Characteristic Bisimulation for Higher-Order Session Processes

Characterising contextual equivalence is a long-standing issue for higher-order (process) languages. In the setting of a higher-order pi-calculus with sessions, we develop characteristic bisimilarity, a typed bisimilarity which fully characterises contextual equivalence. To our knowledge, ours is the first characterisation of its kind. Using simple values inhabiting (session) types, our approach distinguishes from untyped methods for characterising contextual equivalence in higher-order processes: we show that observing as inputs only a precise finite set of higher-order values suffices to reason about higher-order session processes. We demonstrate how characteristic bisimilarity can be used to justify optimisations in session protocols with mobile code communication

Calculating τ-confluence compositionally

τ-confluence is a reduction technique used in enumerative model-checking of labeled transition systems to avoid the state explosion problem. In this paper, we propose a new on-the-fly algorithm to calculate partial τ-confluence, and propose new techniques to do so on large systems in a compositional manner. Using information inherent in the way a large system is composed of smaller systems, we show how we can deduce partial τ-confluence in a computationally cheap manner. Finally, these techniques are applied to a number of case studies, including the rel/REL atomic multicast protocol.peer-reviewe

Sequential and distributed on-the-fly computation of weak tau-confluence

International audienceThe notion of tau-confluence provides a form of partial order reduction of Labelled Transition Systems (LTSs), by enabling to identify the tau-transitions whose execution does not alter the observable behaviour of the system. Several forms of tau-confluence adequate with branching bisimulation were studied in the literature, ranging from strong to weak forms according to the length of tau-transition sequences considered. Weak tau-confluence is more complex to compute than strong tau-confluence, but provides better LTS reductions. In this paper, we aim at devising an efficient detection of weak tau-confluent transitions during an on-the-fly exploration of LTSs. With this purpose, we define and prove new encodings of several weak tau-confluence variants using alternation-free Boolean equation systems (BESs), and we apply efficient local BES resolution algorithms to perform the detection. The resulting reduction module, developed within the CADP toolbox using the generic Open/Cæsar environment for LTS exploration, was tested in both a sequential and a distributed setting on numerous examples of large LTSs underpinning communication protocols and distributed systems. These experiments assessed the efficiency of the reduction and enabled us to identify the best variants of weak tau-confluence that are useful in practice

On the relative expressiveness of higher-order session processes

By integrating constructs from the λ-calculus and the π-calculus, in higher-order process calculi exchanged values may contain processes. This paper studies the relative expressiveness of HOπ, the higher-order π-calculus in which communications are governed by session types. Our main discovery is that HO, a subcalculus of HOπ which lacks name-passing and recursion, can serve as a new core calculus for session-typed higher-order concurrency. By exploring a new bisimulation for HO, we show that HO can encode HOπ fully abstractly (up to typed contextual equivalence) more precisely and efficiently than the first-order session π-calculus (π). Overall, under session types, HOπ, HO, and π are equally expressive; however, HOπ and HO are more tightly related than HOπ and π

Efficient On-the-Fly Computation of Weak Tau-Confluence

The notion of tau-confluence provides a form of partial order reduction of Labelled Transition Systems (LTSs), by allowing to identify the tau-transitions whose execution does not alter the observable behaviour of the system. Several forms of tau-confluence adequate with branching bisimulation were studied in the literature, ranging from strong to weak ones according to the length of tau-transition sequences considered. Weak tau-confluence is more complex to compute than strong tau-confluence, but provides better LTS reductions. In this report, we aim at devising an efficient detection of weak tau-confluent transitions during an on-the-fly exploration of LTSs. To this purpose, we define and prove new encodings of several weak tau-confluence variants using alternation-free boolean equation systems (BESs), and we apply efficient local BES resolution algorithms to perform the detection. The resulting reduction module, developed within the CADP toolbox using the generic OPEN/CAESAR environment for LTS exploration, was experimented on numerous examples of large LTSs underlying communication protocols and distributed systems. These experiments assessed the efficiency of the reduction and allowed us to identify the best variants of weak tau-confluence that are useful in practice

Topology, randomness and noise in process calculus

Formal models of communicating and concurrent systems are one of the most important topics in formal methods, and process calculus is one of the most successful formal models of communicating and concurrent systems. In the previous works, the author systematically studied topology in process calculus, probabilistic process calculus and pi-calculus with noisy channels in order to describe approximate behaviors of communicating and concurrent systems as well as randomness and noise in them. This article is a brief survey of these works. © Higher Education Press 2007

Core higher-order session processes: tractable equivalences and relative expressiveness

This work proposes tractable bisimulations for the higher-order - calculus with session primitives (HO ) and o ers a complete study of the expressivity of its most significant subcalculi. First we develop three typed bisimulations, which are shown to coincide with contextual equivalence. These characterisations demonstrate that observing as inputs only a specific finite set of higher-order values (which inhabit session types) su ces to reason about HO processes. Next, we identify HO, a minimal, second-order subcalculus of HO in which higher-order applications/abstractions, name-passing, and recursion are absent. We show that HO can encode HO extended with higher-order applications and abstractions and that a first-order session -calculus can encode HO . Both encodings are fully abstract. We also prove that the session -calculus with passing of shared names cannot be encoded into HO without shared names. We show that HO , HO, and are equally expressive; the expressivity of HO enables e ective reasoning about typed equivalences for higher-order processes