The Samuel compactification for quasi-uniform biframes (Q2390517)

Quasi-uniformities on a frame may be equivalently described either in terms of paircovers or in terms of entourages. The former, due to \textit{J. Frith} [Structured frames. PhD thesis, University of Cape Town (1987)], is the original description and is defined as a structure \(\mathcal U\) on a biframe \((L_0,L_1,L_2)\). The latter is due to the reviewer [``Structured frames by Weil entourages'', Appl. Categ. Struct. 8, No. 1--2, 351--366 (2000; Zbl 0965.06012)], and it is defined directly, in the same vein as the classical spatial notion, as a structure \(\mathcal E\) on a frame \(L\) which induces two subframes \(L_1(\mathcal{E})\) and \(L_2(\mathcal{E})\) of \(L\) such that the triple \((L,L_1(\mathcal{E}),L_2(\mathcal{E}))\) is a biframe (this is the pointfree analogue of the bitopological space \((X,{\mathcal T}_1({\mathcal E}), {\mathcal T}_2({\mathcal E}))\) induced by any quasi-uniformity \(\mathcal E\) on the set \(X\)). While the approach via paircovers is most convenient for calculations, it does not faithfully reflect the spatial original notion since it is not formulated directly on frames. It seems likely to the reviewer that, with a suitable modification of the notion of paircover, this drawback can be overcome, allowing the formulation of the theory of (paircovering) frame quasi-uniformities in a way very similar to the classical theory of quasi-uniform spaces [\textit{T. E. Gantner} and \textit{R. C. Steinlage}, ``Characterizations of quasi-uniformities'', J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 5, 48--52 (1972; Zbl 0241.54023)]. In the paper under review the authors illustrate the usefulness of paircovers of biframes in the construction and investigation of quasi-uniform and quasi-proximal frames. First, they investigate the relationship between quasi-uniform and quasi-proximal structures on a biframe by constructing functors \(P:\) \textbf{QUFrm} \(\rightarrow\) \textbf{QPFrm} and \(U:\) \textbf{QPFRm} \(\rightarrow\) \textbf{QUFrm} between the corresponding categories \textbf{QUFrm} and \textbf{QPFrm}: \(P\) is a left inverse of \(U\). [Reviewer's remark: It can then be shown that these functors define an equivalence between \textbf{QPFrm} and the category of totally bounded quasi-uniform frames.] Next, after presenting a simple characterization of compact biframes in terms of paircovers, they give a method for constructing the Samuel compactification of a quasi-uniform frame different from the one in [\textit{J. Frith, W. Hunsaker} and \textit{J. Walters-Wayland}, ``The Samuel compactification of a quasi-uniform frame'', Topol. Proc. 23, 115--126 (1998; Zbl 0966.06013)], with no requirement of the existence of a completion. They further exhibit the universal property of this compactification.