6,278 research outputs found
Configuration structures, event structures and Petri nets
In this paper the correspondence between safe Petri nets and event structures, due to Nielsen, Plotkin and Winskel, is extended to arbitrary nets without self-loops, under the collective token interpretation. To this end we propose a more general form of event structure, matching the expressive power of such nets. These new event structures and nets are connected by relating both notions with configuration structures, which can be regarded as representations of either event structures or nets that capture their behaviour in terms of action occurrences and the causal relationships between them, but abstract from any auxiliary structure. A configuration structure can also be considered logically, as a class of propositional models, or—equivalently— as a propositional theory in disjunctive normal from. Converting this theory to conjunctive normal form is the ke
Configuration Structures
In this paper the correspondence between safe Petri nets
and event structures, due to Nielsen, Plotkin and Winskel,
is extended to arbitrary nets without self-loops, under the
collective token interpretation. To this end we propose a
more general form of event structure, matching the expressive power of such nets. These new event structures and
nets are connected by relating both notions with configuration structures, which can be regarded as representations of
either event structures or nets that capture their behaviour
in terms of action occurrences and the causal relationships
between them, but abstract from any auxiliary structure.
A configuration structure can also be considered logically, as a class of propositional models, or—equivalently—as a propositional theory in disjunctive normal from. Converting this theory to conjunctive normal form is the key
idea in the translation of such a structure into a net.
For a variety of classes of event structures we characterise the associated classes of configuration structures in
terms of their closure properties, as well as in terms of the
axiomatisability of the associated propositional theories by
formulae of simple prescribed forms
Event structures for Petri nets with persistence
Event structures are a well-accepted model of concurrency. In a seminal paper by Nielsen, Plotkin and Winskel, they are used to establish a bridge between the theory of domains and the approach to concurrency proposed by Petri. A basic role is played by an unfolding construction that maps (safe) Petri nets into a subclass of event structures, called prime event structures, where each event has a uniquely determined set of causes. Prime event structures, in turn, can be identified with their domain of configurations. At a categorical level, this is nicely formalised by Winskel as a chain of coreflections. Contrary to prime event structures, general event structures allow for the presence of disjunctive causes, i.e., events can be enabled by distinct minimal sets of events. In this paper, we extend the connection between Petri nets and event structures in order to include disjunctive causes. In particular, we show that, at the level of nets, disjunctive causes are well accounted for by persistent places. These are places where tokens, once generated, can be used several times without being consumed and where multiple tokens are interpreted collectively, i.e., their histories are inessential. Generalising the work on ordinary nets, Petri nets with persistence are related to a new subclass of general event structures, called locally connected, by means of a chain of coreflections relying on an unfolding construction
Dependencies and Simultaneity in Membrane Systems
Membrane system computations proceed in a synchronous fashion: at each step
all the applicable rules are actually applied. Hence each step depends on the
previous one. This coarse view can be refined by looking at the dependencies
among rule occurrences, by recording, for an object, which was the a rule that
produced it and subsequently (in a later step), which was the a rule that
consumed it. In this paper we propose a way to look also at the other main
ingredient in membrane system computations, namely the simultaneity in the rule
applications. This is achieved using zero-safe nets that allows to synchronize
transitions, i.e., rule occurrences. Zero-safe nets can be unfolded into
occurrence nets in a classical way, and to this unfolding an event structure
can be associated. The capability of capturing simultaneity of zero-safe nets
is transferred on the level of event structure by adding a way to express which
events occur simultaneously
1-Safe Petri nets and special cube complexes: equivalence and applications
Nielsen, Plotkin, and Winskel (1981) proved that every 1-safe Petri net
unfolds into an event structure . By a result of Thiagarajan
(1996 and 2002), these unfoldings are exactly the trace regular event
structures. Thiagarajan (1996 and 2002) conjectured that regular event
structures correspond exactly to trace regular event structures. In a recent
paper (Chalopin and Chepoi, 2017, 2018), we disproved this conjecture, based on
the striking bijection between domains of event structures, median graphs, and
CAT(0) cube complexes. On the other hand, in Chalopin and Chepoi (2018) we
proved that Thiagarajan's conjecture is true for regular event structures whose
domains are principal filters of universal covers of (virtually) finite special
cube complexes.
In the current paper, we prove the converse: to any finite 1-safe Petri net
one can associate a finite special cube complex such that the
domain of the event structure (obtained as the unfolding of
) is a principal filter of the universal cover of .
This establishes a bijection between 1-safe Petri nets and finite special cube
complexes and provides a combinatorial characterization of trace regular event
structures.
Using this bijection and techniques from graph theory and geometry (MSO
theory of graphs, bounded treewidth, and bounded hyperbolicity) we disprove yet
another conjecture by Thiagarajan (from the paper with S. Yang from 2014) that
the monadic second order logic of a 1-safe Petri net is decidable if and only
if its unfolding is grid-free.
Our counterexample is the trace regular event structure
which arises from a virtually special square complex . The domain of
is grid-free (because it is hyperbolic), but the MSO
theory of the event structure is undecidable
Formal Relationships Between Geometrical and Classical Models for Concurrency
A wide variety of models for concurrent programs has been proposed during the
past decades, each one focusing on various aspects of computations: trace
equivalence, causality between events, conflicts and schedules due to resource
accesses, etc. More recently, models with a geometrical flavor have been
introduced, based on the notion of cubical set. These models are very rich and
expressive since they can represent commutation between any bunch of events,
thus generalizing the principle of true concurrency. While they seem to be very
promising - because they make possible the use of techniques from algebraic
topology in order to study concurrent computations - they have not yet been
precisely related to the previous models, and the purpose of this paper is to
fill this gap. In particular, we describe an adjunction between Petri nets and
cubical sets which extends the previously known adjunction between Petri nets
and asynchronous transition systems by Nielsen and Winskel
Flux Analysis in Process Models via Causality
We present an approach for flux analysis in process algebra models of
biological systems. We perceive flux as the flow of resources in stochastic
simulations. We resort to an established correspondence between event
structures, a broadly recognised model of concurrency, and state transitions of
process models, seen as Petri nets. We show that we can this way extract the
causal resource dependencies in simulations between individual state
transitions as partial orders of events. We propose transformations on the
partial orders that provide means for further analysis, and introduce a
software tool, which implements these ideas. By means of an example of a
published model of the Rho GTP-binding proteins, we argue that this approach
can provide the substitute for flux analysis techniques on ordinary
differential equation models within the stochastic setting of process algebras
Unfolding-Based Process Discovery
This paper presents a novel technique for process discovery. In contrast to
the current trend, which only considers an event log for discovering a process
model, we assume two additional inputs: an independence relation on the set of
logged activities, and a collection of negative traces. After deriving an
intermediate net unfolding from them, we perform a controlled folding giving
rise to a Petri net which contains both the input log and all
independence-equivalent traces arising from it. Remarkably, the derived Petri
net cannot execute any trace from the negative collection. The entire chain of
transformations is fully automated. A tool has been developed and experimental
results are provided that witness the significance of the contribution of this
paper.Comment: This is the unabridged version of a paper with the same title
appearead at the proceedings of ATVA 201
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