On coalgebras with internal moves

In the first part of the paper we recall the coalgebraic approach to handling the so-called invisible transitions that appear in different state-based systems semantics. We claim that these transitions are always part of the unit of a certain monad. Hence, coalgebras with internal moves are exactly coalgebras over a monadic type. The rest of the paper is devoted to supporting our claim by studying two important behavioural equivalences for state-based systems with internal moves, namely: weak bisimulation and trace semantics. We continue our research on weak bisimulations for coalgebras over order enriched monads. The key notions used in this paper and proposed by us in our previous work are the notions of an order saturation monad and a saturator. A saturator operator can be intuitively understood as a reflexive, transitive closure operator. There are two approaches towards defining saturators for coalgebras with internal moves. Here, we give necessary conditions for them to yield the same notion of weak bisimulation. Finally, we propose a definition of trace semantics for coalgebras with silent moves via a uniform fixed point operator. We compare strong and weak bisimilation together with trace semantics for coalgebras with internal steps.Comment: Article: 23 pages, Appendix: 3 page

Behavioural equivalences for timed systems

Timed transition systems are behavioural models that include an explicit treatment of time flow and are used to formalise the semantics of several foundational process calculi and automata. Despite their relevance, a general mathematical characterisation of timed transition systems and their behavioural theory is still missing. We introduce the first uniform framework for timed behavioural models that encompasses known behavioural equivalences such as timed bisimulations, timed language equivalences as well as their weak and time-abstract counterparts. All these notions of equivalences are naturally organised by their discriminating power in a spectrum. We prove that this result does not depend on the type of the systems under scrutiny: it holds for any generalisation of timed transition system. We instantiate our framework to timed transition systems and their quantitative extensions such as timed probabilistic systems

A Definition Scheme for Quantitative Bisimulation

FuTS, state-to-function transition systems are generalizations of labeled transition systems and of familiar notions of quantitative semantical models as continuous-time Markov chains, interactive Markov chains, and Markov automata. A general scheme for the definition of a notion of strong bisimulation associated with a FuTS is proposed. It is shown that this notion of bisimulation for a FuTS coincides with the coalgebraic notion of behavioral equivalence associated to the functor on Set given by the type of the FuTS. For a series of concrete quantitative semantical models the notion of bisimulation as reported in the literature is proven to coincide with the notion of quantitative bisimulation obtained from the scheme. The comparison includes models with orthogonal behaviour, like interactive Markov chains, and with multiple levels of behavior, like Markov automata. As a consequence of the general result relating FuTS bisimulation and behavioral equivalence we obtain, in a systematic way, a coalgebraic underpinning of all quantitative bisimulations discussed.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2015, arXiv:1509.0816

Coalgebraic Trace Semantics for Continuous Probabilistic Transition Systems

Coalgebras in a Kleisli category yield a generic definition of trace semantics for various types of labelled transition systems. In this paper we apply this generic theory to generative probabilistic transition systems, short PTS, with arbitrary (possibly uncountable) state spaces. We consider the sub-probability monad and the probability monad (Giry monad) on the category of measurable spaces and measurable functions. Our main contribution is that the existence of a final coalgebra in the Kleisli category of these monads is closely connected to the measure-theoretic extension theorem for sigma-finite pre-measures. In fact, we obtain a practical definition of the trace measure for both finite and infinite traces of PTS that subsumes a well-known result for discrete probabilistic transition systems. Finally we consider two example systems with uncountable state spaces and apply our theory to calculate their trace measures

Monoidal computer III: A coalgebraic view of computability and complexity

Monoidal computer is a categorical model of intensional computation, where many different programs correspond to the same input-output behavior. The upshot of yet another model of computation is that a categorical formalism should provide a much needed high level language for theory of computation, flexible enough to allow abstracting away the low level implementation details when they are irrelevant, or taking them into account when they are genuinely needed. A salient feature of the approach through monoidal categories is the formal graphical language of string diagrams, which supports visual reasoning about programs and computations. In the present paper, we provide a coalgebraic characterization of monoidal computer. It turns out that the availability of interpreters and specializers, that make a monoidal category into a monoidal computer, is equivalent with the existence of a *universal state space*, that carries a weakly final state machine for any pair of input and output types. Being able to program state machines in monoidal computers allows us to represent Turing machines, to capture their execution, count their steps, as well as, e.g., the memory cells that they use. The coalgebraic view of monoidal computer thus provides a convenient diagrammatic language for studying computability and complexity.Comment: 34 pages, 24 figures; in this version: added the Appendi

Non-Deterministic Kleene Coalgebras

In this paper, we present a systematic way of deriving (1) languages of (generalised) regular expressions, and (2) sound and complete axiomatizations thereof, for a wide variety of systems. This generalizes both the results of Kleene (on regular languages and deterministic finite automata) and Milner (on regular behaviours and finite labelled transition systems), and includes many other systems such as Mealy and Moore machines

Weak bisimulation for coalgebras over order enriched monads

The paper introduces the notion of a weak bisimulation for coalgebras whose type is a monad satisfying some extra properties. In the first part of the paper we argue that systems with silent moves should be modelled coalgebraically as coalgebras whose type is a monad. We show that the visible and invisible part of the functor can be handled internally inside a monadic structure. In the second part we introduce the notion of an ordered saturation monad, study its properties, and show that it allows us to present two approaches towards defining weak bisimulation for coalgebras and compare them. We support the framework presented in this paper by two main examples of models: labelled transition systems and simple Segala systems.Comment: 44 page