  This presentation is the sequel of a paper published in GETCO'00 proceedings
where a research program to construct an appropriate algebraic setting for the
study of deformations of higher dimensional automata was sketched. This paper
focuses precisely on detailing some of its aspects. The main idea is that the
category of homotopy types can be embedded in a new category of dihomotopy
types, the embedding being realized by the Globe functor. In this latter
category, isomorphism classes of objects are exactly higher dimensional
automata up to deformations leaving invariant their computer scientific
properties as presence or not of deadlocks (or everything similar or related).
Some hints to study the algebraic structure of dihomotopy types are given, in
particular a rule to decide whether a statement/notion concerning dihomotopy
types is or not the lifting of another statement/notion concerning homotopy
types. This rule does not enable to guess what is the lifting of a given
notion/statement, it only enables to make the verification, once the lifting
has been found.
