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The failure of failures in a paradigm for asynchronous communication

  • Technical University of Eindhoven
  • Universiteit Utrecht
  • Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We develop a general framework for a variety of concurrent languages all based on asynchronous communication, like data flow, concurrent logic, concurrent constraint languages and CSP with asynchronous channels. The main characteristic of these languages is that processes interact by reading and modifying the state of some common data structure. We abstract from the specific features of the various communication mechanisms by means of a uniform language where actions are interpreted as partially denned transformations on an abstract set of states. Suspension is modelled by an action being undefined in a state. The languages listed above can be seen as instances of our paradigm, and can be obtained by fixing a specific set of states and interpretation of the actions. The computational model of our paradigm is described by a transition system in the style of Plotkin’s SOS. A compositional model is presented that is based on traces (of pairs of states). This sharply contrasts with the synchronous case, where some additional branching information is needed to describe deadlock. In particular, we show that our model is more abstract than the standard failure set semantics (that is known to be fully abstract for the classical synchronous paradigms). We also investigate the problem of full abstraction, with respect to various observation criteria. To tackle this problem, we have to consider the particular features of the specific languages. We study some cases, for which we give a fully abstract semantics.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCONCUR 1991 - 2nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory, Proceedings
EditorsJos C.M. Baeten, Jos C.M. Baeten, Jan Frisco Groote
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages111-126
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)9783540544302
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 1991
Externally publishedYes
Event2nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 1991 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Duration: 26 Aug 199129 Aug 1991

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume527 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference2nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 1991
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityAmsterdam
Period26/08/9129/08/91

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