Processes, Roles and Their Interactions

Taking an interaction network oriented perspective in informatics raises the challenge to describe deterministic finite systems which take part in networks of nondeterministic interactions. The traditional approach to describe processes as stepwise executable activities which are not based on the ordinarily nondeterministic interaction shows strong centralization tendencies. As suggested in this article, viewing processes and their interactions as complementary can circumvent these centralization tendencies. The description of both, processes and their interactions is based on the same building blocks, namely finite input output automata (or transducers). Processes are viewed as finite systems that take part in multiple, ordinarily nondeterministic interactions. The interactions between processes are described as protocols. The effects of communication between processes as well as the necessary coordination of different interactions within a processes are both based on the restriction of the transition relation of product automata. The channel based outer coupling represents the causal relation between the output and the input of different systems. The coordination condition based inner coupling represents the causal relation between the input and output of a single system. All steps are illustrated with the example of a network of resource administration processes which is supposed to provide requesting user processes exclusive access to a single resource.Comment: In Proceedings IWIGP 2012, arXiv:1202.422

A theory of interaction semantics

The aim of this article is to delineate a theory of interaction semantics and thereby provide a proper understanding of the "meaning" of the exchanged characters within an interaction. The idea is to describe the interaction (between discrete systems) by a mechanism that depends on information exchange, that is, on the identical naming of the "exchanged" characters -- by a protocol. Complementing a nondeterministic protocol with decisions to a game in its interactive form (GIF) makes it interpretable in the sense of an execution. The consistency of such a protocol depends on the particular choice of its sets of characters. Thus, assigning a protocol its sets of charaacters makes it consistent or not, creating a fulfillment relation. The interpretation of the characters during GIF execution results in their meaning. The proposed theory of interaction semantics is consistent with the model of information transport and processing, it has a clear relation to models of formal semantics, it accounts for the fact that the meaning of a character is invariant against renaming and locates the concept of meaning in the technical description of interactions. It defines when two different characters have the same meaning and what an "interpretation" and what an "interpretation context" is as well as under which conditions meaning is compositional

Archaeological Fieldwork at Lake Ohrid

The presentation gives an overview of the fieldwork carried out since 2019 under the direction of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences of the University of Bern. This involved underwater archaeological excavations and core drillings, with which new archaeological finds as well as numerous samples for dendrochronological and archaeobotanical analysis could be obtained. The absolute dates so far, both from the construction timbers and the archaeological layers, together with the recorded stratigraphies, allow a preliminary presentation of absolutely dated ceramic find complexes from Ploča Mičov Grad (North Macedonia) and Lin 3 (Albania)