Action Refinement in Process Algebras
Published in December 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
283 pages
978-0-521-01973-6 (ISBN)
Description
Action refinement involves the replacing of an action by a whole process in the description of parallel processes. It is one of the methods proposed to support the formal study of the step-wise development of concurrent systems. In this award-winning thesis Dr Aceto extends the notion of action refinement to the setting of process description languages. The presentation is organised into three parts. The first describes a semantic theory of processes. The core of the book then develops suitable notions of process equivalence for increasingly complex languages with operators for action refinement. In the final part, the author deals with the possibility of using action refinement to 'observe' indirectly the causal relationships among actions in a system. This book contains some important new developments in the understanding of concurrent processes and as such will be of value to all computer scientists researching into the theory of parallel computation.
Reviews / Votes
"an indepth theoretical study of both action refinement and the relationship of interleaving semantics to true concurrency. The goal of this work is to develop a semantic equivalence in the process algebra setting that does not equate parallelism and sequential nondeterminism, use the semantics developed to give semantics to a process algebra with a refinement operator, and finally to provide a means of relating parallelism and sequential nondeterminism without equating them. In all three aspects, the author has succeeded admirably. For those interested in process refinement, true concurrency, and interleaving, and possessing a knowledge of process algebras it is both a good introduction and reference." Amy Zwarico, SIGACT News "...displays both a high degree of technical competence and a nice flowing writing style. Paul Cull, Computing Reviews "...contains some important developments in the understanding of concurrent processes and it is warmly recommended to researchers in the theory of parallel computation." Andrea Maggiolo-Schettini, Mathematical ReviewsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 247 mm
Width: 174 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-521-01973-6 (9780521019736)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Content
Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. A semantic theory based on atomic actions; 3. Action refinement for a simple language; 4. Action refinement for communicating processes; 5. Full abstraction for series-parallel pomsets; 6. On relating concurrency and nondeterminism; 7. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.