Abstract We present a systematic approach to logical predicates based on universal coalgebra and higher-order abstract GSOS, thus making a first step towards a unifying theory of logical relations. We start with the observation that logical predicates are special cases of coalgebraic invariants on mixed-variance functors. We then introduce the notion of a locally maximal logical refinement of a given predicate, with a view to enabling inductive reasoning, and identify sufficient conditions on the overall setup in which locally maximal logical refinements canonically exist. Finally, we develop induction-up-to techniques that simplify inductive proofs via logical predicates on systems encoded as (certain classes of) higher-order GSOS laws by identifying and abstracting away from their boiler-plate part.

Rig categories with finite biproducts are categories with two monoidal products, where one is a biproduct and the other distributes over it. In this work we present tape diagrams, a sound and complete diagrammatic language for these categories, that can be intuitively thought as string diagrams of string diagrams. We test the effectiveness of our approach against the positive fragment of Tarski's calculus of relations.

We study the canonical weak distributive law $\delta$ of the powerset monad over the semimodule monad for a certain class of semirings containing, in particular, positive semifields. For this subclass we characterise $\delta$ as a convex closure in the free semimodule of a set. Using the abstract theory of weak distributive laws, we compose the powerset and the semimodule monads via $\delta$, obtaining the monad of convex subsets of the free semimodule.

Abstract We investigate how various forms of bisimulation can be characterised using the technology of logical relations. The approach taken is that each form of bisimulation corresponds to an algebraic structure derived from a transition system, and the general result is that a relation R between two transition systems on state spaces S and T is a bisimulation if and only if the derived algebraic structures are in the logical relation automatically generated from R. We show that this approach works for the original Park–Milner bisimulation and that it extends to weak bisimulation, and branching and semi-branching bisimulation. The paper concludes with a discussion of probabilistic bisimulation, where the situation is slightly more complex, partly owing to the need to encompass bisimulations that are not just relations.

We study the relationship between cartesian bicategories and a specialisation of Lawvere's hyperdoctrines, namely elementary existential doctrines. Both provide different ways of abstracting the structural properties of logical systems: the former in algebraic terms based on a string diagrammatic calculus, the latter in universal terms using the fundamental notion of adjoint functor. We prove that these two approaches are related by an adjunction, which can be strengthened to an equivalence by imposing further constraints on doctrines.

Abstract We describe the canonical weak distributive law $$\delta :\mathcal S\mathcal P\rightarrow \mathcal P\mathcal S$$ δ : S P → P S of the powerset monad $$\mathcal P$$ P over the S-left-semimodule monad $$\mathcal S$$ S , for a class of semirings S. We show that the composition of $$\mathcal P$$ P with $$\mathcal S$$ S by means of such $$\delta $$ δ yields almost the monad of convex subsets previously introduced by Jacobs: the only difference consists in the absence in Jacobs’s monad of the empty convex set. We provide a handy characterisation of the canonical weak lifting of $$\mathcal P$$ P to $$\mathbb {EM}(\mathcal S)$$ EM ( S ) as well as an algebraic theory for the resulting composed monad. Finally, we restrict the composed monad to finitely generated convex subsets and we show that it is presented by an algebraic theory combining semimodules and semilattices with bottom, which are the algebras for the finite powerset monad $$\mathcal P_f$$ P f .

Natural transformations are ubiquitous in mathematics, logic and computer science. For operations of mixed variance, such as currying and evaluation in the lambda-calculus, Eilenberg and Kelly's notion of extranatural transformation, and often the even more general dinatural transformation, is required. Unfortunately dinaturals are not closed under composition except in special circumstances. This paper presents a new sufficient condition for composability. We propose a generalised notion of dinatural transformation in many variables, and extend the Eilenberg-Kelly account of composition for extranaturals to these transformations. Our main result is that a composition of dinatural transformations which creates no cyclic connections between arguments yields a dinatural transformation. We also extend the classical notion of horizontal composition to our generalized dinaturals and demonstrate that it is associative and has identities.