Abstract

I'll present the rudiments of a unifying theory of general processes encompassing discrete, continuous, and hybrid systems. The main focus will be on the study of process behaviour; however, constructions on processes will also be considered. In particular, I'll show that processes admit an abstract, conceptual treatment of bisimilarity via the notion of open map (as advocated by Winskel et al). And, I'll present a tool-kit of categorical constructions on processes that can be regarded as the basis of a process description language. Applications of the theory to discrete and hybrid systems will be discussed.