In many situations one encounters an entity that resembles a monoid. It consists of a carrier and two operations that resemble a unit and a multiplication, subject to three equations that resemble associativity and left and right unital laws. The question then arises whether this entity is, in fact, a monoid in a suitable sense. Category theorists have answered this question by providing a notion of monoid in a monoidal category, or more generally in a multicategory. While these encompass many examples, there remain cases which do not fit into these frameworks, such as the notion of relative monad and the modelling of call-by-push-value sequencing. In each of these examples, the leftmost and/or the rightmost factor of a multiplication or associativity law seems to be distinguished. To include such examples, we generalize the multicategorical framework in two stages. Firstly, we move to the framework of a left-skew multicategory (due to Bourke and Lack), which generalizes both multicategory and left-skew monoidal category. The notion of monoid in this framework encompasses examples where only the leftmost factor is distinguished, such as the notion of relative monad. Secondly, we consider monoids in the novel framework of a bi-skew multicategory. This encompasses examples where both the leftmost and the rightmost factor are distinguished, such as the notion of a category on a span, and the modelling of call-by-push-value sequencing. In the bi-skew framework (which is the most general), we give a coherence result saying that a monoid corresponds to an unbiased monoid, i.e. a map from the terminal bi-skew multicategory.

Programs that combine I/O and countable probabilistic choice, modulo either bisimilarity or trace equivalence, can be seen as describing a probabilistic strategy. For well-founded programs, we might expect to axiomatize bisimilarity via a sum of equational theories and trace equivalence via a tensor of such theories. This is by analogy with similar results for nondeterminism, established previously. While bisimilarity is indeed axiomatized via a sum of theories, and the tensor is indeed at least sound for trace equivalence, completeness in general, remains an open problem. Nevertheless, we show completeness in the case that either the probabilistic choice or the I/O operations used are finitary. We also show completeness up to impersonation, i.e. that the tensor theory regards trace equivalent programs as solving the same system of equations. This entails completeness up to the cancellation law of the probabilistic choice operator.Furthermore, we show that a probabilistic trace strategy arises as the semantics of a well-founded program iff it is victorious. This means that, when the strategy is played against any partial counterstrategy, the probability of play continuing forever is zero.We link our results (and open problem) to particular monads that can be used to model computational effects.

Abstract In the theory of coalgebras, trace semantics can be defined in various distinct ways, including through algebraic logics, the Kleisli category of a monad or its Eilenberg–Moore category. This paper elaborates two new unifying ideas: (i) coalgebraic,draftrules trace semantics is naturally presented in terms of corecursive algebras, and (ii) all three approaches arise as instances of the same abstract setting. Our perspective puts the different approaches under a common roof and allows to derive conditions under which some of them coincide.

We introduce a new notion of "guarded Elgot monad", that is a monad equipped with a form of iteration. It requires every guarded morphism to have a specified fixpoint, and classical equational laws of iteration to be satisfied. This notion includes Elgot monads, but also further examples of partial non-unique iteration, emerging in the semantics of processes under infinite trace equivalence. We recall the construction of the "coinductive resumption monad" from a monad and endofunctor, that is used for modelling programs up to bisimilarity. We characterize this construction via a universal property: if the given monad is guarded Elgot, then the coinductive resumption monad is the guarded Elgot monad that freely extends it by the given endofunctor.

When presenting a denotational semantics of a language with recursion, it is necessary to show that the semantics is computationally adequate, i.e. that every divergent term denotes the “bottom” element of a domain. We explain how to view such a theorem as a purely syntactic result. Any theory (congruence) that includes basic laws and is closed under an infinitary rule that we call “rational continuity” has the property that every divergent term is equated with the divergent constant. Therefore, to prove a model adequate, it suffices to show that it validates the basic laws and the rational continuity rule. While this approach was inspired by the categorical, ordered framework of Abramsky et al., neither category theory nor order is needed. The purpose of the paper is to present this syntactic result for call-by-push-value extended with term-level recursion and polymorphic types. Our account begins with PCF, then includes sum types, then moves to call-by-push-value, and finally includes polymorphic types.

We present a denotational account of dynamic allocation of potentially cyclic memory cells using a monad on a functor category. We identify the collection of heaps as an object in a different functor category equipped with a monad for adding hiding/encapsulation capabilities to the heaps. We derive a monad for full ground references supporting effect masking by applying a state monad transformer to the encapsulation monad. To evaluate the monad, we present a denotational semantics for a call-by-value calculus with full ground references, and validate associated code transformations.

We study Abramsky's applicative bisimilarity abstractly, in the context of call-by-value λ-calculi with algebraic effects. We first of all endow a computational λ-calculus with a monadic operational semantics. We then show how the theory of relators provides precisely what is needed to generalise applicative bisimilarity to such a calculus, and to single out those monads and relators for which applicative bisimilarity is a congruence, thus a sound methodology for program equivalence. This is done by studying Howe's method in the abstract.

What is the right notion of "isomorphism" between types, in a simple type theory? The traditional answer is: a pair of terms that are inverse up to a specified congruence. We firstly argue that, in the presence of effects, this answer is too liberal and needs to be restricted, using Führmann's notion of thunkability in the case of value types (as in call-by-value), or using Munch-Maccagnoni's notion of linearity in the case of computation types (as in call-by-name). Yet that leaves us with different notions of isomorphism for different kinds of type.

We give a technique to construct a final coalgebra in which each element is a set of formulas of modal logic. The technique works for both the finite and the countable powerset functors. Starting with an injectively structured, corecursive algebra, we coinductively obtain a suitable subalgebra called the "co-founded part". We see—first with an example, and then in the general setting of modal logic on a dual adjunction—that modal theories form an injectively structured, corecursive algebra, so that this construction may be applied. We also obtain an initial algebra in a similar way. We generalize the framework beyond Set to categories equipped with a suitable factorization system, and look at the examples of Poset and Set-op .

We investigate impure, call-by-value programming languages. Our first language only has variables and let-binding. Its equational theory is a variant of Lambek's theory of multicategories that omits the commutativity axiom.

We present techniques that enable higher-order functional computations to "explain" their work by answering questions about how parts of their output were calculated. As explanations, we consider the traditional notion of program slices, which we show can be inadequate, and propose a new notion: trace slices. We present techniques for specifying flexible and rich slicing criteria based on partial expressions, parts of which have been replaced by holes.

Coproducts of monads on $\Set$ have arisen in both the study of computational effects and universal algebra. We describe coproducts of consistent monads on $\Set$ by an initial algebra formula, and prove also the converse: if the coproduct exists, so do the required initial algebras. That formula was, in the case of ideal monads, also used by Ghani and Uustalu. We deduce that coproduct embeddings of consistent monads are injective; and that a coproduct of injective monad morphisms is injective. Two consistent monads have a coproduct iff either they have arbitrarily large common fixpoints, or one is an exception monad, possibly modified to preserve the empty set. Hence a consistent monad has a coproduct with every monad iff it is an exception monad, possibly modified to preserve the empty set. We also show other fixpoint results, including that a functor (not constant on nonempty sets) is finitary iff every sufficiently large cardinal is a fixpoint.

The concurrency theory literature offers a wealth of examples of characteristic-formula constructions for various behavioural relations over finite labelled transition systems and Kripke structures that are defined in terms of fixed points of suitable functions. Such constructions and their proofs of correctness have been developed independently, but have a common underlying structure. This paper provides a general view of characteristic formulae that are expressed in terms of logics that have a facility for the recursive definition of formulae. We show how several examples of characteristic-formula constructions in the literature can be recovered as instances of the proposed general framework, and how the framework can be used to yield novel constructions. The paper also offers general results pertaining to the definition of co-characteristic formulae and of characteristic formulae expressed in terms of infinitary modal logics.

This paper presents a new bisimulation theory for parametric polymorphism which enables straight forward co-inductive proofs of program equivalences involving existential types. The theory is an instance of typed normal form bisimulation and demonstrates the power of this recent framework for modeling typed lambda calculi as labelled transition systems.We develop our theory for a continuation-passing style calculus, Jump-With-Argument, where normal form bisimulation takes a simple form. We equip the calculus with both existential and recursive types. An "ultimate pattern matching theorem" enables us to define bisimilarity and we show it to be a congruence. We apply our theory to proving program equivalences, type isomorphisms and genericity.