Normal forms for connectedness in categories (Q5935993)

In any category \(\mathcal K\), there is an equivalence relation \(A\sim B\) on objects of \(\mathcal K\) given by the existence of morphisms \(A\to B\) and \(B\to A\). The paper brings, under some finiteness assumptions on \(\mathcal K\), a nice simple result on the existence of normal forms for this equivalence relation. Applications are given to algebra, logic, automata theory and databases.