Moralisation and Triangulation are transformations allowing to switch between different ways of factoring a probability distribution into a graphical model. Moralisation allows to view a Bayesian network (a directed model) as a Markov network (an undirected model), whereas triangulation addresses the opposite direction. We present a categorical framework where these transformations are modelled as functors between a category of Bayesian networks and one of Markov networks. The two kinds of network (the objects of these categories) are themselves represented as functors from a `syntax' domain to a `semantics' codomain. Notably, moralisation and triangulation can be defined inductively on such syntax via functor pre-composition. Moreover, while moralisation is fully syntactic, triangulation relies on semantics. This leads to a discussion of the variable elimination algorithm, reinterpreted here as a functor in its own right, that splits the triangulation procedure in two: one purely syntactic, the other purely semantic. This approach introduces a functorial perspective into the theory of probabilistic graphical models, which highlights the distinctions between syntactic and semantic modifications.

Many formal languages of contemporary mathematical music theory -- particularly those employing category theory -- are powerful but cumbersome: ideas that are conceptually simple frequently require expression through elaborate categorical constructions such as functor categories. This paper proposes a remedy in the form of a type-theoretic symbolic language that enables mathematical music theorists to build and reason about musical structures more intuitively, without relinquishing the rigor of their categorical foundations. Type theory provides a syntax in which elements, functions, and relations can be expressed in simple terms, while categorical semantics supplies their mathemusical interpretation. Within this system, reasoning itself becomes constructive: propositions and proofs are treated as objects, yielding a framework in which the formation of structures and the reasoning about them take place within the same mathematical language. The result is a concise and flexible formalism that restores conceptual transparency to mathemusical thought and supports new applications, illustrated here through the theory of voice-leading spaces.

These are lecture notes for a course in Winter 2022/23, updated and completed in October 2025. The goal of the lectures is to present some recent developments around six-functor formalisms, in particular: the abstract theory of 6-functor formalisms; the 2-category of cohomological correspondences, and resulting simplifications in the proofs of Poincaré--Verdier duality results; the relation between 6-functor formalisms and ``geometric rings''; many examples of 6-functor formalisms, both old and new.

Reflexive dg categories were introduced by Kuznetsov and Shinder to abstract the duality between bounded and perfect derived categories. In particular this duality relates their Hochschild cohomologies, autoequivalence groups, and semiorthogonal decompositions. We establish reflexivity in a variety of settings including affine schemes, simple-minded collections, chain and cochain dg algebras of topological spaces, Ginzburg dg algebras, and Fukaya categories of cotangent bundles and surfaces as well as the closely related class of graded gentle algebras. Our proofs are based on the interplay of reflexivity with gluings, derived completions, and Koszul duality. In particular we show that for certain (co)connective dg algebras, reflexivity is equivalent to derived completeness.

Equality saturation, a technique for program optimisation and reasoning, has gained attention due to the resurgence of equality graphs (e-graphs). E-graphs represent equivalence classes of terms under rewrite rules, enabling simultaneous rewriting across a family of terms. However, they struggle in domains like $\lambda$-calculus that involve variable binding, due to a lack of native support for bindings. Building on recent work interpreting e-graphs categorically as morphisms in semilattice-enriched symmetric monoidal categories, we extend this framework to closed symmetric monoidal categories to handle bindings. We provide a concrete combinatorial representation using hierarchical hypergraphs and introduce a corresponding double-pushout (DPO) rewriting mechanism. Finally, we establish the equivalence of term rewriting and DPO rewriting, with the key property that the combinatorial representation absorbs the equations of the symmetric monoidal category.

We construct functors sending torus-equivariant quasi-coherent sheaves on toric schemes over the sphere spectrum to constructible sheaves of spectra on real vector spaces. This provides a spectral lift of the toric homolgoical mirror symmetry theorem of Fang-Liu-Treumann-Zaslow (arXiv:1007.0053). Along the way, we obtain symmetric monoidal structures and functoriality results concerning those functors, which are new even over a field $k$. We also explain how the `non-equivariant' version of the theorem would follow from this functoriality via the de-equivariantization technique. As a concrete application, we obtain an alternative proof of Beilinson's linear algebraic description of quasi-coherent sheaves on projective spaces with spectral coefficients.

Circuit algebras, used in the study of finite-type knot invariants, are a symmetric analogue of Jones's planar algebras. This work, the first of a pair of papers comprising a detailed study of circuit algebra combinatorics, provides three equivalent descriptions of circuit algebras: in terms of operads of wiring diagrams, modular operads and categories of Brauer diagrams. As an application, circuit algebra characterisations of algebras over the orthogonal and symplectic groups are given.

We study gauging operations (or group extensions) in (smeared) boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) and bulk conformal field theories, and their applications to various phenomena in topologically ordered systems. We apply the resultant theories to the correspondence between the renormalization group (RG) flow of CFTs and the classification of topological quantum field theories in the testable information of general classes of partition functions. One can obtain the bulk topological properties of $2+1$ dimensional topological ordered phase corresponding to the massive RG flow of $1+1$ dimensional systems, or smeared BCFT. We present an obstruction of mass condensation for smeared BCFT analogous to the Lieb-Shultz-Mattis theorem for noninvertible symmetry. Related to the bulk topological degeneracies in $2+1$ dimensions and quantum phases in $1+1$ dimensions, we construct a new series of BCFT. We also investigate the implications of the massless RG flow of $1+1$ dimensional CFT to $2+1$ dimensional topological order, which corresponds to the earlier proposal by L. Kong and H. Zheng in [Nucl. Phys. B 966 (2021), 115384], arXiv:1912.01760, closely related to the integer-spin simple current by Schellekens and Gato-Rivera. We study the properties of the product of two CFTs connected by the two kinds of massless flows. The (mock) modular covariants appearing in the analysis seem to contain new ones. By applying the folding trick to the coupled model, we provide a general method to solve the gapped and charged domain wall. One can obtain the general phenomenology of the transportation of anyons through the domain wall. Our work gives a unified direction for the future theoretical and numerical studies of the topological phase based on the established data of classifications of conformal field theories or modular invariants.

We study $\mathrm{W}^*$-categories, and explain the ways in which complete $\mathrm{W}^*$-categories behave like categorified Hilbert spaces. Every $\mathrm{W}^*$-category $C$ admits a canonical categorified inner product $\langle\,\,,\,\rangle_{\mathrm{Hilb}}\,:\,\overline C\times C\,\to\, \mathrm{Hilb}$. Moreover, if $C$ and $D$ are complete $\mathrm{W}^*$-categories there is an antilinear equivalence $$\dagger:\mathrm{Func}(C,D) \leftrightarrow \mathrm{Func}(D,C)$$ characterised by $\langle c,F^\dagger(d)\rangle_{\mathrm{Hilb}} \simeq \langle F(c),d\rangle_{\mathrm{Hilb}}$, for $c\in C$ and $d \in D$.

The purpose of this article is threefold: Firstly, we propose some enhancements to the existing definition of 6-functor formalisms. Secondly, we systematically study the category of kernels, which is a certain 2-category attached to every 6-functor formalism. It provides powerful new insights into the internal structure of the 6-functor formalism and allows to abstractly define important finiteness conditions, recovering well-known examples from the literature. Finally, we apply our methods to the theory of smooth representations of $p$-adic Lie groups and, as an application, construct a canonical anti-involution on derived Hecke algebras generalizing results of Schneider--Sorensen. In an appendix we provide the necessary background on $\infty$-categories, higher algebra, enriched $\infty$-categories and $(\infty,2)$-categories. Among others we prove several new results on adjunctions in an $(\infty,2)$-category and in particular show that passing to the adjoint morphism is a functorial operation.

We study positively closed and strongly positively closed topos-valued models of coherent theories. Positively closed is a global notion (it is defined in terms of all possible outgoing homomorphisms), while strongly positively closed is a local notion (it only concerns the definable sets inside the model). For $\mathbf{Set}$-valued models of coherent theories they coincide. We prove that if $\mathcal{E}=Sh(X)$ for an extremally disconnected Stone space (or equivalently $\mathcal{E}=Sh(B,\tau _{coh})$ for a complete Boolean algebra) then $i)$ $\mathcal{E}$-valued types can be realized by $\mathcal{E}$-valued models, and $ii)$ positively closed but not strongly positively closed $\mathcal{E}$-valued models (of coherent theories) exist, yet, there is an alternative local property that characterizes positively closed $\mathcal{E}$-valued models. A large part of our discussion is given in the context of infinite quantifier geometric logic, dealing with the fragment $L^g_{\kappa \kappa }$ where $\kappa$ is weakly compact.

When a category is equipped with a 2-cell structure it becomes a sesquicategory but not necessarily a 2-category. It is widely accepted that the latter property is equivalent to the middle interchange law. However, little attention has been given to the study of the category of all 2-cell structures (seen as sesquicategories with a fixed underlying base category) other than as a generalization for 2-categories. The purpose of this work is to highlight the significance of such a study, which can prove valuable in identifying intrinsic features pertaining to the base category. These ideas are expanded upon through the guiding example of the category of monoids. Specifically, when a monoid is viewed as a one-object category, its 2-cell structures resemble semibimodules.

The study of modal logic has witnessed tremendous development following the introduction of Kripke semantics. However, recent developments in programming languages and type theory have led to a second way of studying modalities, namely through their categorical semantics. We show how the two correspond.

This paper demystifies the notion of the smashing spectrum of a stable presentably symmetric monoidal $\infty$-category, defined as a locale whose opens correspond to smashing localizations. Previously, this concept was studied in tensor-triangular geometry in the compactly generated rigid setting. Our main result identifies the smashing spectrum functor as the right adjoint to the spectral sheaves functor, providing in particular an external characterization that avoids explicit reference to objects, ideals, or localizations. The sheaves--spectrum adjunction formalizes the intuition that the smashing spectrum constitutes the best approximation of a given $\infty$-category by $\infty$-categories of sheaves. We establish an unstable generalization of this result by identifying the correct unstable analog of the smashing spectrum, which parametrizes smashing colocalizations instead. As an application, we give a categorical presentation of Clausen--Scholze's categorified locales.

Recent advances in neural algorithmic reasoning with graph neural networks (GNNs) are propped up by the notion of algorithmic alignment. Broadly, a neural network will be better at learning to execute a reasoning task (in terms of sample complexity) if its individual components align well with the target algorithm. Specifically, GNNs are claimed to align with dynamic programming (DP), a general problem-solving strategy which expresses many polynomial-time algorithms. However, has this alignment truly been demonstrated and theoretically quantified? Here we show, using methods from category theory and abstract algebra, that there exists an intricate connection between GNNs and DP, going well beyond the initial observations over individual algorithms such as Bellman-Ford. Exposing this connection, we easily verify several prior findings in the literature, produce better-grounded GNN architectures for edge-centric tasks, and demonstrate empirical results on the CLRS algorithmic reasoning benchmark. We hope our exposition will serve as a foundation for building stronger algorithmically aligned GNNs.

Faltings; Gabber and Ramero introduced almost mathematics. In another way, almost mathematics can be characterized bilocalization abelian category of modules mentioned in Quillen's unpublished note. Applying the concept of Quillen's bilocalization to Gabber and Ramero's work, this paper establishes the almost version of algebraic $K$-theory and cobordism. As a result of almost $K$-theory, we prove that in the case an almost algebra containing a field, the almost $K$-theory of the almost algebra is a direct factor of the $K$-theory of the field, implying that almost $K$-theory holds the Gersten property. We clarify that an almost $K$-theory is a $K$-theory spectrum of non-unital firm algebras in the sense of Quillen. Furthermore, we obtain that almost algebraic cobordism holds tilting equivalence on the category of zero-section stable integral perfectoid algebras with finite syntomic topology.

We generalize the correspondence between theories and monads with arities of arXiv:1101.3064 to $\infty$-categories. Additionally, we introduce the notion of complete theories that is unique to the $\infty$-categorical case and provide a completion construction for a certain class of theories. Along the way we also develop the necessary technical material related to the flagged bicategory of correspondences and lax functor in the $\infty$-categorical context.