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

Coalgebras on Measurable Spaces

Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, Mathematics, 2005Given an endofunctor T in a category C, a coalgebra is a pair (X,c) consisting of an object X and a morphism c:X ->T(X). X is called the carrier and the morphism c is called the structure map of the T-coalgebra. The theory of coalgebras has been found to abstract common features of different areas like computer program semantics, modal logic, automata, non-well-founded sets, etc. Most of the work on concrete examples, however, has been limited to the category Set. The work developed in this dissertation is concerned with the category Meas of measurable spaces and measurable functions. Coalgebras of measurable spaces are of interest as a formalization of Markov Chains and can also be used to model probabilistic reasoning. We discuss some general facts related to the most interesting functor in Meas, Delta, that assigns to each measurable space, the space of all probability measures on it. We show that this functor does not preserve weak pullbacks or omega op-limits, conditions assumed in many theorems about coalgebras. The main result will be two constructions of final coalgebras for many interesting functors in Meas. The first construction (joint work with L. Moss), is based on a modal language that lets us build formulas that describe the elements of the final coalgebra. The second method makes use of a subset of the projective limit of the final sequence for the functor in question. That is, the sequence 1 <- T1 <- T 2 1 <-... obtained by iteratively applying the functor to the terminal element 1 of the category. Since these methods seem to be new, we also show how to use them in the category Set, where they provide some insight on how the structure map of the final coalgebra works. We show as an application how to construct universal Type Spaces, an object of interest in Game Theory and Economics. We also compare our method with previously existing constructions

Generalized labelled Markov processes, coalgebraically

Coalgebras of measurable spaces are of interest in probability theory as a formalization of Labelled Markov Processes (LMPs). We discuss some general facts related to the notions of bisimulation and cocongruence on these systems, providing a faithful characterization of bisimulation on LMPs on generic measurable spaces. This has been used to prove that bisimilarity on single LMPs is an equivalence, without assuming the state space to be analytic. As the second main contribution, we introduce the first specification rule format to define well-behaved composition operators for LMPs. This allows one to define process description languages on LMPs which are always guaranteed to have a fully-abstract semantics

Sound and complete axiomatizations of coalgebraic language equivalence

Coalgebras provide a uniform framework to study dynamical systems, including several types of automata. In this paper, we make use of the coalgebraic view on systems to investigate, in a uniform way, under which conditions calculi that are sound and complete with respect to behavioral equivalence can be extended to a coarser coalgebraic language equivalence, which arises from a generalised powerset construction that determinises coalgebras. We show that soundness and completeness are established by proving that expressions modulo axioms of a calculus form the rational fixpoint of the given type functor. Our main result is that the rational fixpoint of the functor $FT$, where $T$ is a monad describing the branching of the systems (e.g. non-determinism, weights, probability etc.), has as a quotient the rational fixpoint of the "determinised" type functor $\bar F$, a lifting of $F$ to the category of $T$-algebras. We apply our framework to the concrete example of weighted automata, for which we present a new sound and complete calculus for weighted language equivalence. As a special case, we obtain non-deterministic automata, where we recover Rabinovich's sound and complete calculus for language equivalence.Comment: Corrected version of published journal articl

Dynamical Systems in Categories

In this article we establish a bridge between dynamical systems, including topological and measurable dynamical systems as well as continuous skew product flows and nonautonomous dynamical systems; and coalgebras in categories having all finite products. We introduce a straightforward unifying definition of abstract dynamical system on finite product categories. Furthermore, we prove that such systems are in a unique correspondence with monadic algebras whose signature functor takes products with the time space. We substantiate that the categories of topological spaces, metrisable and uniformisable spaces have exponential objects w.r.t. locally compact Hausdorff, σ-compact or arbitrary time spaces as exponents, respectively. Exploiting the adjunction between taking products and exponential objects, we demonstrate a one-to-one correspondence between monadic algebras (given by dynamical systems) for the left-adjoint functor and comonadic coalgebras for the other. This, finally, provides a new, alternative perspective on dynamical systems.:1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 Preliminaries and Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1 Preliminaries related to topology and measure theory . . . . . . . . 4 2.2 Basic notions from category theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3 Classical dynamical systems theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3 Dynamical Systems in Abstract Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.1 Monoids and monoid actions in abstract categories . . . . . . . . . . 31 3.2 Abstract dynamical systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 3.3 Nonautonomous dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 4 Dynamical Systems as Algebras and Coalgebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 4.1 From monoids to monads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 4.2 From abstract dynamical systems to monadic algebras . . . . . . . 48 4.3 Connections to coalgebras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 4.4 Exponential objects in Top for locally compact Hausdorff spaces . . 52 4.5 (Co)Monadic (co)algebras and adjoint functors . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5