McMillan has recently proposed a new technique to avoid the state explosion problem in the verification of systems modelled with finite-state Petri nets. The technique requires to construct a finite initial part of the unfolding of the net. McMillan's algorithm for this task may yield initial parts that are larger than necessary (exponentially larger in the worst case). We present a refinement of the algorithm which overcomes this problem. 1 Introduction In a seminal paper [10], McMillan has proposed a new technique to avoid the state explosion problem in the verification of systems modelled with finite-state Petri nets. The technique is based on the concept of net unfolding, a well known partial order semantics of Petri nets introduced in [12], and later described in more detail in [4] under the name of branching processes. The unfolding of a net is another net, usually infinite but with a simpler structure. McMillan proposes an algorithm for the construction of a finite initial part...

Message sequence charts (MSC) are commonly used in designing communication systems. They allow describing the communication skeleton of a system and can be used for finding design errors. First, a specification formalism that is based on MSC graphs, combining finite message sequence charts, is presented. We present then an automatic validation algorithm for systems described using the message sequence charts notation. The validation problem is tightly related to a natural language-theoretic problem over semi-traces (a generalization of Mazurkiewicz traces, which represent partially ordered executions). We show that a similar and natural decision problem is undecidable. 1

A basic result concerning LTL, the propositional temporal logic of linear time, is that it is expressively complete; it is equal in expressive power to the first order theory of sequences. We present here a smooth extension of this result to the class of partial orders known as Mazurkiewicz traces. These partial orders arise in a variety of contexts in concurrency theory and they provide the conceptual basis for many of the partial order reduction methods that have been developed in connection with LTL-specifications. We show that LTrL, our linear time temporal logic, is equal in expressive power to the first order theory of traces when interpreted over (finite and) infinite traces. This result fills a prominent gap in the existing logical theory of infinite traces. LTrL also constitutes a characterisation of the so called trace consistent (robust) LTL-specifications. These are specifications expressed as LTL formulas that do not distinguish between different linearisations of the same trace and hence are amenable to partial order reduction methods.

We show that safe timed Petri nets can be represented by special automata over the (max,+) semiring, which compute the height of heaps of pieces. This extends to the timed case the classical representation a la Mazurkievicz of the behavior of safe Petri nets by trace monoids and trace languages. For a subclass including all safe Free Choice Petri nets, we obtain reduced heap realizations using structural properties of the net (covering by safe state machine components). We illustrate the heap-based modeling by the typical case of safe jobshops. For a periodic schedule, we obtain a heap-based throughput formula, which is simpler to compute than its traditional timed event graph version, particularly if one is interested in the successive evaluation of a large number of possible schedules. Keywords Timed Petri nets, automata with multiplicities, heaps of pieces, (max,+) semiring, scheduling. I. Introduction The purpose of this paper 1 is to prove the following result: Timed safe Pe...

Message sequence charts (MSC) are a graphical specification language widely used for designing communication protocols. Our starting point are two decision problems concerning the correctness and the consistency of a design based by MSC graphs. Both problems are shown to be undecidable, in general. Using a natural connectivity assumption from Mazurkiewicz trace theory we show both problems to be EXPSPACE-complete for locally synchronized graphs. The results are based on new complexity results for star-connected rational trace languages.

Abstract not found

The main results of the present paper are the equivalence of definability by monadic second-order logic and recognizability for real trace languages, and that first-order definable, star-free, and aperiodic real trace languages form the same class of languages. This generalizes results on infinite words and on finite traces to infinite traces. It closes an important gap in the different characterizations of recognizable languages of infinite traces. 1 Introduction In the late 70's, A. Mazurkiewicz introduced the notion of trace as a suitable mathematical model for concurrent systems [16] (for surveys on this topic see also [1, 6, 10, 17]). In this framework, a concurrent system is seen as a set \Sigma of atomic actions together with a fixed irreflexive and symmetric independence relation I ` \Sigma \Theta \Sigma. The relation I specifies pairs of actions which can be carried out in parallel. It generates an equivalence relation on the set of sequential observations of the system. As ...

Abstract. High-level Message Sequence Charts are a well-established formalism to specify scenarios of communications in telecommunication protocols. In order to deal with possibly unbounded specifications, we focus on star-connected HMSCs. We relate this subclass with recognizability and MSO-definability by means of a new connection with Mazurkiewicz traces. Our main result is that we can check effectively whether a star-connected HMSC is realizable by a finite system of communicating automata with possibly unbounded channels. Message Sequence Charts (MSCs) are a popular model often used for the documentation of telecommunication protocols. They profit by a standardized visual and textual presentation (ITU-T recommendation Z.120 [11]) and are related to other formalisms such as sequence diagrams of UML. An MSC gives a graphical description of communications between processes. It usually abstracts away from the values of variables and the actual contents of messages. However, this formalism can be used at a very early stage of design to detect errors in the specification

The complexity of LTrL, a global linear time temporal logic over traces is investigated. The logic is global because the truth of a formula is evaluated in a global state, also called conguration. The logic is shown to be non-elementary with the main reason for this complexity being the nesting of until operators in formulas. The fragment of the logic without the until operator is shown to be EXPSPACE-complete. 1 Introduction Innite words, which linear orders on events, are often used to model executions of systems. Innite traces, which are partial orders on events, are often used to model concurrent systems when we do not want to put some arbitrary ordering on actions occurring concurrently. A state of a system in the linear model is just a prex of an innite word; it represents the actions that have already happened. A state of a system in the trace model is a conguration, i.e., a nite downwards closed set of events that already happened. Temporal logics over traces come in t...

A long standing open problem in the theory of (Mazurkiewicz) traces has been the question whether LTL (Linear Time Logic) is expressively complete with respect to the rst order theory. We solve this problem positively for nite and in nite traces and for the simplest temporal logic, which is based only on next and until modalities. Similar results were established previously, but they were all weaker, since they used additional past or future modalities. Another feature of our work is that our proof is direct and does not use any reduction to the word case.