Proper Functors and Fixed Points for Finite Behaviour

The rational fixed point of a set functor is well-known to capture the behaviour of finite coalgebras. In this paper we consider functors on algebraic categories. For them the rational fixed point may no longer be fully abstract, i.e. a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Inspired by \'Esik and Maletti's notion of a proper semiring, we introduce the notion of a proper functor. We show that for proper functors the rational fixed point is determined as the colimit of all coalgebras with a free finitely generated algebra as carrier and it is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Moreover, we prove that a functor is proper if and only if that colimit is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. These results serve as technical tools for soundness and completeness proofs for coalgebraic regular expression calculi, e.g. for weighted automata

A Coalgebraic Approach to Reducing Finitary Automata

Compact representations of automata are important for efficiency. In this paper, we study methods to compute reduced automata, in which no two states accept the same language. We do this for finitary automata (FA), an abstract definition that encompasses probabilistic and weighted automata. Our procedure makes use of Milius' locally finite fixpoint. We present a reduction algorithm that instantiates to probabilistic and S-linear weighted automata (WA) for a large class of semirings. Moreover, we propose a potential connection between properness of a semiring and our provided reduction algorithm for WAs, paving the way for future work in connecting the reduction of automata to the properness of their associated coalgebras

A Completeness Theorem for Probabilistic Regular Expressions

We introduce Probabilistic Regular Expressions (PRE), a probabilistic analogue of regular expressions denoting probabilistic languages in which every word is assigned a probability of being generated. We present and prove the completeness of an inference system for reasoning about probabilistic language equivalence of PRE based on Salomaa's axiomatisation of Kleene Algebra