Trace semantics has been defined for various kinds of state-based systems, notably with different forms of branching such as non-determinism vs. probability. In this paper we claim to identify one underlying mathematical structure behind these "trace semantics," namely coinduction in a Kleisli category. This claim is based on our technical result that, under a suitably order-enriched setting, a final coalgebra in a Kleisli category is given by an initial algebra in the category Sets. Formerly the theory of coalgebras has been employed mostly in Sets where coinduction yields a finer process semantics of bisimilarity. Therefore this paper extends the application field of coalgebras, providing a new instance of the principle "process semantics via coinduction."
Fusion laws permit to eliminate various of the intermediate data structures that are created in function compositions. The fusion laws associated with the traditional recursive operators on datatypes cannot, in general, be used to transform recursive programs with effects. Motivated by this fact, this paper addresses the definition of two recursive operators on datatypes that capture functional programs with effects. Effects are assumed to be modeled by monads. The main goal is thus the derivation of fusion laws for the new operators. One of the new operators is called monadic unfold. It captures programs (with effects) that generate a data structure in a standard way. The other operator is called monadic hylomorphism, and corresponds to programs formed by the composition of a monadic unfold followed by a function defined by structural induction on the data structure that the monadic unfold generates.