Supernearness, a common concept of supertopologies and nearness (Q697603)

Supernearness spaces are introduced. A supernearness space consists of a set \(X\), a subset \({\mathcal B}^X\) of the set \({\mathcal P}(X)\) of all subsets of \(X\), and a function \(N:{\mathcal B}^X\to {\mathcal P}({\mathcal P}({\mathcal P}(X)))\) satisfying six axioms which are too involved to be formulated here. By defining morphisms in a natural way, a topological category SUPNEAR is obtained. It is shown that the category STOP of supertopological spaces introduced by \textit{D. Doitchinov} [Sov. Math., Dokl. 5, 595-598 (1964); translation from Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 156, 21-24 (1964; Zbl 0137.42101)] and the category NEAR of nearness spaces introduced by \textit{H. Herrlich} [General Topology Appl. 4, 191-212 (1974; Zbl 0288.54004)] can be embedded into SUPNEAR (and therefore also the categories TOP, of topological spaces, PROX of proximity spaces, and UNIF of uniform spaces). Moreover, the category GEXT of generalized extensions is introduced. Its objects are tripels \((e,{\mathcal B}^X, Y)\), where \(X\) and \(Y\) are topological spaces, \({\mathcal B}^X\subset {\mathcal P}(X)\), and \(e:X\to Y\) is a function such that \(e[X]\) is dense in \(Y\), and \(\text{cl} A=e^{-1} [\text{cl} e[A]]\) for each \(A\in{\mathcal P}(X)\). Morphisms in GEXT are pairs \((f,g):(e,{\mathcal B}^X,Y) \to(e';,{\mathcal B}^{X'},Y')\), where \(f:X\to X'\), \(g:Y \to Y'\) are continuous mappings such that \(g\circ e=e'\circ f\) and \(f[B]\in {\mathcal B}^{X'}\) for each \(B\in{\mathcal B}^X\). Two functors \(G:\text{SUPNEAR}\to \text{GEXT}\) and \(F:\text{GEXT}\to \text{SUPNEAR}\) are constructed, and it is shown that there is a natural transformation from \(F\circ G\) restricted to the subcategory POINT-SUPNEAR of pointed supernearness spaces of SUPNEAR to the identity functor of POINT-SUPNEAR.