Concurrent constraint programming with process mobility

We propose an extension of concurrent constraint programming with primitives for process migration within a hierarchical network, and we study its semantics. To this purpose, we first investigate a "pure " paradigm for process migration, namely a paradigm where the only actions are those dealing with transmissions of processes. Our goal is to give a structural definition of the semantics of migration; namely, we want to describe the behaviour of the system, during the transmission of a process, in terms of the behaviour of the components. We achieve this goal by using a labeled transition system where the effects of sending a process, and requesting a process, are modeled by symmetric rules (similar to handshaking-rules for synchronous communication) between the two partner nodes in the network. Next, we extend our paradigm with the primitives of concurrent constraint programming, and we show how to enrich the semantics to cope with the notions of environment and constraint store. Finally, we show how the operational semantics can be used to define an interpreter for the basic calculus.

Soft Concurrent Constraint Programming

Soft constraints extend classical constraints to represent multiple consistency levels, and thus provide a way to express preferences, fuzziness, and uncertainty. While there are many soft constraint solving formalisms, even distributed ones, by now there seems to be no concurrent programming framework where soft constraints can be handled. In this paper we show how the classical concurrent constraint (cc) programming framework can work with soft constraints, and we also propose an extension of cc languages which can use soft constraints to prune and direct the search for a solution. We believe that this new programming paradigm, called soft cc (scc), can be also very useful in many web-related scenarios. In fact, the language level allows web agents to express their interaction and negotiation protocols, and also to post their requests in terms of preferences, and the underlying soft constraint solver can find an agreement among the agents even if their requests are incompatible.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the ACM Transactions on Computational Logic (TOCL), zipped file

An interactive semantics of logic programming

We apply to logic programming some recently emerging ideas from the field of reduction-based communicating systems, with the aim of giving evidence of the hidden interactions and the coordination mechanisms that rule the operational machinery of such a programming paradigm. The semantic framework we have chosen for presenting our results is tile logic, which has the advantage of allowing a uniform treatment of goals and observations and of applying abstract categorical tools for proving the results. As main contributions, we mention the finitary presentation of abstract unification, and a concurrent and coordinated abstract semantics consistent with the most common semantics of logic programming. Moreover, the compositionality of the tile semantics is guaranteed by standard results, as it reduces to check that the tile systems associated to logic programs enjoy the tile decomposition property. An extension of the approach for handling constraint systems is also discussed.Comment: 42 pages, 24 figure, 3 tables, to appear in the CUP journal of Theory and Practice of Logic Programmin

Abstract Analysis of Universal Properties for tccp

[EN] The Timed Concurrent Constraint Language (tccp) is a time extension of the concurrent constraint paradigm of Saraswat. tccp was defined to model reactive systems, where infinite behaviors arise naturally. In previous works, a semantic framework and abstract diagnosis method for the language has been defined. On the basis of that semantic framework, this paper proposes an abstract semantics that, together with a widening operator, is suitable for the definition of different analyses for tccp programs. The abstract semantics is correct and can be represented as a finite graph where each node represents a hypothetical computational step of the program containing approximated information for the variables. The widening operator allows us to guarantee the convergence of the abstract fixpoint computation.This work has been supported by the Andalusian Excellence Project P11-TIC7659. This work has been partially supported by the EU (FEDER) and the Spanish MINECO under grant TIN 2013-45732-C4-1-P (DAMAS) and by Generalitat Valenciana PROMETEOII/2015/013Comini, M.; Gallardo Melgarejo, MDM.; Titolo, L.; Villanueva, A. (2015). Abstract Analysis of Universal Properties for tccp. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 163-178. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27436-2_10S163178Alpuente, M., Gallardo, M.M., Pimentel, E., Villanueva, A.: A semantic framework for the abstract model checking of tccp programs. Theor. Comput. Sci. 346(1), 58–95 (2005)Bagnara, R., Hill, P.M., Ricci, E., Zaffanella, E.: Precise widening operators for convex polyhedra. Sci Comput. Program. 58(1–2), 28–56 (2005)Comini, M., Titolo, L., Villanueva, A.: Abstract diagnosis for timed concurrent constraint programs. Theor. Pract. Log. Program. 11(4–5), 487–502 (2011)Comini, M., Titolo, L., Villanueva, A.: A condensed goal-independent bottom-up fixpoint modeling the behavior of tccp. Technical report, DSIC, Universitat Politècnica de València (2013). http://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/34328Cousot, P., Cousot, R.: Abstract Interpretation: a unified lattice model for static analysis of programs by construction or approximation of fixpoints. In: Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Los Angeles, California, January 17–19, pp. 238–252. ACM Press, New York (1977)de Boer, F.S., Gabbrielli, M., Meo, M.C.: A timed concurrent constraint language. Inf. Comput. 161(1), 45–83 (2000)Falaschi, M. Gabbrielli, M., Marriott, K., Palamidessi, C.: Compositional analysis for concurrent constraint programming. In: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, pp. 210–221. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (1993)Falaschi, M., Olarte, C., Palamidessi, C.: Abstract interpretation of temporal concurrent constraint programs. Theor. Pract. Log. Program. (TPLP) 15(3), 312–357 (2015)Falaschi, M., Villanueva, A.: Automatic verification of timed concurrent constraint programs. Theor. Pract. Log. Program. 6(3), 265–300 (2006)Saraswat, V.A.: Concurrent Constraint Programming. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1993)Zaffanella, E., Giacobazzi, R., Levi, G.: Abstracting synchronization in concurrent constraint programming. J. Funct. Log. Program. 6, 1997 (1997

An automatic translation scheme from CLP to AKL

The Andorra Kernel language scheme was aimed, in principle, at simultaneously supporting the programming styles of Prolog and committed choice languages. Within the constraint programming paradigm, this family of languages could also in principle support the concurrent constraint paradigm. This happens for the Agents Kernel Language (AKL). On the other hand, AKL requires a somewhat detailed specification of control by the user. This could be avoided by programming in CLP to run on AKL. However, CLP programs cannot be executed directly on AKL. This is due to a number of factors, from more or less trivial syntactic differences to more involved issues such as the treatment of cut and making the exploitation of certain types of parallelism possible. This paper provides a translation scheme which is a basis of an automatic compiler of CLP programs into AKL, which can bridge those differences. In addition to supporting CLP, our style of translation achieves independent and-parallel execution where possible, which is relevant since this type of parallel execution preserves, through the translation, the user-perceived "complexity" of the original program

Modelling concurrent systems specified in a temporal concurrent constraint language -I

In this paper we present an approach to model concurrent systems specified in a temporal concurrent constraint language. Our goal is to construct a framework in which it is possible to apply the Model Checking technique to programs specified in such language. This work is the first step to the framework construction. We present a formalism to transform a specification into a tcc Structure. This structure is a graph representation of the program behavior. Our basic tool is the Timed Concurrent Constraint Programming (tcc) framework defined by Saraswat et al. to describe reactive systems. With this language we take advantage of both the natural properties of the declarative paradigm and of the fact that the notion of time is built into the semantics of the programming language. In fact, on this ground it becomes reasonable to introduce the idea of applying the technique of Model Checking to a finite time interval (introduced by the user). With this restriction we naturally force the space representing the behavior of the program to be finite and hence Model Checking algorithms to be applicable. The graph construction is a completely automatic process that takes as input the tcc specification

A program analysis framework for tccp based on abstract interpretation

[EN] The timed concurrent constraint language (tccp) is a timed extension of the concurrent constraint paradigm. tccp was defined to model reactive systems, where infinite behaviors arise naturally. In previous works, a semantic framework and abstract diagnosis method for the language have been defined. On the basis of that semantic framework, this paper proposes an abstract semantics that, together with a widening operator, is suitable for the definition of different analyses for tccp programs. The abstract semantics is correct and can be represented as a finite graph where each node represents a hypothetical (abstract) computational step of the program. The widening operator allows us to guarantee the convergence of the abstract fixpoint computation.This author has been supported by the Andalusian Excellence Project P11-TIC-7659. This work has been partially supported by the EU (FEDER) and the Spanish MINECO under grants TIN 2015-69175-C4-1-R and TIN 2013-45732-C4-1-P and by Generalitat Valenciana PROMETEOII/2015/013Comini, M.; Gallardo, M.; Titolo, L.; Villanueva, A. (2017). A program analysis framework for tccp based on abstract interpretation. Formal Aspects of Computing. 29(3):531-557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00165-016-0409-8S531557293Alpuente M, Gallardo MM, Pimentel E, Villanueva A (2006) A semantic framework for the abstract model checking of tccp programs. Theor Comput Scie 346(1): 58–95Bagnara R, Hill PM., Ricci E, Zaffanella E (2005) Precise widening operators for convex polyhedra. Sci Comput Program 58(1–2):28–56Cousot P, Cousot R (1977) Abstract interpretation: a unified lattice model for static analysis of programs by construction or approximation of fixpoints. In: Proceedings of the 4th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN symposium on principles of programming languages, Los Angeles, California, January 17–19. ACM Press, New York, pp 238–252Clarke EM, Grumberg O, Jha S, Lu Y, Veith H (2000) Counterexample-guided abstraction refinement. In: CAV, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1855. Springer, pp 154–169Comini M, Gallardo MM, Titolo L, Villanueva A (2015) Abstract Analysis of Universal Properties for tccp. In: Falaschi M (ed) Logic-based Program Synthesis and Transformation, 25th International Symposium, LOPSTR 2015. Revised Selected Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 9527. Springer, pp 163–178Comini M, Titolo L, Villanueva A (2011) Abstract diagnosis for timed concurrent constraint programs. Theory Pract Logic Programm 11(4-5):487–502Comini M, Titolo L, Villanueva A (2013) A condensed goal-independent bottom-up fixpoint modeling the behavior of tccp. Technical report, DSIC, Universitat Politècnica de València. http://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/34328de Boer FS, Gabbrielli M, Meo MC (2000) A timed concurrent constraint language. Inf Comput 161(1): 45–83Falaschi M, Gabbrielli M, Marriott K, Palamidessi C (1993) Compositional analysis for concurrent constraint programming. In: Proceedings of the eighth annual IEEE symposium on logic in computer science, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp 210–221Falaschi M, Olarte C, Palamidessi C (2015) Abstract interpretation of temporal concurrent constraint programs. Theory and Pract Logic Program (TPLP) 15(3): 312–357Falaschi M, Villanueva A (2006) Automatic verification of timed concurrent constraint programs. Theory Pract Logic Program 6(3): 265–300Gallardo MM, Merino P, Pimentel E (2002) Refinement of LTL formulas for abstract model checking. In: Static analysis, 9th international symposium, SAS 2002, Madrid, Spain, September 17–20, 2002, Proceedings, pp 395–410Saraswat VA (1993) Concurrent constraint programming. The MIT Press, CambridgeSaraswat VA, Rinard M, Panangaden P (1991) The semantic foundations of concurrent constraint programming. In: Proceedings of the 18th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on principles of programming languages. ACM, New York, pp 333–352Zaffanella E, Giacobazzi R, Levi G (1997) Abstracting synchronization in concurrent constraint programming. J Funct Logic Program (6

An Operational Semantics for Declarative Multi-Paradigm Languages1 1This work has been partially supported by CICYT TIC 2001-2705-C03-01, by the MCYT under grants HA2001-0059, HU2001-0019 and HI2000-0161, and by the DFG under grant Ha 2457/1-2.

AbstractPractical declarative multi-paradigm languages combine the main features of functional, logic and concurrent programming (e.g., laziness, sharing, higher-order, logic variables, non-determinism, search strategies). Usually, these languages also include interfaces to external functions as well as to constraint solvers. In this work, we introduce the first formal description of an operational semantics for realistic multi-paradigm languages covering all the aforementioned features in a precise and understandable manner. We also provide a deterministic version of the operational semantics which models search strategies explicitly. This deterministic semantics becomes essential to develop language-specific tools like program tracers, profilers, optimizers, etc. Finally, we extend the deterministic semantics in order to model concurrent computations. An implementation of the complete operational semantics has been undertaken