The mathematical notions of (a) Contextual Categories and (b) Generalised Algebraic Theories encapsulate the idea of types dependent on contexts which in turn are constructed from types^1,2 . Now types of things are equally concepts and (c) Entity Modelling as described here is about modelling the types of things of interest in a particular situation or or as part of a particular endeavour (the chosen perspective); in an entity model, composition relationships model dependencies between types of things. (a), (b) and (c) are therefore closely related. A project of mine has been to try narrow the gap between (a) and (c) by finding a variation on the algebra of contextual categories which, unlike contextual categories, explicitly includes conjunctive dependencies such as we find them in entity modelling (here on this website at least) and also in the schemas of network databases. A paper I published on this in 1986³ called "Formalising the Network and Hierarchical Data Models " I later came to realise was a long way off the mark. Subsequently I have come up with revised definitions and these I have drafted here: DependencyCategories.pdf.

In addition here are some relatively recent notes on the generalised algebraic theory of contextual categories: theGATofCCs.pdf. I wrote these after having learnt of the definition of C-system given by Vladimir Voevodsky.

Finally, here is a recent write up of some work that I did at the time of my thesis, basically it is a variation on contextual categories — in brief, meta-GAT algebras are to a contexual category as a clones are to Lawvere theories. I wrote these notes suspecting, as was subsequently confirmed, that Voevodsky was producing a paper describing similar structures to my meta-GAT algebras (he calls them B-systems): MetaGAT and MetaGAT algebras.pdf.