Bigraphical Refinement

We propose a mechanism for the vertical refinement of bigraphical reactive systems, based upon a mechanism for limiting observations and utilising the underlying categorical structure of bigraphs. We present a motivating example to demonstrate that the proposed notion of refinement is sensible with respect to the theory of bigraphical reactive systems; and we propose a sufficient condition for guaranteeing the existence of a safety-preserving vertical refinement. We postulate the existence of a complimentary notion of horizontal refinement for bigraphical agents, and finally we discuss the connection of this work to the general refinement of Reeves and Streader.Comment: In Proceedings Refine 2011, arXiv:1106.348

Domain-Specific Modelling Languages in Bigraphs

Modelling is a ubiquitous activity in human endeavours, and the construction of informatic models of many kinds is the key to understanding and managing the complexity of an increasingly computational world. We advocate the use of domain-specific modelling languages, instantiated within a “tower ” of models, in order to improve the utility of the models we build, and to ease the process of model construction by moving the languages we use to express such models closer to their respective domains. This thesis is concerned with the study of bigraphical reactive systems as a host for domain-specific modelling languages. We present a number of novel technical developments, including a new complete meta-calculus presentation of bigraphical reactive systems, an abstract machine that instantiates to an abstract machine for any instance calculi, and a mechanism for defining declaratively sorting predicates that always give rise to wellbehaved sortings. We explore bigraphical refinement relations that permit formalisation of the relationship between different languages instantiate