Questions of set-theoretic size play an essential role in category theory, especially the distinction between sets and proper classes (or small sets and large sets). There are many different ways to formalize this, and which choice is made can have noticeable effects on what categorical constructions are permissible. In this expository paper we summarize and compare a number of such "set-theoretic foundations for category theory," and describe their implications for the everyday use of category theory. We assume the reader has some basic knowledge of category theory, but little or no prior experience with formal logic or set theory.
Through careful analysis of an argument of Brooke-Taylor and Rosicky, we show that the powerful image of any accessible functor is closed under colimits of $κ$-chains, $κ$ a sufficiently large almost measurable cardinal. This condition on powerful images, by methods resembling those of Lieberman and Rosicky, implies $κ$-locality of Galois types. As this, in turn, implies sufficient measurability of $κ$, via a paper of Boney and Unger, we obtain an equivalence: a purely category-theoretic characterization of almost measurable cardinals.
Gambino and Garner proved that the syntactic category of a dependent type theory with identity types can be endowed with a weak factorization system structure, called identity type weak factorization system. In this paper we consider an enrichment of Joyal's notion of tribe, which we call a tribe with weakly stable path objects, and prove a purely category-theoretic version of the identity type weak factorization system, thus generalizing Gambino and Garner's result. We conclude showing that this structure subsumes also the weak factorization systems coming from the topological and simplicial …
The category-valued trace assigns to a bimodule category over a linear monoidal category a linear category. It generalizes Drinfeld centers of monoidal categories and the relative Deligne product of bimodule categories. In this article, we study bimodule categories that are given as categories of bicomodules over a Hopf algebra. Our main result is a representation-theoretic realization of the category-valued trace as a category of generalized Hopf bimodules.
We develop category-theoretic framework for universal homogeneous objects, with some applications in the theory of Banach spaces, linear orderings, and in topology of compact spaces.
This PhD thesis deals with some new models of intensional type theory and the Univalence Axiom introduced by Vladimir Voevodsky. Our work takes place in the framework of the definitions of type-theoretic fibration categories (the notion of model under consideration in this thesis) and universe in a type-theoretic fibration category, definitions due to Michael Shulman. The goal of this thesis consists mainly in the exploration of the stability of the univalence axiom, in particular in the following sense: being given a type-theoretic fibration category C equipped with a univalent universe U, we…
We present a new, category theoretic point of view on finite Ramsey theory. Our aims are as follows: -- to define the category theoretic notions needed for the development of finite Ramsey Theory, -- to state, in terms of these notions, the general fundamental Ramsey results (of which various concrete Ramsey results are special cases), and -- to give self-contained proofs within the category theoretic framework of these general results. We also provide some concrete illustrations of the general method.
It is well known that there is a correspondence between sets and complete, atomic Boolean algebras (CABA's) taking a set to its power-set and, reciprocally, a complete, atomic Boolean algebra to its set of atomic elements. Of course, such a correspondence induces an equivalence between the opposite category of $\textbf{Set}$ and the category of CABA's. We extend this result by taking multialgebras over a signature $Σ$, specifically those whose non-deterministic operations cannot return the empty-set, to CABA's with their zero element removed and a structure of $Σ$-algebra compatible with its o…
We highlight the underlying category-theoretic structure of measures of information flow. We present an axiomatic framework in which communication systems are represented as morphisms, and information flow is characterized by its behavior when communication systems are combined. Our framework includes a variety of discrete, continuous, and, conjecturally, quantum information measures. It also includes some familiar mathematical constructs not normally associated with information, such as vector space dimension. We discuss these examples and prove basic results from the axioms.
In this paper, we define a generalization of indexed categories and contextual categories which we call contextually indexed (contextual) categories. While contextual categories are models of ordinary type theories, contextually indexed (contextual) categories are models of indexed type theories. We also define type-theoretic semi-fibration categories which generalize type-theoretic fibration categories. Every model category in which cofibrations are stable under pullbacks is a type-theoretic semi-fibration category. We show that type-theoretic semi-fibration category gives rise to a contextua…
Forking is a central notion of model theory, generalizing linear independence in vector spaces and algebraic independence in fields. We develop the theory of forking in abstract, category-theoretic terms, for reasons both practical (we require a characterization suitable for work in $μ$-abstract elementary classes, i.e. accessible categories with all morphisms monomorphisms) and expository (we hope, with this account, to make forking accessible - and useful - to a broader mathematical audience). In particular, we present an axiomatic definition of what we call a stable independence notion on a…
We give an explicit construction of the category Opetope of opetopes. We prove that the category of opetopic sets is equivalent to the category of presheaves over Opetope.
This paper examines the category theory of stratified set theory (NF and KF). We work out the properties of the relevant categories of sets, and introduce a functorial analogue to Specker's T-operation. Such a development leads one to consider the appropriate notion of "elementary topos" for stratified set theories. In addition to considering the categorical properties of a generic model of NF set theory, we identify a stratified Yoneda Lemma and show NF encodes itself as a full internal subcategory. Finally, our desire to examine NF in the context of category theory motivates a more precise e…
We study 2-monads and their algebras using a Cat-enriched version of Quillen model categories, emphasizing the parallels between the homotopical and 2-categorical points of view. Every 2-category with finite limits and colimits has a canonical model structure in which the weak equivalences are the equivalences; we use these to construct more interesting model structures on 2-categories, including a model structure on the 2-category of algebras for a 2-monad T, and a model structure on a 2-category of 2-monads on a fixed 2-category K.
We investigate what would be a correct definition of categorical completeness for C*-categories and propose several variants of such a definition that make the category of Hilbert modules over a C*-algebra a free (co)completion. We extend results about generators and comparison theory known for W*-categories with direct sums and splitting of symmetric projections to our "complete C*-categories" and we give an abstract characterization of categories of Hilbert modules over a C*-algebra or a C*-category as "complete C*-category having enough absolutely compact morphisms (and a generator)". We th…
A monad is constructed in the Goguen category of fuzzy sets valued in a unital quantale, which is an analog of the double contravariant powerset monad in the category of sets. With help of this monad it is proved that the Goguen category of fuzzy sets is dually monadic over itself.
The ergodic decomposition theorem is a cornerstone result of dynamical systems and ergodic theory. It states that every invariant measure on a dynamical system is a mixture of ergodic ones. Here we formulate and prove the theorem in terms of string diagrams, using the formalism of Markov categories. We recover the usual measure-theoretic statement by instantiating our result in the category of stochastic kernels. Along the way we give a conceptual treatment of several concepts in the theory of deterministic and stochastic dynamical systems. In particular, - ergodic measures appear very natural…
We show that in the category of preordered sets, there is a natural notion of pretorsion theory, in which the partially ordered sets are the torsion-free objects and the sets endowed with an equivalence relation are the torsion objects. Correspondingly, it is possible to construct a stable category factoring out the objects that are both torsion and torsion-free.
This thesis is about trying to understand various aspects of partial symmetry using ideas from semigroup and category theory. In Chapter 2 it is shown that the left Rees monoids underlying self-similar group actions are precisely monoid HNN-extensions. In particular it is shown that every group HNN-extension arises from a self-similar group action. Examples of these monoids are constructed from fractals. These ideas are generalised in Chapter 3 to a correspondence between left Rees categories, self-similar groupoid actions and category HNN-extensions of groupoids, leading to a deeper relations…
We give a purely category-theoretic proof of the result of Makkai and Paré saying that the category $\bf Lin$ of linearly ordered sets and order preserving injective mappings is a minimal finitely accessible category. We also discuss the existence of a minimal $\aleph_1$-accessible category.
Soft set theory can deal uncertainties in nature by parametrization process. In this paper, we explore the objects and morphisms of category of soft sets, Sset(U) in detail. Also, gives characterizations of monomorphisms and epimorphisms in Sset(U).
The Grothendieck universe axiom asserts that every set is a member of some set-theoretic universe U that is itself a set. One can then work with entities like the category of all U-sets or even the category of all locally U-small categories, where U is an "arbitrary but fixed" universe, all without worrying about which set-theoretic operations one may legitimately apply to these entities. Unfortunately, as soon as one allows the possibility of changing U, one also has to face the fact that universal constructions such as limits or adjoints or Kan extensions could, in principle, depend on the p…
Multi-valued functions are common in computable analysis (built upon the Type 2 Theory of Effectivity), and have made an appearance in complexity theory under the moniker search problems leading to complexity classes such as PPAD and PLS being studied. However, a systematic investigation of the resulting degree structures has only been initiated in the former situation so far (the Weihrauch-degrees). A more general understanding is possible, if the category-theoretic properties of multi-valued functions are taken into account. In the present paper, the category-theoretic framework is establish…
This paper provides a general account of the notion of recursive program schemes, studying both uninterpreted and interpreted solutions. It can be regarded as the category-theoretic version of the classical area of algebraic semantics. The overall assumptions needed are small indeed: working only in categories with "enough final coalgebras" we show how to formulate, solve, and study recursive program schemes. Our general theory is algebraic and so avoids using ordered, or metric structures. Our work generalizes the previous approaches which do use this extra structure by isolating the key conc…
In this article, we consider a formulation of biset functors using the 2-category of finite sets with variable finite group actions. We introduce a 2-category $\mathbb{S}$, on which a biset functor can be regarded as a special kind of Mackey functors. This gives an analog of Dress' definition of a Mackey functor, in the context of biset functors.
We consider Frobenius objects in the category Span, where the objects are sets and the morphisms are isomorphism classes of spans of sets. We show that such structures are in correspondence with data that can be characterized in terms of simplicial sets. An interesting class of examples comes from groupoids. Our primary motivation is that Span can be viewed as a set-theoretic model for the symplectic category, and thus Frobenius objects in Span provide set-theoretic models for classical topological field theories. The paper includes an explanation of this relationship.
In context of efforts of composing category-theoretic and logical methods in the area of knowledge representation we propose the notion of conceptory. We consider intersection/union and other constructions in conceptories as expressive alternative to category-theoretic (co)limits and show they have features similar to (pro-, in-)jections. Then we briefly discuss approaches to development of formal systems built on the base of conceptories and describe possible application of such system to the specific ontology.
The Legendre-Fenchel transform is a classical piece of mathematics with many applications. In this paper we show how it arises in the context of category theory using categories enriched over the extended real numbers $\overline{ \mathbb{R}}:=[-\infty,+\infty]$. A key ingredient is Pavlovic's 'nucleus of a profunctor' construction. The pairing between a vector space and its dual can be viewed as an $\overline {\mathbb{R}}$-profunctor; the construction of the nucleus of this profunctor is the construction of a lot of the theory of the Legendre-Fenchel transform. For a relation between sets view…
If C is a closed symmetric monoidal category, the Chu category Chu(C, g) over C and an object g of it was defined by Chu, as a *-autonomous category generated from C. Bishop introduced the category of complemented subsets of a set, in order to overcome the problems generated by the use of negation in constructive measure theory. Shulman mentions that Bishop's complemented subsets correspond roughly to the Chu construction. In this paper we explain this correspondence by showing that there is a Chu representation (a full embedding) of the category of complemented subsets of a set X into Chu(Set…
The category of dendroidal sets is an extension of that of simplicial sets, suitable for defining nerves of operads rather than just of categories. In this paper, we prove some basic properties of inner Kan complexes in the category of dendroidal sets. In particular, we extend fundamental results of Boardman and Vogt, of Cordier and Porter, and of Joyal to dendroidal sets.
In previous work ("From signatures to monads in UniMath"), we described a category-theoretic construction of abstract syntax from a signature, mechanized in the UniMath library based on the Coq proof assistant. In the present work, we describe what was necessary to generalize that work to account for simply-typed languages. First, some definitions had to be generalized to account for the natural appearance of non-endofunctors in the simply-typed case. As it turns out, in many cases our mechanized results carried over to the generalized definitions without any code change. Second, an existing m…
This thesis is about the problem of compositionality in distributional semantics. Distributional semantics presupposes that the meanings of words are a function of their occurrences in textual contexts. It models words as distributions over these contexts and represents them as vectors in high dimensional spaces. The problem of compositionality for such models concerns itself with how to produce representations for larger units of text by composing the representations of smaller units of text. This thesis focuses on a particular approach to this compositionality problem, namely using the categ…
It is well known that the underlying simplicial set of any simplicial group is a Kan complex. Roughly speaking, Kan complex is an infinite-dimensional analogue of groupoid, and the relation between groupoids and categories resembles that between groups and monoids. Thus one may ask if the underlying simplicial set of each simplicial monoid is a quasi-category. In this short note, we construct a simplicial monoid whose underlying simplicial set is not a quasi-category.
The invertibility hypothesis for a monoidal model category S asks that localizing an S-enriched category with respect to an equivalence results in an weakly equivalent enriched category. This is the most technical among the axioms for S to be an excellent model category in the sense of Lurie, who showed that the category of S-enriched categories then has a model structure with characterizable fibrant objects. We use a universal property of cubical sets, as a monoidal model category, to show that the invertibility hypothesis is consequence of the other axioms.
In this paper, we show that the Thomason model structure restricts to a Quillen equivalent cofibrantly generated model structure on the category of acyclic categories, whose generating cofibrations are the same as those generating the Thomason model structure. To understand the Thomason model structure, we need to have a closer look at the (barycentric) subdivision endofunctor on the category of simplicial sets. This functor has a well known right adjoint, called Kan's Ex functor. Taking the subdivision twice and then the fundamental category yields a left adjoint of an adjunction between the …
We present a way of constructing a Quillen model structure on a full subcategory of an elementary topos, starting with an interval object with connections and a certain dominance. The advantage of this method is that it does not require the underlying topos to be cocomplete. The resulting model category structure gives rise to a model of homotopy type theory with identity types, $Σ$- and $Π$-types, and functional extensionality. We apply the method to the effective topos with the interval object $\nabla 2$. In the resulting model structure we identify uniform inhabited objects as contractible …
We introduce a new cubical model for homotopy types. More precisely, we'll define a category Qs with the following features: Qs is a PROP containing the classical box category as a subcategory, the category Qs-Set of presheaves of sets on Qs models the homotopy category, and combinatorial symmetric monoidal model categories with cofibrant unit all have homotopically well behaved Qs-Set enrichments.
This paper continues the development of a simplicial theory of weak omega-categories, by studying categories which are enriched in weak complicial sets. These complicial Gray-categories generalise both the Kan complex enriched categories of homotopy theory and the Gray-categories of weak 3-category theory. We derive a simplicial nerve construction, which is closely related to Cordier and Porter's homotopy coherent nerve, and show that this faithfully represents complicial Gray-categories as weak complicial sets. The category of weak complicial sets may itself be canonically enriched to a compl…
The category of matchings between finite sets extends to the category of cobordisms of signed sets. A chain of cobordisms that starts and ends with unsigned sets A and B yields a matching from A to B. This is a convenient way to package the involution principle of Garsia and Milne, which reveals itself to have little to do with involutions.
In this thesis we define the notion of a locally stratified space. Locally stratified spaces are particular kinds of streams and d-spaces which are locally modelled on stratified spaces. We construct a locally presentable and cartesian closed category of locally stratified spaces that admits an adjunction with the category of simplicial sets. Moreover, we show that the full subcategory spanned by locally stratified spaces whose associated simplicial set is a quasicategory has the structure of a category with fibrant objects. We define the fundamental category of a locally stratified space and …
We develop a purely set-theoretic formalism for binary trees and binary graphs. We define a category of binary automata, and display it as a fibred category over the category of binary graphs. We also relate the notion of binary graphs to transition systems, which arise in the theory of concurrent computing.
We introduce (continuous) partial category actions on sets (topological spaces) and show that each such action admits a universal globalization. Thereby, we obtain a simultaneous generalization of corresponding results for groups, by Kellendonk and Lawson, and for monoids, by Megrelishvili and Schroder. We apply this result to the special case of partial groupoid actions where we obtain a sharpening of a result by Gilbert, concerning ordered groupoids, in the sense that mediating functions between universal globalizations always are injective.
