A general conservative extension theorem in process algebras with inequalities

We prove a general conservative extension theorem for transition system based process theories with easy-to-check and reasonable conditions. The core of this result is another general theorem which gives sufficient conditions for a system of operational rules and an extension of it in order to ensure conservativity, that is, provable transitions from an original term in the extension are the same as in the original system. As a simple corollary of the conservative extension theorem we prove a completeness theorem. We also prove a general theorem giving sufficient conditions to reduce the question of ground confluence modulo some equations for a large term rewriting system associated with an equational process theory to a small term rewriting system under the condition that the large system is a conservative extension of the small one. We provide many applications to show that our results are useful. The applications include (but are not limited to) various real and discrete time settings in ACP, ATP, and CCS and the notions projection, renaming, stage operator, priority, recursion, the silent step, autonomous actions, the empty process, divergence, etc

Axiomatizing ST Bisimulation for a Process Algebra with Recursion and Action Refinement (Extended Abstract)

AbstractDue to the complex nature of bisimulation equivalences which express some form of history dependence, it turned out to be problematic to axiomatize them for non trivial classes of systems. Here we introduce the idea of "compositional level-wise renaming" which gives rise to the new possibility of axiomatizing the class of history dependent bisimulations with slight modifications to the machinery for standard bisimulation. We propose two techniques, which are based on this idea, in the special case of the ST semantics, defined for terms of a process algebra with recursion. The first technique, which is more intuitive, is based on dynamic names, allowing weak ST bisimulation to be decided and axiomatized for all processes that possess a finite state interleaving semantics. The second technique, which is based on pointers, preserves the possibility of deciding and axiomatizing weak ST bisimulation also when an action refinement operator P[a Q] is considered

A compositional semantics for the reversible pi-calculus

International audienceWe introduce a labelled transition semantics for the reversible pi-calculus. It is the first account of a com- positional definition of a reversible calculus, that has both concurrency primitives and name mobility. The notion of reversibility is strictly linked to the notion of causality. We discuss the notion of causality induced by our calculus, and we compare it with the existing notions in the literature, in particular for what concerns the syntactic feature of scope extrusion, typical of the pi-calculus

A theory of processes with durational actions

AbstractA new bisimulation based semantics, called performance equivalence, is proposed for a process algebra equipped with the TCSP parallel operator. This semantics relies on the basic assumption that actions are time-consuming, where their duration is statically fixed. Performance equivalence equates systems whenever they perform the same actions in the same amount of time, thus introducing a simple form of performance evaluation in process algebras. A comparison with other equivalences is provided; in particular, we show that performance equivalence is strictly finer than step bisimulation equivalence and strictly coarser than partial ordering bisimulation equivalence

A stable non-interleaving early operational semantics for the pi-calculus

We give the first non-interleaving early operational semantics for the pi-calculus which generalises the standard interleaving semantics and unfolds to the stable model of prime event structures. Our starting point is the non-interleaving semantics given for CCS by Mukund and Nielsen, where the so-called structural (prefixing or subject) causality and events are defined from a notion of locations derived from the syntactic structure of the process terms. We conservatively extend this semantics with a notion of extruder histories, from which we infer the so-called link (name or object) causality and events introduced by the dynamic communication topology of the pi-calculus. We prove that the semantics generalises both the standard interleaving early semantics for the pi-calculus and the non-interleaving semantics for CCS. In particular, it gives rise to a labelled asynchronous transition system unfolding to prime event structures

Nested-unit Petri nets

International audiencePetri nets can express concurrency and nondeterminism but neither locality nor hierarchy. This article presents an extension of Petri nets, in which places can be grouped into so-called "units" expressing sequential components. Units can be recursively nested to reflect both the concurrent and hierarchical nature of complex systems. This model called NUPN (Nested-Unit Petri Nets) was originally developed for translating process calculi to Petri nets, but later found also useful beyond this setting. It allows significant savings in the memory representation of markings for both explicit-state and symbolic verification. Thirteen software tools already implement the NUPN model, which has also been adopted for the benchmarks of the Model Checking Contest (MCC) and the parallel problems of the Rigorous Examination of Reactive Systems (RERS) challenges

Bisimulations respecting duration and causality for the non-interleaving applied pi-calculus

This paper shows how we can make use of an asynchronous transition system, whose transitions are labelled with events and which is equipped with a notion of independence of events, to define non-interleaving semantics for the applied π-calculus. The most important notions we define are: Start-Termination or ST-bisimilarity, preserving duration of events; and History-Preserving or HP- bisimilarity, preserving causality. We point out that corresponding similarity preorders expose clearly distinctions between these semantics. We draw particular attention to the distinguishing power of HP failure similarity, and discuss how it affects the attacker threat model against which we verify security and privacy properties. We also compare existing notions of located bisimilarity to the definitions we introduce

Equivalence semantics for concurrency: comparison and application

Since the development of CCS and other process algebras, many extensions to these process algebras have been proposed to model different aspects of concurrent computation. It is important both theoretically and practically to understand the relationships between these process algebras and between the semantic equivalences that are defined for them. In this thesis, I investigate the comparison of semantic equivalences based on bisimulation which are defined for process algebras whose behaviours are described by structured operational semantics, and expressed as labelled transition systems. I first consider a hierarchy of bisimulations for extensions to CCS, using both existing and new results to describe the relationships between their equivalences with respect to pure CCS terms. I then consider a more general approach to comparison by investigating labelled transition systems with structured labels. I define bisimulation homomorphisms between labelled transition systems with different labels, and show how these can be used to compare equivalences. Next, I work in the meta-theory of process algebras and consider a new format that is an extension of the tyft/tyxt format for transition system specifications. This format treats labels syntactically instead of schematically, and hence I use a definition of bisimulation which requires equivalence between labels instead of exact matching. I show that standard results such as congruence and conservative extension hold for the new format. I then investigate how comparison of equivalences can be approached through the notion of extension to transition system specifications. This leads to the main results of this study which show how in a very general fashion the bisimulations defined for two different process algebras can be compared over a subset of terms of the process algebras. I also consider what implications the conditions which are required to obtain these results have for modelling process algebras, and show that these conditions do not impose significant limitations. Finally, I show how these results can be applied to existing process algebras. I model a number of process algebras with the extended format and derive new results from the meta-theory developed