The functorial composition of species, a forgotten operation (Q1191940): Difference between revisions

\textit{A. Joyal} introduced the notion of species of structures. (It is a functor \(f:B\to B\) where \(B\) denotes the category of finite sets and bijections.) The authors have concentrated on the composition of functors. Although it is one of the most natural operations on species it has been mostly overlooked up to now. The authors introduce concepts of cyclic type and fixed points enumerator of a species. They establish basic formulas and compute cycle index series of classes of graphs, pure \(m\)-complexes, coverings and \(m\)-ary relations structured in various ways. Since the paper brings interesting results for ``every-day-life'' structures and it has a rich list of references, it can be interesting also for a reader not familiar with the notion of species.