摘要：The rational fixed point of a set functor is well-known to capture the behaviour of finite coalgebras. In this paper we consider functors on algebraic categories. For them the rational fixed point may no longer be a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Inspired by Ésik and Maletti's notion of proper semiring, we introduce the notion of a proper functor. We show that for proper functors the rational fixed point is determined as the colimit of all coalgebras with a free finitely generated algebra as carrier and it is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Moreover, we prove that a functor is proper if and only if that colimit is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. These results serve as technical tools for soundness and completeness proofs for coalgebraic regular expression calculi, e.g. for weighted automata.
关键词：proper functor; proper semiring; coalgebra; rational fixed point
