A Decidable Characterization of a Graphical Pi-calculus with Iterators

This paper presents the Pi-graphs, a visual paradigm for the modelling and verification of mobile systems. The language is a graphical variant of the Pi-calculus with iterators to express non-terminating behaviors. The operational semantics of Pi-graphs use ground notions of labelled transition and bisimulation, which means standard verification techniques can be applied. We show that bisimilarity is decidable for the proposed semantics, a result obtained thanks to an original notion of causal clock as well as the automatic garbage collection of unused names.Comment: In Proceedings INFINITY 2010, arXiv:1010.611

Are there new models of computation? Reply to Wegner and Eberbach

Wegner and Eberbach[Weg04b] have argued that there are fundamental limitations to Turing Machines as a foundation of computability and that these can be overcome by so-called superTuring models such as interaction machines, the [pi]calculus and the $-calculus. In this paper we contest Weger and Eberbach claims

When is .999... less than 1?

We examine alternative interpretations of the symbol described as nought, point, nine recurring. Is "an infinite number of 9s" merely a figure of speech? How are such alternative interpretations related to infinite cardinalities? How are they expressed in Lightstone's "semicolon" notation? Is it possible to choose a canonical alternative interpretation? Should unital evaluation of the symbol .999 . . . be inculcated in a pre-limit teaching environment? The problem of the unital evaluation is hereby examined from the pre-R, pre-lim viewpoint of the student.Comment: 28 page