Abstract not found

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This paper describes the language Lustre, which is a dataflow synchronous language, designed for programming reactive systems --- such as automatic control and monitoring systems --- as well as for describing hardware. The dataflow aspect of Lustre makes it very close to usual description tools in these domains (block-diagrams, networks of operators, dynamical samples-systems, etc: : : ), and its synchronous interpretation makes it well suited for handling time in programs. Moreover, this synchronous interpretation allows it to be compiled into an efficient sequential program. Finally, the Lustre formalism is very similar to temporal logics. This allows the language to be used for both writing programs and expressing program properties, which results in an original program verification methodology. 1 Introduction Reactive systems Reactive systems have been defined as computing systems which continuously interact with a given physical environment, when this environment is unable to sy...

The theme of this paper is profunctors, and their centrality and ubiquity in understanding concurrent computation. Profunctors (a.k.a. distributors, or bimodules) are a generalisation of relations to categories. Here they are first presented and motivated via spans of event structures, and the semantics of nondeterministic dataflow. Profunctors are shown to play a key role in relating models for concurrency and to support an interpretation as higher-order processes (where input and output may be processes). Two recent directions of research are described. One is concerned with a language and computational interpretation for profunctors. This addresses the duality between input and output in profunctors. The other is to investigate general spans of event structures (the spans can be viewed as special profunctors) to give causal semantics to higher-order processes. For this it is useful to generalise event structures to allow events which “persist.”

Concurrent constraint programming [Sar89,SR90] is a sim-ple and powerful model of concurrent computation based on the notions of store-as-constraint and process as information transducer. The store-as-valuation conception of von Neu-mann computing is replaced by the notion that the store is a constraint (a finite representation of a possibly infinite set of valuations) which provides partial information about the possible values that variables can take. Instead of “reading” and “writing ” the values of variables, processes may now ask (check if a constraint is entailed by the store) and tell (augment the store with a new constraint). This is a very general paradigm which subsumes (among others) nonde-terminate data-flow and the (concurrent) (constraint) logic programming languages. This paper develops the basic ideas involved in giving a coherent semantic account of these languages. Our first con-tribution is to give a simple and general formulation of the notion that a constraint system is a system of partial infor-mation (a la the information systems of Scott). Parameter passing and hiding is handled by borrowing ideas from the cylindric algebras of Henkin, Monk and Tarski to introduce diagonal elements and “cylindrification ” operations (which mimic the projection of information induced by existential quantifiers). The se;ond contribution is to introduce the notion of determinate concurrent constraint programming languages. The combinators treated are ask, tell, parallel composition, hiding and recursion. We present a simple model for this language based on the specification-oriented methodology of [OH86]. The crucial insight is to focus on observing the resting points of a process—those stores in which the pro-cess quiesces without producing more information. It turns out that for the determinate language, the set of resting points of a process completely characterizes its behavior on all inputs, since each process can be identified with a closure operator over the underlying constraint system. Very nat-ural definitions of parallel composition, communication and hiding are given. For example, the parallel composition of two agents can be characterized by just the intersection of the sets of constraints associated with them. We also give a complete axiomatization of equality in this model, present

Abstract—We give a denotational framework (a “meta model”) within which certain properties of models of computation can be compared. It describes concurrent processes in general terms as sets of possible behaviors. A process is determinate if, given the constraints imposed by the inputs, there are exactly one or exactly zero behaviors. Compositions of processes are processes with behaviors in the intersection of the behaviors of the component processes. The interaction between processes is through signals, which are collections of events. Each event is a value-tag pair, where the tags can come from a partially ordered or totally ordered set. Timed models are where the set of tags is totally ordered. Synchronous events share the same tag, and synchronous signals contain events with the same set of tags. Synchronous processes have only synchronous signals as behaviors. Strict causality (in timed tag systems) and continuity (in untimed tag systems) ensure determinacy under certain technical conditions. The framework is used to compare certain essential features of various models of computation, including Kahn process networks, dataflow, sequential processes, concurrent sequential processes with rendezvous, Petri nets, and discrete-event systems. I.

Abstract. We develop a powerdomain construction, [.], which is analogous to the powerset construction and also fits in with the usual sum, product and exponentiation constructions on domains. The desire for such a construction arises when considering programming languages with nondeterministic features or parallel features treated in a nondeterministic way. We hope to achieve a natural, fully abstract semantics in which such equivalences as (pparq)=(qparp) hold. The domain (D Truthvalues) is not the right one, and instead we take the (finitely) generable subsets of D. When D is discrete they are ordered in an elementwise fashion. In the general case they are given the coarsest ordering consistent, in an appropriate sense, with the ordering given in the discrete case. We then find a restricted class of algebraic inductive partial orders which is closed under [. as well as the sum, product and exponentiation constructions. This class permits the solution of recursive domain equations, and we give some illustrative semantics using 5[.]. It remains to be seen if our powerdomain construction does give rise to fully abstract semantics, although such natural equivalences as the above do hold. The major deficiency is the lack of a convincing treatment of the fair parallel construct. 1. Introduction. When one follows the Scott-Strachey approach to the

This thesis introduces the programming language Guarded Horn Clauses which is abbreviated to GHC. Guarded Horn Clauses was born from the examination of existing logic programming languages and logic programming in general, with special attention paid to parallelism. The main feature of

This paper studies the semantics of hierarchical finite state machines (FMS's) that are composed using various concurrency models, particularly dataflow, discrete-events, and synchronous/reactive modeling. It is argued that all three combinations are useful, and that the concurrency model can be selected independently of the decision to use hierarchical FSM's. In contrast, most formalisms that combine FSM's with concurrency models, such as Statecharts (and its variants) and hybrid systems, tightly integrate the FSM semantics with the concurrency semantics. An implementation that supports three combinations is described.

Focus is a framework for the systematic formal specification and development of distributed interactive systems and their components. Focus provides models, formalisms and verification calculi for the stepwise specification and development, transformation and verification of such systems. Focus aims at the modular development and implementation of distributed interactive systems through several abstraction levels by stepwise refinement. 1 Chapter 1 Methods for System Development A (distributed) system consists of a family of interacting, conceptually or spatially distributed components. A system development method provides a framework for organizing the stepwise construction of such systems. During the development process several descriptions are produced, that reflect different abstraction levels. Only if formal techniques are used these descriptions can be made as precise and unambiguous as necessary. Moreover, formal techniques allow to establish formal relationships between des...