The asynchronous pi-calculus is considered the basis of experimental programming languages (or proposal of programming languages) like Pict, Join, and Blue calculus. However, at a closer inspection, these languages are based on an even simpler calculus, called Local (L), where: (a) only the output capability of names may be transmitted; (b) there is no matching or similar constructs for testing equality between names. We study the basic operational and algebraic theory of Lpi. We focus on bisimulation-based behavioural equivalences, precisely on barbed congruence. We prove two coinductive characterisations of barbed congruence in Lpi, and some basic algebraic laws. We then show applications of this theory, including: the derivability of delayed input; the correctness of an optimisation of the encoding of call-by-name lambda-calculus; the validity of some laws for Join.

The π-calculus is a process algebra which originates from CCS and permits a natural modelling of mobility (i.e., dynamic reconfigurations of the process linkage) using communication of names. Previous research has shown that the π-calculus has much greater expressiveness than CCS, but also a much more complex mathematical theory. The primary goal of this work is to understand the reasons of this gap. Another goal is to compare the expressiveness of name-passing calculi, i.e., calculi like π-calculus where mobility is achieved via exchange of names, and that of agent-passing calculi, i.e., calculi where mobility is achieved via exchange of agents. We separate the mobility mechanisms of the π-calculus into two, respectively called internal mobility and external mobility. The study of the subcalculus which only uses internal mobility, called I, suggests that internal mobility is responsible for much of the expressiveness of the π-calculus, whereas external mobility is responsible for many of...

We present a logic for proving security properties of protocols that use nonces (randomly generated numbers that uniquely identify a protocol session) and public-key cryptography. The logic, designed around a process calculus with actions for each possible protocol step, consists of axioms about protocol actions and inference rules that yield assertions about protocols composed of multiple steps. Although assertions are written using only steps of the protocol, the logic is sound in a stronger sense: each provable assertion about an action or sequence of actions holds in any run of the protocol that contains the given actions and arbitrary additional actions by a malicious attacker. This approach lets us prove security properties of protocols under attack while reasoning only about the sequence of actions taken by honest parties to the protocol. The main security-specific parts of the proof system are rules for reasoning about the set of messages that could reveal secret data and an invariant rule called the "honesty rule." 1

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We present a specialized protocol logic that is built around a process language for describing the actions of a protocol. In general terms, the relation between logic and protocol is like the relation between assertions in Floyd-Hoare logic and standard imperative programs. Like Floyd-Hoare logic, our logic contains axioms and inference rules for each of the main protocol actions and proofs are protocol-directed, meaning that the outline of a proof of correctness follows the sequence of actions in the protocol. We prove that the protocol logic is sound, in a specific sense: each provable assertion about an action or sequence of actions holds in any run of the protocol, under attack, in which the given actions occur. This approach lets us prove properties of protocols that hold in all runs, while explicitly reasoning only about the sequence of actions needed to achieve this property. In particular, no explicit reasoning about the potential actions of an attacker is required.

ion elimination Definition 3.1. A monoidal category where every object has a commutative comonoid structure is said to be semi-cartesian. An action category is a K\Omega -category with a distinguished admissible commutative comonoid structure on every object. A semi-cartesian category is cartesian if and only if each object carries a unique comonoid structure, and such structures form two natural families, \Delta and !. The naturality means that all morphisms of the category must be comonoid homomorphisms. In action categories, the property of semi-cartesianness is fixed as structure: on each object, a particular comonoid structure is chosen. This choice may be constrained by some given graphic operations, with respect to which the structures must be admissible. The proof of proposition 2.6 shows that such structures determine the abstraction operators, and are determined by them. This is the essence of the equivalence of action categories and action calculi. As the embodiment of 2...

We study the expressiveness of the join calculus by comparison with (generalised, coloured) Petri nets and using tools from type theory. More precisely, we consider four classes of nets of increasing expressiveness, i , introduce a hierarchy of type systems of decreasing strictness, i , i = 0; : : : ; 3, and we prove that a join process is typeable according to i if and only if it is (strictly equivalent to) a net of class i . In the details, 0 and 1 contain, resp., usual place/transition and coloured Petri nets, while 2 and 3 propose two natural notions of high-level net accounting for dynamic recon guration and process creation and called recon gurable and dynamic Petri nets, respectively.

Concurrency is concerned with the fundamental aspects of systems of multiple, simultaneously active computing agents that interact with one another. This notion is

Abstract. We exploit a notion of interface for Petri nets in order to design a set of net combinators. For such a calculus of nets, we focus on the behavioural congruences arising from four simple notions of behaviour, viz., traces, maximal traces, step, and maximal step traces, and from the corresponding four notions of bisimulation, viz., weak and weak step bisimulation and their maximal versions. We characterize such congruences via universal contexts and via games, providing in such a way an understanding of their discerning powers.

We consider the following questions: What kind of logic has a natural semantics in multi-player (rather than 2-player) games? How can we express branching quantifiers, and other partial-information constructs, with a properly compositional syntax and semantics? We develop a logic in answer to these questions, with a formal semantics based on multiple concurrent strategies, formalized as closure operators on Kahn-Plotkin concrete domains. Partial information constraints are represented as co-closure operators. We address the syntactic issues by treating syntactic constituents, including quantifiers, as arrows in a category, with arities and co-arities. This enables a fully compositional account of a wide