Analysing Mutual Exclusion using Process Algebra with Signals

In contrast to common belief, the Calculus of Communicating Systems (CCS) and similar process algebras lack the expressive power to accurately capture mutual exclusion protocols without enriching the language with fairness assumptions. Adding a fairness assumption to implement a mutual exclusion protocol seems counter-intuitive. We employ a signalling operator, which can be combined with CCS, or other process calculi, and show that this minimal extension is expressive enough to model mutual exclusion: we confirm the correctness of Peterson's mutual exclusion algorithm for two processes, as well as Lamport's bakery algorithm, under reasonable assumptions on the underlying memory model. The correctness of Peterson's algorithm for more than two processes requires stronger, less realistic assumptions on the underlying memory model.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2017, arXiv:1709.0004

Modelling Mutual Exclusion in a Process Algebra with Time-outs

I show that in a standard process algebra extended with time-outs one can correctly model mutual exclusion in such a way that starvation-freedom holds without assuming fairness or justness, even when one makes the problem more challenging by assuming memory accesses to be atomic. This can be achieved only when dropping the requirement of speed independence.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2008.1335

Modelling and analysing software in mCRL2

Model checking is an effective way to design correct software.Making behavioural models of software, formulating correctness properties using modal formulas, and verifying these using finite state analysis techniques, is a very efficient way to obtain the required insight in the software. We illustrate this on four common but tricky examples

Reactive Bisimulation Semantics for a Process Algebra with Time-Outs

This paper introduces the counterpart of strong bisimilarity for labelled transition systems extended with time-out transitions. It supports this concept through a modal characterisation, congruence results for a standard process algebra with recursion, and a complete axiomatisation

A process algebra with global variables

In standard process algebra, parallel components do not share a common state and communicate through synchronisation. The advantage of this type of communication is that it facilitates compositional reasoning. For modelling and analysing systems in which parallel components operate on shared memory, however, the communication-through-synchronisation paradigm is sometimes less convenient. In this paper we study a process algebra with a notion of global variable. We also propose an extension of Hennessy-Milner logic with predicates to test and set the values of the global variables, and prove correspondence results between validity of formulas in the extended logic and stateless bisimilarity and between validity of formulas in the extended logic without the set operator and state-based bisimilarity. We shall also present a translation from the process algebra with global variables to a fragment of mCRL2 that preserves the validity of formulas in the extended Hennessy-Milner logic.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2020, arXiv:2008.1241