Results 1 -
2 of
2
Abstract Semantics by Observable Contexts
, 2008
"... The operational behavior of interactive systems is usually given in terms of transition systems labeled with actions, which, when visible, represent both observations and interactions with the external world. The abstract semantics is given in terms of behavioral equivalences, which depend on the ac ..."
Abstract
-
Cited by 9 (1 self)
- Add to MetaCart
The operational behavior of interactive systems is usually given in terms of transition systems labeled with actions, which, when visible, represent both observations and interactions with the external world. The abstract semantics is given in terms of behavioral equivalences, which depend on the action labels and on the amount of branching structure considered. Behavioural equivalences are often congruences with respect to the operations of the language, and this property expresses the compositionality of the abstract semantics. A simpler approach, inspired by classical formalisms like λ-calculus, Petri nets, term and graph rewriting, and pioneered by the Chemical Abstract Machine [1], defines operational semantics by means of structural axioms and reaction rules. Process calculi representing complex systems, in particular those able to generate and communicate names, are often defined in this way, since structural axioms give a clear idea of the intended structure of the states while reaction rules, which are often non-conditional, give a direct account of the possible steps. Transitions caused by reaction rules, however, are not labeled, since
Reactive Systems, (Semi-)Saturated Semantics and Coalgebras on Presheaves
, 2009
"... The semantics of process calculi has traditionally been specified by labelled transition systems (ltss), but with the development of name calculi it turned out that reaction rules (i.e., unlabelled transition rules) are often more natural. This leads to the question of how behavioural equivalences ( ..."
Abstract
- Add to MetaCart
The semantics of process calculi has traditionally been specified by labelled transition systems (ltss), but with the development of name calculi it turned out that reaction rules (i.e., unlabelled transition rules) are often more natural. This leads to the question of how behavioural equivalences (bisimilarity, trace equivalence, etc.) defined for lts can be transferred to unlabelled transition systems. Recently, in order to answer this question, several proposals have been made with the aim of automatically deriving an lts from reaction rules in such a way that the resulting equivalences are congruences. Furthermore these equivalences should agree with the standard semantics, whenever one exists. In this paper we propose saturated semantics, based on a weaker notion of observation and orthogonal to all the previous proposals, and we demonstrate the appropriateness of our semantics by means of two examples: logic programming and open Petri nets. We also show that saturated semantics can be efficiently characterized through the so called semi-saturated games. Finally, we provide coalgebraic models relying on presheaves.

