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 .

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.

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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.

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We study the algebras for the double power monad on the Sierpiński space in the Cartesian closed category of equilogical spaces and produce a connection of the algebras with frames. The results hint at a possible synthetic, constructive approach to frames via algebras, in line with that considered in Abstract Stone Duality by Paul Taylor and others.