isolated fact: it isn't a particular case of any
> general result that I know.
>
> Peter Johnstone
>
> On Fri, 9 Mar 2007, Richard Garner wrote:
>
> >
> > While we're on the topic of directed graphs, can
> > anyone provide a satisfactory conceptual
> > explanation for the following curiosity?
> >
> > Let Ar(Set) be the arrow category of Set, and let
> > DGph be directed multigraphs, i.e., presheaves over
> > the parallel pair category as per Thomas' message.
> >
> > Prop: DGph is comonadic over Ar(Set)
> >
> > Proof: We have an adjunction U -| C as follows.
> >
> > U: DGph -> Ar(Set) sends a directed graph
> > s, t : A -> V to the coproduct injection V -> V + A.
> >
> > C: Ar(Set) -> DGph sends an arrow f : X -> Y to the
> > directed graph \pi_1, \pi_2 : X*X*Y -> X.
> >
> > It's easy to check that this is an adjunction, and
> > so we induce a comonad T = UC on Ar(Set), the
> > functor part of which sends f: X --> Y to the
> > coproduct injection X --> X + X*X*Y. Thus a
> > coalgebra structure f --> Tf consists of specifying
> > a map p: Y --> X + X*X*Y satisfying three axioms.
> >
> > These axioms force f: X --> Y to be an injection,
> > and the map p to be defined by cases: those y in Y
> > which lie in the image of f are sent to f^-1(y) in
> > the left-hand copy of X, whilst those y in Y that
> > are not in X are sent to some element (s(y), t(y),
> > y) of X*X*Y. Thus giving a T-coalgebra structure on
> > f:X --> Y is equivalent to giving a directed graph
> > structure s, t : Y \setminus f(X) --> X: and this
> > assignation extends to a functor T-Coalg --> DGph
> > which together with the canonical comparison
> > functor DGph --> T-Coalg gives us an equivalence of
> > categories, Q.E.D.
> >
> > --
> >
> > Richard Garner
>



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Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 11:49:41 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Prof. Peter Johnstone" <P.T.Johnstone@dpmms.cam.ac.uk>
To: Categories mailing list <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Re: Garner's question
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Here's at least a partial conceptual explanation of
Richard Garner's "curiosity". There are really three
categories involved, all of them toposes: they are
the functor categories [2,Set] where 2 denotes the
discrete two-object category, [I,Set] where I denotes the
category (* --> *) and [G,Set] where G has two objects and
two parallel arrows between them. The inclusions
f: 2 --> I and g: 2 --> G of course induce essential
geometric morphisms (strings of three adjoint functors)

          f           g
[I,Set] <--- [2,Set] ---> [G,Set]

and Richard's functors are simply the composites
g_*f^* and f_!g^*. So it's no surprise that they
should be adjoint: also, the adjunction (g^* -| g_*)
is comonadic, because g is surjective on objects.
The only oddity is that (f_! -| f^*) is also
comonadic (it's obviously monadic, again because f
is surjective on objects). As far as I can see, this is
just an isolated fact: it isn't a particular case of any
general result that I know.

Peter Johnstone

On Fri, 9 Mar 2007, Richard Garner wrote:

>
> While we're on the topic of directed graphs, can
> anyone provide a satisfactory conceptual
> explanation for the following curiosity?
>
> Let Ar(Set) be the arrow category of Set, and let
> DGph be directed multigraphs, i.e., presheaves over
> the parallel pair category as per Thomas' message.
>
> Prop: DGph is comonadic over Ar(Set)
>
> Proof: We have an adjunction U -| C as follows.
>
> U: DGph -> Ar(Set) sends a directed graph
> s, t : A -> V to the coproduct injection V -> V + A.
>
> C: Ar(Set) -> DGph sends an arrow f : X -> Y to the
> directed graph \pi_1, \pi_2 : X*X*Y -> X.
>
> It's easy to check that this is an adjunction, and
> so we induce a comonad T = UC on Ar(Set), the
> functor part of which sends f: X --> Y to the
> coproduct injection X --> X + X*X*Y. Thus a
> coalgebra structure f --> Tf consists of specifying
> a map p: Y --> X + X*X*Y satisfying three axioms.
>
> These axioms force f: X --> Y to be an injection,
> and the map p to be defined by cases: those y in Y
> which lie in the image of f are sent to f^-1(y) in
> the left-hand copy of X, whilst those y in Y that
> are not in X are sent to some element (s(y), t(y),
> y) of X*X*Y. Thus giving a T-coalgebra structure on
> f:X --> Y is equivalent to giving a directed graph
> structure s, t : Y \setminus f(X) --> X: and this
> assignation extends to a functor T-Coalg --> DGph
> which together with the canonical comparison
> functor DGph --> T-Coalg gives us an equivalence of
> categories, Q.E.D.
>
> --
>
> Richard Garner



From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Mar 10 14:34:44 2007 -0400
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From: Pierre-Louis Curien <Pierre-Louis.Curien@pps.jussieu.fr>
Subject: categories: Position announcement in Paris 7 University
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 11:49:45 +0100
To: types-announce@lists.seas.upenn.edu, categories@mta.ca
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Following a preannouncement posted last October,


> A  position of Maitre de Conferences (permanent position, more or less
> equivalent to "associate professor", or "lecturer")
>
> ** in mathematics**
>
> is opened at Paris 7 University.
> The hired candidate will work in the laboratory   PPS (Preuves,
> Programmes et Systemes), which spreads its interests on both sides of
> the correspondence between proofs and programs, covering work on
> language design and implementation, rewriting, semantics (and game
> semantics in particular), categories, linear logic, realizability,
> probabilistic  and topological methods, etc...  See =20
> www.pps.jussieu.fr.
>
> Th deadline for application is

** March 31  (see more specific info in French below) **,

> with decisions taken
> around May 2007, and job starting in October 2007.

The applicant must have gone through the qualification procedure (cf. =20=

preannouncement).

> A certain fluency in French is required for the position. The teaching
> will be in the mathematics department, so some experience in teaching
> mathematics (rather than computer science) is welcome.  Teaching is in
> French.
>
> I invite candidates to contact me.
> Best regards,
>
> Pierre=3DLouis Curien
>
> curien@pps.jussieu.fr
>

****  More practical info (in French) ****

Ma=EEtres de conf=E9rences

25=E8 section :
Universit=E9 Paris-VII : math=E9matiques des preuves et des programmes : =
=20
0648.

POUR ACCEDER AU TEXTE INTEGRAL DU J.O. par internet :
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr

Arr=EAt=E9 du 16 f=E9vrier 2007 portant d=E9claration de vacance =
d'emplois de =20
professeur des universit=E9s offerts =E0 la mutation, au d=E9tachement =
et, =20
en application du 1=B0 de l'article 46 du d=E9cret n=B0 84-431 du 6 juin =
=20
1984 modifi=E9, au recrutement (1re session 2007)
NOR: MENH0700337A

Arr=EAt=E9 du 16 f=E9vrier 2007 portant d=E9claration de vacance =
d'emplois de =20
ma=EEtre de conf=E9rences offerts =E0 la mutation, au d=E9tachement et, =
en =20
application du 1=B0 de l'article 26-I du d=E9cret n=B0 84-431 du 6 juin =20=

1984 modifi=E9, au recrutement (1re session 2007)
NOR: MENH0700341A

Cl=F4ture des inscriptions dans l'application ANTARES : le 30 mars 2007 =20=

=E0 16h heure de Paris (et non pas le 27 mars comme indiqu=E9 par erreur =
=20
aux articles 8 et 13 de l'arr=EAt=E9 relatif aux professeurs)
http://www.education.gouv.fr rubrique =AB Concours, emplois, carri=E8res =
=20
=BB puis =AB Personnel enseignant du sup=E9rieur et chercheurs =BB puis =
=AB les =20
enseignants-chercheurs =BB
Le dossier papier devra =EAtre envoy=E9 au plus tard le 30 mars =E0 =
minuit =20
(cachet de la poste faisant foi) au service du personnel de =20
l'=E9tablissement affectataire de l'emploi.




From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Mar 12 15:14:43 2007 -0300
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Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:38:43 +0100 (CET)
From: Lutz Strassburger <lutz@lix.polytechnique.fr>
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: Post Doc Position in Paris
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--------------------------------------------------------
  Postdoc Positions on Proof Theory in Paris
--------------------------------------------------------

I am pleased to announce the opening of a postdoc position
which is financed by the ANR within the project INFER
<http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~lutz/orgs/infer.html>

This project is a grouping of three teams through their common
interest for a new approach to proof theory, called deep inference,
that has been developed during the last seven years. We aim at
refining its enormous potential and at applying it to problems related
to the foundations of logic and to more practical questions in the
algorithmics of deductive systems.

The working place of the postdoc will be in the suburbs of Paris at
the Ecole Polytechnique which is one of the "Grand Ecoles" in the
French education system.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. or equivalent in computer science or
mathematics, and should have a strong background in proof theory
and/or related topics. The principal responsibility of the postdoc
will be to carry out research in the area of deep inference. There are
no teaching duties.

For more information, please contact:
    Lutz Strassburger <lutz@lix.polytechnique.fr>

Applications should be sent via email to Lutz Strassburger
<lutz@lix.polytechnique.fr>, and should include a CV, a short research
proposal (1-2 pages), and one or two recommendation letters. The
position is open now, and applications are considered until the
position is filled.

Furthermore, I'd like to draw the attention to an INRIA postdoc offer
on a related topic:
http://www.talentsplace.com/syndication1/inria/ukpostdoc/details.html?id=PNGFK026203F3VBQB6G68LOE1&LOV5=4508&LOV2=4493&LOV6=4514&LG=EN&Resultsperpage=20&nPostingID=1124&nPostingTargetID=3132&option=52&sort=DESC&nDepartmentID=19

For this applications have to made online via the INRIA
webpage (deadline 31 March). Nonetheless, potential applicants
should contact me via email.

Best regards,
Lutz Strassburger



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Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:23:16 +0000 (GMT)
From: Richard Garner <rhgg2@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
To: Categories mailing list <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Re: further on Garner's question
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Very interesting! I was aware that one could
construct such comonadic adjunctions in a limited
variety of other cases, but that one can do so for
essentially any pair of presheaf categories is (at
least to me) a little surprising.

Of course, even in the case where C and D have the
same objects, there is nothing "canonical" about
the comonadic adjunction [C, Set] -| [D, Set] which
we construct in the way Peter has indicated, since
we have first to choose a bijection between the
objects of C and the objects of D.


Richard Garner

--On 10 March 2007 15:58 Prof. Peter Johnstone wrote:

> A further attempt to provide a general context for Richard's
> observation: let f: C --> D be a functor between small
> categories having a right multi-adjoint in the sense of Diers,
> i.e. such that, for each object b of D, the comma category
> (f \downarrow b) is a disjoint union of categories with
> terminal objects. (Note that this is always the case when
> C is discrete, as in the example considered by Richard, since
> then the (f \downarrow b) are also discrete.) Then the left
> Kan extension functor
> f_!: [C,Set] --> [D,Set] can be constructed using only
> coproducts rather than more general colimits, from which it
> follows easily that it is faithful and preserves equalizers.
> Hence it is comonadic. (I suspect that this may be a
> necessary as well as a sufficient condition for comonadicity
> of f_!, but I don't yet have a proof.)
>
> Incidentally, note that if C and D are any two categories with
> the same set of objects, we can construct a comonadic
> adjunction (in either direction) between [C,Set] and [D,Set],
> by `interposing' the discrete category with the same objects, in the
> manner of Richard's example. Indeed, we don't even need the
> categories to have the same objects: all we need is to find a
> set which surjects onto both ob C and ob D.
>
> Peter Johnstone
>
> On Sat, 10 Mar 2007, Prof. Peter Johnstone wrote:
>
>> Here's at least a partial conceptual explanation of
>> Richard Garner's "curiosity". There are really three
>> categories involved, all of them toposes: they are
>> the functor categories [2,Set] where 2 denotes the
>> discrete two-object category, [I,Set] where I denotes the
>> category (* --> *) and [G,Set] where G has two objects and
>> two parallel arrows between them. The inclusions
>> f: 2 --> I and g: 2 --> G of course induce essential
>> geometric morphisms (strings of three adjoint functors)
>>
>>           f           g
>> [I,Set] <--- [2,Set] ---> [G,Set]
>>
>> and Richard's functors are simply the composites
>> g_*f^* and f_!g^*. So it's no surprise that they
>> should be adjoint: also, the adjunction (g^* -| g_*)
>> is comonadic, because g is surjective on objects.
>> The only oddity is that (f_! -| f^*) is also
>> comonadic (it's obviously monadic, again because f
>> is surjective on objects). As far as I can see, this is
>> just an isolated fact: it isn't a particular case of any
>> general result that I know.
>>
>> Peter Johnstone
>>
>> On Fri, 9 Mar 2007, Richard Garner wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> While we're on the topic of directed graphs, can
>>> anyone provide a satisfactory conceptual
>>> explanation for the following curiosity?
>>>
>>> Let Ar(Set) be the arrow category of Set, and let
>>> DGph be directed multigraphs, i.e., presheaves over
>>> the parallel pair category as per Thomas' message.
>>>
>>> Prop: DGph is comonadic over Ar(Set)
>>>
>>> Proof: We have an adjunction U -| C as follows.
>>>
>>> U: DGph -> Ar(Set) sends a directed graph
>>> s, t : A -> V to the coproduct injection V -> V + A.
>>>
>>> C: Ar(Set) -> DGph sends an arrow f : X -> Y to the
>>> directed graph \pi_1, \pi_2 : X*X*Y -> X.
>>>
>>> It's easy to check that this is an adjunction, and
>>> so we induce a comonad T = UC on Ar(Set), the
>>> functor part of which sends f: X --> Y to the
>>> coproduct injection X --> X + X*X*Y. Thus a
>>> coalgebra structure f --> Tf consists of specifying
>>> a map p: Y --> X + X*X*Y satisfying three axioms.
>>>
>>> These axioms force f: X --> Y to be an injection,
>>> and the map p to be defined by cases: those y in Y
>>> which lie in the image of f are sent to f^-1(y) in
>>> the left-hand copy of X, whilst those y in Y that
>>> are not in X are sent to some element (s(y), t(y),
>>> y) of X*X*Y. Thus giving a T-coalgebra structure on
>>> f:X --> Y is equivalent to giving a directed graph
>>> structure s, t : Y \setminus f(X) --> X: and this
>>> assignation extends to a functor T-Coalg --> DGph
>>> which together with the canonical comparison
>>> functor DGph --> T-Coalg gives us an equivalence of
>>> categories, Q.E.D.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Richard Garner
>>
>
>
>



From rrosebru@mta.ca Mon Mar 12 17:51:22 2007 -0300
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From: Michael Mislove <mwm@math.tulane.edu>
Subject: categories: MFPS 23 Call for Participation
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:41:04 -0500
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Dear Colleagues,
   This is a Call for Participation for the 23rd Conference on the
Mathematical Foundations of Programming Semantics. The meeting will
take place on the campus of Tulane University in New Orleans, LA from
April 11 through April 14.
   The meeting will include invited lectures by Stephen Brookes
(CMU), Jane Hillston (Edinburgh), John Mitchell (Stanford), Gordon
Plotkin (Edinburgh) and John Power (Edinburgh). In addition there
will be a special session honoring Gordon Plotkin on the 60th
birthday, as well as special sessions on Security, on Systems Biology
and on Physics, Information and Computation. The balance of the
program is made up of papers submitted in response to the Call for
Papers that was circulated last fall. A copy of the full program is
available at http://www.math.tulane.edu/~mfps/program23.htm
   In addition to the conference, there will be a Tutorial Day on
Domain Theory on April 10, with lectures by Achim Jung (Birmingham),
Alex Simpson (Edinburgh), Andrej Bauer (Slovenia) and Giuseppe
Rosolini (Genoa).
   To find out more about the meeting and to register, point your
browser at http://www.math.tulane.edu/~mfps/mfps23.htm The deadline
for booking a room at the conference hotel is this Friday, March 16.
   Best regards,
   Mike Mislove

===============================================
Professor Michael Mislove        Phone: +1 504 862-3441
Department of Mathematics      FAX:     +1 504 865-5063
Tulane University       URL: http://www.math.tulane.edu/~mwm
New Orleans, LA 70118 USA
===============================================





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Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:14:43 -0400
From: Jacques Carette <carette@mcmaster.ca>
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Subject: categories: Programming Languages and Mechanized Mathematics Workshop
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[This might be of interest to the members of this list, as many=20
approaches to both programming language semantics and of mechanizing=20
mathematics are deeply categorical].


  Programming Languages for Mechanized Mathematics Workshop

As part of Calculemus 2007=20
<http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/about/conferences/Calculemus2007/>

Hagenberg, Austria

[http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/plmms07/]

The intent of this workshop is to examine more closely the intersection=20
between programming languages and mechanized mathematics systems (MMS).=20
By MMS, we understand computer algebra systems (CAS), [automated]=20
theorem provers (TP/ATP), all heading towards the development of fully=20
unified systems (the MMS), sometimes also called universal mathematical=20
assistant systems (MAS) (see Calculemus 2007=20
<http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/about/conferences/Calculemus2007/>).

There are various ways in which these two subjects of /programming=20
languages/ and /systems for mathematics/ meet:

    * Many systems for mathematics contain a dedicated programming
      language. For instance, most computer algebra systems contain a
      dedicated language (and are frequently built in that same
      language); some proof assistants (like the Ltac language for Coq)
      also have an embedded programming language. Note that in many
      instances this language captures only algorithmic content, and
      /declarative/ or /representational/ issues are avoided.
    * The /mathematical languages/ of many systems for mathematics are
      very close to a functional programming language. For instance the
      language of ACL2 is just Lisp, and the language of Coq is very
      close to Haskell. But even the mathematical language of the HOL
      system can be used as a functional programming language that is
      very close to ML and Haskell. On the other hand, these languages
      also contain very rich specification capabilities, which are
      rarely available in most computation-oriented programming
      languages. And even then, many specification languages ((B, Z,
      Maude, OBJ3, CASL, etc) can still teach MMSes a trick or two
      regarding representational power.
    * Conversely, functional programming languages have been getting
      "more mathematical" all the time. For instance, they seem to have
      discovered the value of dependent types rather recently. But they
      are still not quite ready to 'host' mathematics (the non-success
      of docon <http://www.haskell.org/docon/> being typical). There are
      some promising languages on the horizon (Epigram
      <http://www.e-pig.org/>, Omega
      <http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/%7Esheard/Omega/index.html>) as well as
      some hybrid systems (Agda <http://agda.sourceforge.net/>, Focal
      <http://focal.inria.fr/site/index.php>), although it is unclear if
      they are truly capable of expressing the full range of ideas
      present in mathematics.
    * Systems for mathematics are used to prove programs correct. (One
      method is to generate "correctness conditions" from a program that
      has been annotated in the style of Hoare logic and then prove
      those conditions in a proof assistant.) An interesting question is
      what improvements are needed for this both on the side of the
      mathematical systems and on the side of the programming languages.

We are interested in all these issues. We hope that a certain synergy=20
will develop between those issues by having them explored in parallel.

These issues have a very colourful history. Many programming language=20
innovations first appeared in either CASes or Proof Assistants, before=20
migrating towards more mainstream languages. One can cite (in no=20
particular order) type inference, dependent types, generics,=20
term-rewriting, first-class types, first-class expressions, first-class=20
modules, code extraction, and so on. However, a number of these=20
innovations were never aggressively pursued by system builders, letting=20
them instead be developped (slowly) by programming language researchers.=20
Some, like type inference and generics have flourished. Others, like=20
first-class types and first-class expressions, are not seemingly being=20
researched by anyone.

We want to critically examine what has worked, and what has not. Why are=20
all the current ``popular'' computer algebra systems untyped? Why are=20
the (strongly typed) proof assistants so much harder to use than a=20
typical CAS? But also look at question like what forms of polymorphism=20
exists in mathematics? What forms of dependent types exist in=20
mathematics? How can MMS regain the upper hand on issues of=20
'genericity'? What are the biggest barriers to using a more mainstream=20
language as a host language for a CAS or an ATP?

This workshop will accept two kinds of submissions: full research papers=20
as well as position papers. Research papers should be nore more than 15=20
pages in length, and positions papers no more than 3 pages. Submission=20
will be through _EasyChair_. An informal version of the proceedings will=20
be available at the workshop, with a more formal version to appear=20
later. We are looking into having the best papers completed into full=20
papers and published as a special issue of a Journal (details to follow).


    Important Dates

April 25, 2007: Submission Deadline
June 29-30, 2007: Workshop


    Program Committee

Lennart Augustsson <http://www.cs.chalmers.se/%7Eaugustss> [Credit Suisse=
]
Wieb Bosma <http://www.math.ru.nl/%7Ebosma/>[Radboud University=20
Nijmegen, Netherlands]
Jacques Carette <http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/%7Ecarette> (co-Chair)=20
[McMaster University, Canada]
David Delahaye <http://cedric.cnam.fr/%7Edelahaye/> [CNAM, France]
Jean-Christophe Filli=E2tre <http://www.lri.fr/%7Efilliatr/> [CNRS and=20
Universit=E9 de Paris-Sud, France]
John Harrison <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/%7Ejrh13/> [Intel Corporation, USA=
]
Markus (Makarius) Wenzel <http://www4.in.tum.de/%7Ewenzelm/> [Technische=20
Universit=E4t M=FCnchen, Germany]
Freek Wiedijk <http://www.cs.ru.nl/%7Efreek/> (co-Chair) [Radboud=20
University Nijmegen, Netherlands]
Wolfgang Windsteiger <http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/people/wwindste/>=20
[University of Linz, Austria]


    Location and Registration

Location and registration information can be found on the Calculemus=20
<http://www.risc.uni-linz.ac.at/about/conferences/Calculemus2007/> web=20
site.




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Subject: categories: Re: monic epics
Date: 	Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:37:12 +1100
From: 	Agnes Boskovitz <agnes.boskovitz@rsise.anu.edu.au>
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Hi

You might be interested in the Masters thesis I wrote in 1980 called
"Epimorphisms in Algebraic and Some Other Categories", which might have
some relevant information in it for you.  You can get it from the McGill
University library, or from Library and Archives Canada, or I can email
you a copy if you wish.

Agnes Boskovitz

David Karapetyan wrote:
> Hi, I've been trying to learn some category theory and I came upon the
> example of a monic, epic in the category of monoids given by the
> inclusion function of (N,0,+) into (Z,0,+). I know that in monoids every
> monic arrow is also an injective function but the inclusion function of
> N into Z provides a counterexample of every epic arrow being a
> surjective function. I noticed that N is just a "folded" version of Z,
> where by "folded" I mean take Z and throw away all the inverses of the
> natural numbers. So does every monic, epic arrow determine such a
> "folding" or are there monic, epics that can't be characterized in such
> a way?
>
>








From rrosebru@mta.ca Wed Mar 14 10:48:29 2007 -0300
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From: Francois Lamarche <lamarche@loria.fr>
Subject: categories: Postdoctoral Fellowship in France
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:33:55 +0100
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		       POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP


We would like to announce an offer for a one-year postdoctoral
fellowship, extensible potentially to two years. The candidate will
work in Nancy, in the east of France, under the supervision of
Fran=E7ois Lamarche in the INRIA project Calligramme.

Deadline for submission is MARCH 31 1007. Applications should be done
through the web, via

http://www.inria.fr/travailler/opportunites/postdoc/postdoc.en.html

under the category "symbolic systems".

There more instructions are given about the requirements. The
principal constraint is that the candidate's doctoral thesis should
have been defended after May 2006, and if it is still pending, that
there should an official guarantee that it will be defended before
September 2007.

Fran=E7ois Lamarche

Francois.Lamarche@loria.fr
http://www.loria.fr/~lamarche


*******************************************************************

PROOF NETS FOR CLASSICAL LOGIC AND DIFFERENTIAL INTERACTION NETS.


This project aims at obtaining a better understanding of the
computational character of the proof nets for classical propositional
logic that were introduced in [1,2]. Their current execution semantics
is based on the "interaction formula" of the Geometry of Interaction,
but we are still missing reduction techniques on these nets based on
graph rewriting.  Differential interaction nets [4], obtained from a
denotational semantics based on topological vector spaces [5] share
several properties with "classical" nets: both involve bialgebras in
their semantics, and thus both are equiped with with a "superposition"
(or convolution) operation on proofs. The aim of this project is to
leverage the experience and results already obtained about the
computational meaning of differential nets in the field of "classical"
proof nets. Several questions are considered, but in particular

-- Is it possible to apply the non-deterministic character of
differential nets (visible in the interpretations of the pi-calculus
that they give rise to) to "classical" nets? In other words, can the
convolution operation of classical nets be given an interpretation in
terms of superposition of possibilities? How far can we (or must we)
push non-determinism, only in the execution process itself, or as far
as the possibility of having variation in the final result of the
execution?

Several technical difficulties have to be overcome. We see in
particular the fact that the superposition operation in "classical"
nets does not have a zero. We must see how far the simile can be
pushed.

This is a theoretical research project, and it is impossible to give a
detailed work plan. The candidate will be working in project-team
Calligramme, where researchers have competence in category theory,
proof nets and lambda-mu calculus and other computational models of
classical logic. The candidate will also be able to interact with
members of project-teams Cartes (complexity, light linear logic) and
Protheo (rewriting, rho calculus).

- Profile sought:

We are expecting from the candidate experience in denotational
semantics AND (proof, interaction) nets. Skills in category theory are
also a big plus.


[1] F. Lamarche and L. Strassburger: Naming proofs in classical
logic. TLCA 2005

[2] F. Lamarche and L. Strassburger: Constructing free Boolean
categories. LICS 2005

[3] Girard, J.-Y.: Geometry of Interaction I: Interpretation of System
F. Logic Colloquium 88, North-Holland.

[4] Th. Ehrhard and Laurent Regnier: Differential Interaction
Nets. Theor. Comp. Sci., to appear, available on the authors' home
page.

[5] Th. Ehrhard: On K=F6the sequence spaces and linear logic:
Math. Struct. in Comp. Sci, 12, 2002.

- contact (t=E9l et e-mail) : lamarche@loria.fr, +33 (0)3 54 95 84 10

- http:www.loria.fr/~lamarche

*************







From rrosebru@mta.ca Sat Mar 17 21:05:08 2007 -0300
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From: "Ronnie Brown" <ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com>
To: <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Out of Line
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:52:34 -0000
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My old popularisation paper (1993) `Out of line' has now been made into =
a web version by Marcus Brown, and is available from

http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~mas010/outofline/out-home.html

as pdf and html.

I'll also mention=20

math.AT/0702677 A new higher homotopy groupoid: the fundamental globular =
omega-groupoid  of a filtered space

which in a sense fills a gap in the construction of such higher homotopy =
groupoids, where the classical crossed complex, the cubical case, and =
the simplicial case had already been done by 1978.=20

Ronnie Brown

School of Computer Science,
University of Wales,=20
Bangor,
Gwynedd LL57 1UT



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Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 22:52:45 +0000 (GMT)
From: S B Cooper <pmt6sbc@maths.leeds.ac.uk>
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: CiE 2007 - Call for informal presentations
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************************************************************

                  CiE'07: COMPUTABILITY IN EUROPE 2007

               http://www.mat.unisi.it/newsito/cie07.html

                          University of Siena
                        Siena, 18 - 23 June 2007

                     CALL FOR INFORMAL PRESENTATIONS

                        DEADLINE: 27 April, 2007

* THERE IS A REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE in conference style between computer
science and mathematics conferences. Mathematics conferences allow for
informal presentations that are prepared very shortly before the
conference and inform the participants about current research and work in
progress. The format of computer science conferences with pre-produced
proceedings volumes is not able to accommodate this form of scientific
communication. Continuing the tradition established at CiE 2005 in
Amsterdam, and at CiE 2006 in Swansea, the 2007 conference in Siena
endeavours to get the best of both worlds.

* IN ADDITION TO THIS YEAR'S RECORD NUMBER of formal presentations based
on our projected LNCS and local proceedings volumes, we invite researchers
to present informal presentations. For this, please send us a brief
description of your talk (up to and approaching one page in length) before
27 April 2007.

* PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT via the online Submission Form at:

http://www.amsta.leeds.ac.uk/~pmt6sbc/cie07.ipform.html

* If you submit an informal presentation, you will get an e-mail with a
decision on acceptance or rejection within two weeks of your submission.

* Let us add that there will be four post-conference special issues of
journals for CiE 2007. See:

http://www.amsta.leeds.ac.uk/~pmt6sbc/cie07.jour.html

* All speakers, including the speakers of informal presentations, are
eligible to be invited to submit a full journal version of their talk to
one of the post-conference publications.

PLENARY AND TUTORIAL SPEAKERS:

Pieter Adriaans (Amsterdam)
Yaakov Benenson (Harvard)
Anne Condon (Vancouver)
Stephen Cook (Toronto)
Yuri Ershov (Novosibirsk)
Wolfgang Maass (Graz)
Sophie Laplante (Paris)
Anil Nerode (Cornell)
George Odifreddi (Turin)
Roger Penrose (Oxford)
Michael Rathjen (Leeds)
Dana Scott (Carnegie Mellon)
Robert I. Soare (Chicago)
Philip Welch (Bristol)

SPECIAL SESSIONS SPEAKERS:

Eric Allender (Rutgers)
Andrej Bauer (Ljubljana)
Vasco Brattka (Cape Town)
Douglas Bridges (Canterbury, NZ)
John Case (Newark, Delaware)
Pieter Collins (Amsterdam)
Thierry Coquand (Goeteborg)
Felix Costa (Lisbon)
Barbara F. Csima (Waterloo)
Abbas Edalat (London)
Martin Escardo (Birmingham)
Joerg Flum (Freiburg)
Sergey S. Goncharov (Novosibirsk)
Hajime Ishihara (Tokyo)
Natasha Jonoska (Tampa, Florida)
Michal Koucky (Prague)
James Ladyman (Bristol)
Maria Emilia Maietti (Padua)
Giancarlo Mauri (Milan)
Klaus Meer (Odense)
Itamar Pitowsky (Jerusalem)
Robert Rettinger (Hagen)
Grzegorz Rozenberg (Leiden)
Frank Stephan (Singapore)
Neil Thapen (Prague)
Giuseppe Trautteur (Naples)
Heribert Vollmer (Hannover)
Osamu Watanabe (Tokyo)
Jiri Wiedermann (Prague)
Damien Woods (Cork)
Liang Yu (Nanjing)
Martin Ziegler (Paderborn)

WOMEN IN COMPUTABILITY WORKSHOP in association with the Computer Research
Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research
(CRA-W) Organisers: Paola Bonizzoni, Elvira Mayordomo. Speakers: Anne
Condon (Vancouver), Natasha Jonoska (Florida), Carmen Leccardi (Milan),
and others

CONFIRMED SPONSORS OF CiE 2007: AILA (Associazione Italiana di Logica e
Applicazioni), EATCS (European Association for Theoretical Computer
Science), ASL (Association for Symbolic Logic), EACSL (European
Association for Computer Science Logic), FoLLI (The Association of Logic,
Language and Information), GNSAGA-INdAM (Gruppo Nazionale per le Strutture
Algebriche e Geometriche e loro Applicazioni-Istituto NAzionale di Alta
Matematica) and The University of Siena.

* CiE 2007 will be co-located with CCA 2007, the annual CCA (Computability
and Complexity in Analysis) Conference:

                     http://cca-net.de/cca2007/

************************************************************






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To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: functions and polynomials
From: Paul Taylor <pt@cs.man.ac.uk>
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How widely applicable is the following idea?

Let  f: Z x Z -> Z  be a binary FUNCTION (in the sense of sets)
on the integers, with the property that

 - for each x:Z,  f(x,-) : Z -> Z is a (agrees with a unique)
   POLYNOMIAL, whose coefficients are functions of x; and similarly

 - for each y:Z,  f(-,y) : Z -> Z is also a polynomial.

Then  f(x,y)  was itself a polynomial in two variables.


This generalises to a disjoint union of sets of variables,
ie to functions   Z^X x Z^Y -> Z   that are polynomials in one
set of variables for each value of the other, and vice versa.


The (possible) categorical generalisation is this:

Let T be a strong monad on a topos, CCC or even a symmetric monoidal
closed category, and K=T0 its free algebra.   Then there is a natural
transformation
    r_X:  T X --->  K^(K^X),
which we suppose to be mono.  (How widely is this the case?)

Then the above result states that (in that case) the square

                            (K^Y)
    T (X + Y) >---------> TX
       V      |              V
       |      |              |
       | -----               |     K^Y
       |                     | r_X
       |           K^X       |
       V        r_Y          V
        (K^X) >-------->  (K^X x K^Y)
      TY                 K

is a pullback (in fact, an intersection).

I am primarily concerned with the case where T encodes the theory
of frames over either Set or Dcpo, though if the result extends to
commutative rings or other algebraic theories, that would be very
interesting too.

Paul Taylor



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From: Francois Lamarche <lamarche@loria.fr>
Subject: categories: Thesis Fellowship in Theoretical Computer Science
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:53:57 +0100
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		THESIS FELLOWSHIP IN COMPUTER SCIENCE



A three-year fellowship is available for a thesis in Computer
Science, to be done in Nancy, in the east fo France, under the
supervision of Francois Lamarche
http://www.loria.fr/~lamarche


		SEMANTICS OF PROOFS IN CLASSICAL LOGIC


During the last 2-3 years great progress has been made in our
understanding of the semantics of proofs in classical logic [1][2][3],
but there is still a lot to be done. The general theme of this this
thesis project is the exploitation of the fruitful interaction between
denotational semantics and syntax, an direction of research which
began with the work of Dana Scott on the untyped lambda calculus, and
has seen the invention of linear logic through Girard's observation of
the category of coherence spaces and linear maps. The primary aim is
to

- first develop and write up a simple interpretation of classical
    logic in a category of posets, which is an unpublished byproduct of
    the denotational semantics given in [2],

- then apply some of the insights given by that semantics to new
    approaches to proof nets for classical logic.

Thus there is already some amount of material which simply has to be
written up as a springboard, and should help the student pick up
momentum before doing truly original research (we hasten to mention
that a full mastery of the rather formidable [2] is not necessary at
first for doing so). But the real interest of a thesis is to give
students the occasion to prove their mettle, and we foresee plenty of
openings here for doing that, with several open questions on
correctness criteria, complexity, proof search, etc. In particular
there is the tantalizing possibility of using non-commutative logics
(that use braidings) to give a practical solution to the difficult
problem of counting the number of axiom links that are used in a
classical proof, which has connections to deep problems in complexity
theory.


     Work and study environment

The student would be registered at the Computer Science department one
of the universities (or engineering school) which belong to the joint
graduate studies program of the IAEM doctoral school.  A sizeable
proportion of the students registered in that school come from outside
of France and Europe. Students are required to follow a moderate
number of graduate courses, which are usually given in French.  There
are special programs aimed specifically atforeign graduate students,
to help them learn French.

Work will be done at the Loria laboratory of computer science
http://www.loria.fr in Nancy, on the science campus. The student will
be part of the Calligramme research project at INRIA-Lorraine.  The
student will be able to interact with everal research projects dealing
with theoretical issues in computer science.

The fellowship guarantees financing for three years; the student who
does not complete the thesis work in that time span will be able to
extend his/her stay through teaching contracts; but theses that last
more than four years are exceptional and not encouraged by the
authorities.

    Profile sought

The candidate is required to have a Master's degree in Mathematics or
Computer Science, with an orientation towards theoretical computer
science. More precisely we expect experience in one or several of the
the following topics: linear logic, the theory of {interaction, proof}
nets, category theory, denotational semantics. An acquaintance with
basics of deep inference is also a big plus.

    Procedure

Putative candidates are requested to send an email to
Fran=E7ois Lamarche for further enquiry

(look at http://www.loria.fr/~lamarche  for exact email address
and http://www.loria.fr/~lamarche/TheseEnglish.html
for the html version of this announcement.)

[1] C. Fuhrmann and D. Pym: Order-enriched categorical models of the
     classical sequent calculus. *J. Pure and App. Algebra 204(1)*.

[2] F. Lamarche: Exploring the gap between linear and classical
logic. *Accepted for publication in Theory and Applications of
Categories*.

[3] F. Lamarche and L. Strassburger: Naming proofs in classical =20
logic, *TLCA 2005,
in SLNCS 3461*









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	for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:55:13 -0300
To: categories@mta.ca
Subject: categories: functions not polynomials
From: Paul Taylor <pt@cs.man.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:39:55 +0000
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Let  f: Z x Z -> Z  be a binary FUNCTION (in the sense of sets)
on the integers, with the property that

 - for each x:Z,  f(x,-) : Z -> Z is a (agrees with a unique)
   POLYNOMIAL, whose coefficients are functions of x; and similarly

 - for each y:Z,  f(-,y) : Z -> Z is also a polynomial.

Then  f(x,y)  was itself a polynomial in two variables.

"You just use Newton's difference method to find the co..."

.... unterexample.

Taking N for simplicity first, consider the binomial coefficient
(x,n) as an nth degree polynomial in x, ie
(x,0) = 1
(x,1) = x
(x,2) = x(x-1)/2
(x,3) = x(x-1)(x-2)/3!
and so on.  Newton's finite difference method provides the coefficients
of these generating polynomials by taking successive differences (the
finite analogue of successive derivatives).

But then    sum_n (x,n)(y,n)
is a function NxN->N that is a polynomial in x for each y and vice versa
but isn't itself a polynomial.

None of the web pages that I found about this method was especially
clear, so I'm not going to recommend any, but they are there if you
want to look for them yourself.

The more general method (as described on these pages, which is why
I didn't think they were that good) takes differences from any sequence
of points, not just 0, 1, 2, ....  Hence, given any enumeration of
a countable field K (this probably works for Z too) we can generalise
both the method of fitting polynomials and the counterexample.


Of course, since I'm a categorist, it was the categorical formulation
that interests me.  Any thoughts on that would be appreciated, despite
the above failure of the simple example.

In fact, I'd quite like to hear from any students of universal algebra
out there who also know how monads encode algebraic theories, and might
be willing to help as sparring partners for my present mad scheme.

Paul Taylor




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The counterexample Paul cites of a function f(x,y) that is a univariate
polynomial in x and y separately but not a bivariate polynomial in x and
y jointly has the following "degree growth" property:

(*)  For each d in N, f(-,d) and f(d,-) are polynomials of degree <= d.

As anyone who's played around with bicubic patches for computer graphics
knows, the degree has to grow for such a counterexample since any global
bound on the degree of f(x,-) and f(-,y) separately suffices for f(x,y)
to be a polynomial in x and y jointly with the same degree bound (taking
the degree of x^3 y^2 to be 3 rather than 5).

The class of all functions of the above degree-growing form has the
following nice characterization if we take real-valued rather than
integer-valued functions (or any other algebraically closed field),
still defined on N and NxN however.  Let U be that subset of NxN --> R
whose functions enjoy the above degree growth property (*).  Define W:
(NxN --> R) --> (N --> R) by Wf(x) = f(x,x) for all x in N.

Theorem.  The restriction of W to U is a bijection.

(So if W is in some sense natural we have a natural bijection, about as
close as I'm going to get to anything sounding at all categorical here.)

Proof.  Let g: N --> R be an arbitrary sequence of reals.  We show by
induction on the d in (*) that there exists a unique f in U for which Wf
= g.  Take the induction hypothesis to be that f(-,i) and f(i,-) are
uniquely determined polynomials of degree at most d for all natural
numbers i <= d.  If the induction hypothesis holds for all d in N we
have completely determined f.

Base case.  f(-,0) and f(0,-) are constant functions, whence for all
natural numbers x,y, necessarily f(x,0) = f(0,y) = f(0,0) = g(0).

Inductive step.  Assuming the induction hypothesis for d, take
f(d+1,d+1) = g(d+1).  This determines f(i,d+1) and f(d+1,i) for all i
from 0 to d+1, which in turn uniquely determines f(-,d+1) and f(d+1,-)
as polynomials of degree d+1 (exactly one polynomial of degree d+1
passes through d+2 points).  The induction hypothesis therefore holds
for d+1.  QED

Corollary.  The members of U are symmetric: f(x,y) = f(y,x).

So the symmetry in Paul's example was not just an isolated artifact but
an inevitable consequence of his rate of degree growth.

QUESTION: For which g does W^{-1}(g) (of type NxN --> R) extend "nicely"
to RxR --> R, for any given notion of niceness?  For example if g is a
polynomial of degree d then so is W^{-1}(g), giving the obvious
extension to RxR as the same polynomial.  What if g is periodic,
ultimately constant, ultimately periodic, etc.?

Vaughan

Paul Taylor wrote:
> Let  f: Z x Z -> Z  be a binary FUNCTION (in the sense of sets)
> on the integers, with the property that
>
>  - for each x:Z,  f(x,-) : Z -> Z is a (agrees with a unique)
>    POLYNOMIAL, whose coefficients are functions of x; and similarly
>
>  - for each y:Z,  f(-,y) : Z -> Z is also a polynomial.
>
> Then  f(x,y)  was itself a polynomial in two variables.
>
> "You just use Newton's difference method to find the co..."
>
> .... unterexample.
>
> Taking N for simplicity first, consider the binomial coefficient
> (x,n) as an nth degree polynomial in x, ie
> (x,0) = 1
> (x,1) = x
> (x,2) = x(x-1)/2
> (x,3) = x(x-1)(x-2)/3!
> and so on.  Newton's finite difference method provides the coefficients
> of these generating polynomials by taking successive differences (the
> finite analogue of successive derivatives).
>
> But then    sum_n (x,n)(y,n)
> is a function NxN->N that is a polynomial in x for each y and vice versa
> but isn't itself a polynomial.



From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Mar 23 10:49:33 2007 -0300
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Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 10:37:09 +0000
From: Monika Seisenberger <M.Seisenberger@swansea.ac.uk>
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Subject: categories: 2cfc: CALCO-jnr 2007: CALCO Young Researchers Workshop, Bergen, Norway
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                 [Apologies for multiple copies]

   !!! PLEASE FORWARD TO PHD STUDENTS AND YOUNG RESEARCHERS !!!

*------------------------------------------------------------------*
*                   2nd call for contributions                     *
*                                                                  *
*                        CALCO-jnr 2007                            *
*                                                                  *
*         CALCO-jnr: CALCO Young Researchers Workshop              *
*              August 20, 2007, Bergen, Norway                     *
*                                                                  *
*                                                                  *
*                          part of                                 *
*   2nd Conference on Algebra and Coalgebra in Computer Science    *
*             August 20-24, 2007, Bergen, Norway                   *
*                                                                  *
*------------------------------------------------------------------*
*         Abstract submission:   April     10, 2007                *
*         Author notification:   April     30, 2007                *
*         Final abstract due:    May       16, 2007                *
*         Full paper submission: September 30, 2007                *
*------------------------------------------------------------------*
*               http://www.ii.uib.no/calco07/                      *
*------------------------------------------------------------------*

CALCO 2007 will be preceded by the CALCO Young Researchers Workshop,
CALCO-jnr, dedicated to presentations by PhD students and young
researchers at the beginning of their carriers.

CALCO brings together researchers and practitioners to exchange new
results related to foundational aspects and both traditional and emerging
uses of algebras and coalgebras in computer science. The study of algebra
and coalgebra relates to the data, process and structural aspects of
software systems.

This is a high-level, bi-annual conference formed by joining the forces
and reputations of CMCS (the International Workshop on Coalgebraic Methods
in Computer Science), and WADT (the Workshop on Algebraic Development
Techniques). The first, and very successful, CALCO conference took place
2005 in Swansea, Wales.

The second event will take place 2007 in Bergen, Norway.

The CALCO Young Researchers Workshop, CALCO-jnr, is a CALCO satellite
workshop dedicated to presentations by PhD students and by those who have
completed their doctoral studies within the past few years.  Attendance at
the workshop is open to all - it is anticipated that many CALCO conference
participants will want to attend the CALCO-jnr workshop (and vice versa).

CALCO-jnr presentations will be selected according to originality,
significance, and general interest, on the basis of submitted 2-page
abstracts, by the organisers. A booklet with the abstracts of the accepted
presentations will be available at the workshop.

After the workshop, the author(s) of each presentation will be invited
to submit a full 10-15 page paper on the same topic. They will also be
asked to write (anonymous) reviews of papers submitted by other authors
on related topics. Additional reviewing and the final selection of papers
will be carried out by the CALCO-jnr PC.

The volume of selected papers from the workshop will be published as a
Department of informatics, University of Bergen, technical report, and
it will also be made available in an open access database searchable from
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/. Authors will retain copyright,
and are also encouraged to disseminate the results reported at CALCO-jnr
by subsequent publication elsewhere.


Topics of Interest
------------------
The CALCO Young Researchers Workshop will invite submissions on the same
topics as the CALCO conference: reporting results of theoretical work
on the mathematics of algebras and coalgebras, the way these results
can support methods and techniques for software development, as well as
experience with the transition of resulting technologies into industrial
practise. In particular, the workshop will encourage submissions included
or related to the topics listed below.

  * Abstract models and logics
    - Automata and languages,
    - Categorical semantics,
    - Modal logics,
    - Relational systems,
    - Graph transformation,
    - Term rewriting,
    - Adhesive categories

  * Specialised models and calculi
    - Hybrid, probabilistic, and timed systems,
    - Calculi and models of concurrent, distributed,
      mobile, and context-aware computing,
    - General systems theory and computational models
      (chemical, biological, etc)

  * Algebraic and coalgebraic semantics
    - Abstract data types,
    - Inductive and coinductive methods,
    - Re-engineering techniques (program transformation),
    - Semantics of conceptual modelling methods and techniques,
    - Semantics of programming languages

  * System specification and verification
    - Algebraic and coalgebraic specification,
    - Formal testing and quality assurance,
    - Validation and verification,
    - Generative programming and model-driven development,
    - Models, correctness and (re)configuration of
      hardware/middleware/architectures,
    - Process algebra

Submission
----------
Submission is by e-mail to calco-jnr@ii.uib.no


Important Dates (all dates in 2007)
-----------------------------------
10 April     Firm deadline for 2-page abstract submission
30 April     Notification of abstract selection decision
16 May       Final version of abstract due
             Early registration ends

20 August    CALCO Young Researchers Workshop
21-24 August CALCO conference technical program

30 September Firm deadline for 10-15 page paper submission
15 November  Notification of paper selection decision
30 November  Final version of paper due


Program Committee
-----------------
  * Magne Haveraaen, University of Bergen, Norway
    http://www.ii.uib.no/~magne/
  * John Power, University of Edinburgh, UK
    http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/people/staff/John_Power.html
  * Monika Seisenberger, University of Wales Swansea, UK
    http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/~csmona/

-- http://www.ii.uib.no/calco07/




From rrosebru@mta.ca Tue Mar 27 08:56:35 2007 -0300
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From: Marco Grandis <grandis@dima.unige.it>
Subject: categories: A preprint on Weak cubical categories
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:30:29 +0200
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The following preprint is available on my server:


M. Grandis, Higher cospans and weak cubical categories (Cospans in
Algebraic Topology, I)
Dip. Mat. Univ. Genova, Preprint 552 (2007).

in pdf and ps:

http://www.dima.unige.it/~grandis/wCub.pdf

http://www.dima.unige.it/~grandis/wCub.ps



Comments and suggestions are appreciated.

Marco Grandis

----------------------
Abstract. We define a notion of weak cubical category, abstracted
from the structure of n-cubical cospans  x: \Lambda^n ---> X  in a
category  X,  where  \Lambda  is the 'formal cospan' category. These
diagrams form a cubical set with compositions in all directions,
which are computed with pushouts and behave 'categorically' in a weak
sense, up to suitable comparisons.

	Actually, we work with a 'symmetric cubical structure', which
includes the transposition symmetries, because this allows for a
strong simplification of the coherence conditions. These notions will
be used in subsequent papers to study topological cospans and their
use in Algebraic Topology, from tangles to cobordisms of manifolds.

	We also introduce the more general notion of a multiple category,
where - to start with - arrows belong to different sorts, varying in
a countable family and symmetries must be dropped. The present
examples seem to show that the symmetric cubical case is better
suited for topological applications.

Mathematics Subject Classifications: 18D05, 55U10

Key words: weak cubical category, multiple category, double category,
cubical sets, spans, cospans.

----------------------



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Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 12:26:07 -0700
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A couple of days ago, in response to a post to this list by Paul Taylor,
I showed that W: (NxN --> R) --> (N --> R), defined as W(f)(x) = f(x,x),
is bijective on the subset U of NxN --> R consisting of those f: NxN -->
R for which f(-,d) and f(d,-) are polynomials of degree d for each d in
N.  As an afterthought I raised the question, for which g: N --> R can
W^{-1}(g): NxN --> R be extended to RxR --> R?

To get some idea of what could happen I wrote the following program
wttmo.c (W To The Minus One).

=====wttmo.c=====
 > #include <stdlib.h>
 >
 > int main(int argc, char *argv[])
 > {
 >     int i, j, m, n;
 >     double a[100], f[100][100];
 >     n = argc - 1;
 >     for (i = 0; i < n; i++)        /* Input */
 >         f[i][i] = atof(argv[i+1]);
 >     for (m = 0; m < n-1; m++) {    /* Process */
 >         for (i = 0; i <= m; i++)
 >             a[i] = f[m][i];
 >         for (i = 0; i < m; i++)
 >             for (j = 0; j < m-i; j++)
 >                 a[j] = a[j+1] - a[j];
 >         for (i = m+1; i < n; i++) {
 >             for (j = 0; j < m; j++)
 >                 a[j+1] += a[j];
 >             f[i][m] = f[m][i] = a[m];
 >         }
 >     }
 >     for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {     /* Output */
 >         for (j = 0; j < n; j++)
 >             printf("%-7.3f ", f[i][j]);
 >         printf("\n");
 >     }
 > }
=================

(Note that this program gives a well-defined result not just for the
reals but for any group, even a nonabelian one, since the only
operations performed are addition and subtraction.  This generality can
be reconciled with the original problem, and with my proof of
bijectivity of W on U, by saying that a sequence s obeys a polynomial
law of degree (at most) d just when the d-th finite difference D^d(s) is
a constant sequence, where the finite difference operator D(s) replaces
each s_i by s_{i+1}-s_i in s.)

This program is run from the command line with n real parameters
constituting the first n elements g(0), g(1), ..., g(n-1) of a sequence
g.  The output is W^{-1}(g), laid out as an nxn matrix with the entry at
row i and column j (numbering from 0) giving W^{-1}(g)(i,j) for i and j
from 0 to n-1.

Applying it to the polynomial 2 + 3x^2 gives the following result,

$ wttmo 2 5 14 29 50 77 110 149 194
2.000   2.000   2.000   2.000   2.000   2.000   2.000   2.000   2.000
2.000   5.000   8.000   11.000  14.000  17.000  20.000  23.000  26.000
2.000   8.000   14.000  20.000  26.000  32.000  38.000  44.000  50.000
2.000   11.000  20.000  29.000  38.000  47.000  56.000  65.000  74.000
2.000   14.000  26.000  38.000  50.000  62.000  74.000  86.000  98.000
2.000   17.000  32.000  47.000  62.000  77.000  92.000  107.000 122.000
2.000   20.000  38.000  56.000  74.000  92.000  110.000 128.000 146.000
2.000   23.000  44.000  65.000  86.000  107.000 128.000 149.000 170.000
2.000   26.000  50.000  74.000  98.000  122.000 146.000 170.000 194.000

consistent with producing f(x,y) = 2 + 3xy.  This of course extends in
the usual way to RxR --> R.

Nudging the first two elements very slightly

$ wttmo 2.001 5.001 14 29 50 77 110 149 194
2.001   2.001   2.001   2.001   2.001   2.001   2.001   2.001   2.001
2.001   5.001   8.001   11.001  14.001  17.001  20.001  23.001  26.001
2.001   8.001   14.000  19.998  25.995  31.991  37.986  43.980  49.973
2.001   11.001  19.998  29.000  38.015  47.051  56.116  65.218  74.365
2.001   14.001  25.995  38.015  50.000  61.796  73.156  83.740  93.115
2.001   17.001  31.991  47.051  61.796  77.000  96.220  127.420 184.595
2.001   20.001  37.986  56.116  73.156  96.220  110.000 5.480   -531.865
2.001   23.001  43.980  65.218  83.740  127.420 5.480   149.000 4915.055
2.001   26.001  49.973  74.365  93.115  184.595 -531.865 4915.055 194.000

really shakes things up (look at f(i+1)(i), especially the region
38.015,61.796,96.220,5.480,4915.055 which used to be 38,62,92,128,170).
  The prospects for extending this evidently chaotic function NxN --> R
to RxR --> R "nicely" look pretty bad -- at the very least it would seem
to require a very liberal notion of "nice".

In my previous post I claimed that W^{-1} maps polynomials to
polynomials, but realized later that the only polynomials for which this
was the case were those of the form g(x) = a + bx^2 for arbitrary
constants a and b, for which W^{-1}(g) is f(x,y) = a + bxy.  The
simplest polynomial not mapped to a polynomial is the identity function,
g(x) = x:

$ wttmo 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
0.000   0.000   0.000   0.000   0.000   0.000   0.000   0.000
0.000   1.000   2.000   3.000   4.000   5.000   6.000   7.000
0.000   2.000   2.000   0.000   -4.000  -10.000 -18.000 -28.000
0.000   3.000   0.000   3.000   24.000  75.000  168.000 315.000
0.000   4.000   -4.000  24.000  4.000   -280.000 -1176.000 -3164.000
0.000   5.000   -10.000 75.000  -280.000 5.000   5910.000 28595.000
0.000   6.000   -18.000 168.000 -1176.000 5910.000 6.000   -171528.000
0.000   7.000   -28.000 315.000 -3164.000 28595.000 -171528.000 7.000

Very unfunctorial of wttmo.  :)

In GF(2) (suitably modifying the program, including writing # for 1 and
space for 0 in the output for better contrast), wttmo maps the identity
polynomial x = 0,1,0,1,0,1,... to xy, which is as one would expect given
that x = x^2 in GF(2).

More interestingly it maps the sequence 1,0,0,0,0,... to the Sierpinski
gasket, shown here for the top left 32x32 elements of f.

################################
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
##  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##  ##
#   #   #   #   #   #   #   #
####    ####    ####    ####
# #     # #     # #     # #
##      ##      ##      ##
#       #       #       #
########        ########
# # # #         # # # #
##  ##          ##  ##
#   #           #   #
####            ####
# #             # #
##              ##
#               #
################
# # # # # # # #
##  ##  ##  ##
#   #   #   #
####    ####
# #     # #
##      ##
#       #
########
# # # #
##  ##
#   #
####
# #
##
#


It is tempting to infer the fractal nature of wttmo from this.  However
the Sierpinski gasket also arises as Pascal's triangle mod 2, so perhaps
one shouldn't read too much into this.


Vaughan Pratt



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From: Rob van Glabbeek and Matthew Hennessy <sos2007@cs.stanford.edu>
To:  categories@mta.ca
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:05:41 +1000
Subject: categories: SOS 2007 - Final Call for Papers
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         Structural Operational Semantics 2007

         An Affiliated Workshop of LICS 2007  and  ICALP 2007

         July 9, 2007, Wroclaw, Poland

         http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~rvg/SOS2007

Aim: Structural operational semantics (SOS) provides a framework
for giving operational semantics to programming and specification
languages. A growing number of programming languages from
commercial and academic spheres have been given usable semantic
descriptions by means of structural operational semantics. Because
of its intuitive appeal and flexibility, structural operational
semantics has found considerable application in the study of the
semantics of concurrent processes. Moreover, it is becoming a
viable alternative to denotational semantics in the static analysis
of programs, and in proving compiler correctness.

Recently, structural operational semantics has been successfully
applied as a formal tool to establish results that hold for classes
of process description languages. This has allowed for the
generalisation of well-known results in the field of process
algebra, and for the development of a meta-theory for process
calculi based on the realization that many of the results in this
field only depend upon general semantic properties of language
constructs.

This workshop aims at being a forum for researchers, students and
practitioners interested in new developments, and directions for
future investigation, in the field of structural operational semantics.
One of the specific goals of the workshop is to establish synergies
between the concurrency and programming language communities working
on the theory and practice of SOS. Moreover, it aims at widening the
knowledge of SOS among postgraduate students and young researchers
worldwide.

Specific topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

  * programming languages
  * process algebras
  * higher-order formalisms
  * rule formats for operational specifications
  * meaning of operational specifications
  * comparisons between denotational, axiomatic and SOS
  * compositionality of modal logics with respect to
    operational specifications
  * congruence with respect to behavioural equivalences
  * conservative extensions
  * derivation of proof rules from operational specifications
  * software tools that automate, or are based on, SOS.

Papers reporting on applications of SOS to software engineering and
other areas of computer science are welcome.

History: The first SOS Workshop took place on the 30th of August 2004
in London as one of the satellite workshops of CONCUR 2004.
Subsequently, SOS 2005 occurred on the 10th of July 2005 in
Lisbon as a satellite workshop of ICALP 2005, and SOS 2006 on the
26th of August 2006 in Bonn as a satellite workshop of CONCUR 2006.
A special issue of the Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming on
Structural Operational Semantics appeared in 2004; a special issue of
Theoretical Computer Science dedicated to SOS 2005 is in press, and a
special issue of Information & Computation on Structural Operational
Semantics inspired by SOS 2006 is in preparation.


INVITED SPEAKER:

   Pawel Sobocinski (Cambridge, UK)


PAPER SUBMISSION:

We solicit unpublished papers reporting on original research on the
general theme of SOS. Prospective authors should register their
intention to submit a paper by uploading a title and abstract via
the workshop web page by:

  *** Friday 6 April 2007. ***

Papers should take the form of a pdf file in ENTCS format
[http://www.entcs.org/], whose length should not exceed 15 pages (not
including an optional "Appendix for referees" containing proofs that
will not be included in the final paper). We will also consider 5-page
papers describing tools to be demonstrated at the workshop.

Proceedings: Preliminary proceedings will be available at the meeting.
The final proceedings of the workshop will appear as a volume in the
ENTCS series.  We may decide to arrange a special issue of an archival
journal devoted to full versions of selected papers from the workshop.


IMPORTANT DATES:

  * Submission of abstract: Friday 6 April 2007

  * Submission: Sunday 15 April 2007

  * Notification: Wednesday 9 May 2007

  * Final version: Friday 25 May 2007

  * Workshop: Monday 9 July 2007

  * Final ENTCS version: Friday 10 August 2007.


PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

Luca Aceto (Aalborg, DK; Reykjavik, IS)
Rocco De Nicola (Florence, IT)
Rob van Glabbeek (NICTA, AU, co-chair)
Reiko Heckel (Leicester, UK)
Matthew Hennessy (Sussex, UK, co-chair)
Bartek Klin (Warsaw, PL)
Ugo Montanari (Pisa, IT)
MohammadReza Mousavi (Eindhoven, NL; Reykjavik, IS)
Prakash Panangaden (Montreal, CA)
Grigore Rosu (Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA)
Simone Tini (Insubria, I)
Shoji Yuen (Nagoya, JP)


CONTACT:

    sos2007@cs.stanford.edu


WORKSHOP ORGANISERS:

    Rob van Glabbeek
    National ICT Australia
    Locked Bag 6016
    University of New South Wales
    Sydney, NSW 1466
    Australia

    Matthew Hennessy
    Department of Informatics
    University of Sussex
    Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QN
    United Kingdom



From rrosebru@mta.ca Thu Mar 29 23:28:10 2007 -0300
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Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:47:27 -0700
From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt@cs.stanford.edu>
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Subject: categories: Re: functions not polynomials
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Paul Taylor's example of an f(x,y) that is polynomial separately in x
and y but not jointly was sum_n (x,n)(y,n) (where (x,n) denotes the
binomial coefficient x!/(n!(x-n)!)).  After mulling over that example
some more it occurred to me that it can be analyzed via the observation
that W^{-1} maps the polynomial P_n(x) = (x(x-1)(x-2)...(x-(n-1)))^2 to
the polynomial xy(x-1)(y-1)(x-2)(y-2)...(x-(n-1))(y-(n-1)).  This
contradicts my earlier claim that the only polynomials in x that W^{-1}
maps to polynomials in x and y are the linear combinations of 1 and x^2.
  These two are easily seen to be the only *monomials* so mapped, but
(the linearity of W^{-1} notwithstanding) it does not follow that the
only *polynomials* so mapped are the linear combinations of these two
monomials.

W^{-1} maps sum_n P_n(x)/(n!)^2 to Paul's example.  The coefficient
1/(n!)^2 of P_n(x) seems to play no role here, and any coefficients
should do as long as infinitely many are nonzero (to make f(x,y) not a
polynomial).  To extend the example (as a function on N^2) directly (via
the constituent polynomials) to a function on the positive reals
however, the coefficients would need to grow somewhat slower than 4^n,
|P_n(x)| being bounded above by at best about 1/4^n for 0 < x < n (the
half-integer points for x in that range give a good approximation of the
bound).  1/(n!)^2 is more than slow enough for this purpose.

A simpler example is g(x) = (2x,x) (again the binomial coefficient),
which W^{-1} maps to f(x,y) = (x+y,x), polynomial separately in x and y
but not jointly.  That is, Pascal's triangle is a sufficient
counterexample for Paul's purposes.  Moreover the Gamma function gives a
nicer (log-convex in fact) extension of f(x,y) to the upper right
quadrant of R^2.

Vaughan Pratt



From rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Mar 30 19:12:30 2007 -0300
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Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 18:44:37 +0100
From: Robin Houston <r.houston@cs.man.ac.uk>
To: Categories List <categories@mta.ca>
Subject: categories: Full and faithful
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A functor F: C -> D is full and faithful just when, for all
categories X and functors G, H: X -> C, the whiskering action of F
induces a bijection between [G, H] and [FG, FH]  (where [G, H]
denotes the set of natural transformations from G to H).

Clearly this formulation makes sense in any bicategory. Is there a
name for 1-cells with this property?

Thanks!

Robin



