We investigate properties of accessible categories with directed colimits and their relationship with categories arising from ShelahʼsElementary Classes. We also investigate ranks of objects in accessible categories, and the effect of accessible functors on ranks.

Model-theoretic concepts of saturation and categoricity are studied in the context of accessible categories. Accessible categories which are categorical in a strong sense are related to categories of $M$-sets ($M$ is a monoid). Typical examples of such categories are categories of $\lambda$-saturated objects.

We exhibit a bridge between the theory of cellular categories, used in algebraic topology and homological algebra, and the model-theoretic notion of stable independence. Roughly speaking, we show that the combinatorial cellular categories (those where, in a precise sense, the cellular morphisms are generated by a set) are exactly those that give rise to stable independence notions. We give two applications: on the one hand, we show that the abstract elementary classes of roots of Ext studied by Baldwin–Eklof–Trlifaj are stable (...) and tame. On the other hand, we give a simpler proof (in a special case) that combinatorial categories are closed under 2-limits, a theorem of Makkai and Rosický. (shrink)

We broaden the framework of metric abstract elementary classes (mAECs) in several essential ways, chiefly by allowing the metric to take values in a well-behaved quantale. As a proof of concept we show that the result of Boney and Zambrano (Around the set-theoretical consistency of d-tameness of metric abstract elementary classes, arXiv:1508.05529, 2015) on (metric) tameness under a large cardinal assumption holds in this more general context. We briefly consider a further generalization to partial metric spaces, and hint at connections (...) to classes of fuzzy structures, and structures on sheaves. (shrink)