On the Semantics of Petri Nets: Processes, Unfoldings and Infinite Computations.
Vladimiro Sassone · ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) · 1994
ii) Category Theory is useful both "in the small" to look for appropriate axiomatic descriptions of algebraic structures, e.g., such as the processes of net, and "in the large" to establish formal relationships between different structures, e.g., how to translate uniformly from Petri nets to transition systems.In other words, the first point above means that a convincing causal semantics for Petri nets is likely to yield convincing causal semantics for a large class of other models.The second point, instead, implies that the categorical paradigm possesses a good ability of abstracting away from undesired details, while keeping consistency of the desired ones.I would consider it an excellent outcome if this thesis could convince a skeptic reader at least of the second postulate.