Refinement for Signal Flow Graphs

The symmetric monoidal theory of Interacting Hopf Algebras provides a sound and complete axiomatisation for linear relations over a given field. As is the case for ordinary relations, linear relations have a natural order that coincides with inclusion. In this paper, we give a presentation for this ordering by extending the theory of Interacting Hopf Algebras with a single additional inequation. We show that the extended theory gives rise to an abelian bicategory - a concept due to Carboni and Walters - and highlight similarities with the algebra of relations. Most importantly, the ordering leads to a well-behaved notion of refinement for signal flow graphs

String Diagrammatic Electrical Circuit Theory

We develop a comprehensive string diagrammatic treatment of electrical circuits. Building on previous, limited case studies, we introduce controlled sources and meters as elements, and the impedance calculus, a powerful toolbox for diagrammatic reasoning on circuit diagrams. We demonstrate the power of our approach by giving comprehensive proofs of several textbook results, including the superposition theorem and Th\'evenin's theorem.Comment: 13 pages + appendices. Accepted for ACT202

String diagram rewrite theory II: rewriting with symmetric monoidal structure

Symmetric monoidal theories (SMTs) generalise algebraic theories in a way that make them suitable to express resource-sensitive systems, in which variables cannot be copied or discarded at will. In SMTs, traditional tree-like terms are replaced by string diagrams, topological entities that can be intuitively thought of as diagrams of wires and boxes. Recently, string diagrams have become increasingly popular as a graphical syntax to reason about computational models across diverse fields, including programming language semantics, circuit theory, quantum mechanics, linguistics, and control theory. In applications, it is often convenient to implement the equations appearing in SMTs as rewriting rules. This poses the challenge of extending the traditional theory of term rewriting, which has been developed for algebraic theories, to string diagrams. In this paper, we develop a mathematical theory of string diagram rewriting for SMTs. Our approach exploits the correspondence between string diagram rewriting and double pushout (DPO) rewriting of certain graphs, introduced in the first paper of this series. Such a correspondence is only sound when the SMT includes a Frobenius algebra structure. In the present work, we show how an analogous correspondence may be established for arbitrary SMTs, once an appropriate notion of DPO rewriting (which we call convex) is identified. As proof of concept, we use our approach to show termination of two SMTs of interest: Frobenius semi-algebras and bialgebras

String diagram rewrite theory II: Rewriting with symmetric monoidal structure

Symmetric monoidal theories (SMTs) generalise algebraic theories in a way that make them suitable to express resource-sensitive systems, in which variables cannot be copied or discarded at will. In SMTs, traditional tree-like terms are replaced by string diagrams, topological entities that can be intuitively thought of as diagrams of wires and boxes. Recently, string diagrams have become increasingly popular as a graphical syntax to reason about computational models across diverse fields, including programming language semantics, circuit theory, quantum mechanics, linguistics, and control theory. In applications, it is often convenient to implement the equations appearing in SMTs as rewriting rules. This poses the challenge of extending the traditional theory of term rewriting, which has been developed for algebraic theories, to string diagrams. In this paper, we develop a mathematical theory of string diagram rewriting for SMTs. Our approach exploits the correspondence between string diagram rewriting and double pushout (DPO) rewriting of certain graphs, introduced in the first paper of this series. Such a correspondence is only sound when the SMT includes a Frobenius algebra structure. In the present work, we show how an analogous correspondence may be established for arbitrary SMTs, once an appropriate notion of DPO rewriting (which we call convex) is identified. As proof of concept, we use our approach to show termination of two SMTs of interest: Frobenius semi-algebras and bialgebras

Diagrammatic Algebra: from Linear to Concurrent Systems

We introduce the resource calculus, a string diagrammatic language for concurrent systems. Significantly, it uses the same syntax and operational semantics as the signal flow calculus — an algebraic formalism for signal flow graphs, which is a combinatorial model of computation of interest in control theory. Indeed, our approach stems from the simple but fruitful observation that, by replacing real numbers (modelling signals) with natural numbers (modelling resources) in the operational semantics, concurrent behaviour patterns emerge. The resource calculus is canonical: we equip it and its stateful extension with equational theories that characterise the underlying space of definable behaviours—a convex algebraic universe of additive relations— via isomorphisms of categories. Finally, we demonstrate that our calculus is sufficiently expressive to capture behaviour definable by classical Petri net

An Introduction to String Diagrams for Computer Scientists

This document is an elementary introduction to string diagrams. It takes a computer science perspective: rather than using category theory as a starting point, we build on intuitions from formal language theory, treating string diagrams as a syntax with its semantics. After the basic theory, pointers are provided to contemporary applications of string diagrams in various fields of science