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171
A calculus of mobile processes, I
, 1992
"... We present the a-calculus, a calculus of communicating systems in which one can naturally express processes which have changing structure. Not only may the component agents of a system be arbitrarily linked, but a communication between neighbours may carry information which changes that linkage. The ..."
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Cited by 1183 (31 self)
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We present the a-calculus, a calculus of communicating systems in which one can naturally express processes which have changing structure. Not only may the component agents of a system be arbitrarily linked, but a communication between neighbours may carry information which changes that linkage. The calculus is an extension of the process algebra CCS, following work by Engberg and Nielsen, who added mobility to CCS while preserving its algebraic properties. The rr-calculus gains simplicity by removing all distinction between variables and constants; communication links are identified by names, and computation is represented purely as the communication of names across links. After an illustrated description of how the n-calculus generalises conventional process algebras in treating mobility, several examples exploiting mobility are given in some detail. The important examples are the encoding into the n-calculus of higher-order functions (the I-calculus and com-binatory algebra), the transmission of processes as values, and the representation of data structures as processes. The paper continues by presenting the algebraic theory of strong bisimilarity and strong equivalence, including a new notion of equivalence indexed by distinctions-i.e., assumptions of inequality among names. These theories are based upon a semantics in terms of a labeled transition system and a notion of strong bisimulation, both of which are expounded in detail in a companion paper. We also report briefly on work-in-progress based upon the corresponding notion of weak bisimulation, in which internal actions cannot be observed.
On agent-based software engineering
- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
, 2000
"... Agent-oriented techniques represent an exciting new means of analysing, designing and building complex software systems. They have the potential to significantly improve current practice in software engineering and to extend the range of applications that can feasibly be tackled. Yet, to date, there ..."
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Cited by 627 (25 self)
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Agent-oriented techniques represent an exciting new means of analysing, designing and building complex software systems. They have the potential to significantly improve current practice in software engineering and to extend the range of applications that can feasibly be tackled. Yet, to date, there have been few serious attempts to cast agent systems as a software engineering paradigm. This paper seeks to rectify this omission. Specifically, it will be argued that: (i) the conceptual apparatus of agent-oriented systems is well-suited to building software solutions for complex systems and (ii) agent-oriented approaches represent a genuine advance over the current state of the art for engineering complex systems. Following on from this view, the major issues raised by adopting an agent-oriented approach to software engineering are highlighted and discussed.
Why Interaction Is More Powerful Than Algorithms
, 1997
"... alancing operation is not uniquely determined by the operation alone, since it depends on changes of state by deposit and withdraw operations that cannot be predicted or controlled. An object's operations return results that depend on changes of state controlled by unpredictable external action ..."
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Cited by 274 (21 self)
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alancing operation is not uniquely determined by the operation alone, since it depends on changes of state by deposit and withdraw operations that cannot be predicted or controlled. An object's operations return results that depend on changes of state controlled by unpredictable external actions. The growing pains of software technology are due to the fact that programming in the large is inherently interactive and cannot be expressed by or reduced to programming in the small. The behavior of airline reservation systems and other embedded systems cannot be expressed by algorithms. Fred Brooks's persuasive argument [1] that there is no silver bullet for specifying complex systems is a consequence of the irreducibility of interactive systems to algorithms. If silver bullets are interpreted as formal (or algorithmic) system specifications, the nonexistence of silver bullets can actually be proved. Artificial intelligence has undergone a paradigm shift from logic-based to interactive
The Fusion Calculus: Expressiveness and Symmetry in Mobile Processes (Extended Abstract)
- LICS'98
, 1998
"... We present the fusion calculus as a significant step towards a canonical calculus of concurrency. It simplifies and extends the π-calculus.
The fusion calculus contains the polyadic π-calculus as a proper subcalculus and thus inherits all its expressive power. The gain is that fusion contains action ..."
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Cited by 138 (14 self)
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We present the fusion calculus as a significant step towards a canonical calculus of concurrency. It simplifies and extends the π-calculus.
The fusion calculus contains the polyadic π-calculus as a proper subcalculus and thus inherits all its expressive power. The gain is that fusion contains actions akin to updating a shared state, and a scoping construct for bounding their effects. Therefore it is easier to represent computational models such as concurrent constraints formalisms. It is also easy to represent the so called strong reduction strategies in the lambda-calculus, involving reduction under abstraction. In the π-calculus these tasks require elaborate encodings.
The dramatic main point of this paper is that we achieve these improvements by simplifying the π-calculus rather than adding features to it. The fusion calculus has only one binding operator where the π-calculus has two (input and restriction). It has a complete symmetry between input and output actions where the π-calculus has not. There is only one sensible variety of bisimulation congruence where the pi-calculus has at least three (early, late and open). Proofs about the fusion calculus, for example in complete axiomatizations and full abstraction, therefore are shorter and clearer.
Our results on the fusion calculus in this paper are the following. We give a structured operational semantics in the traditional style. The novelty lies in a new kind of action, fusion actions for emulating updates of a shared state. We prove that the calculus contains the π-calculus as a subcalculus. We define and motivate the bisimulation equivalence and prove a simple characterization of its induced congruence, which is given two versions of a complete axiomatization for finite terms. The expressive power of the calculus is demonstrated by giving a straight-forward encoding of the strong lazy lambda-calculus, which admits reduction under lambda abstraction.
Deriving Bisimulation Congruences for Reactive Systems
- In Proc. of CONCUR 2000, 2000. LNCS 1877
, 2000
"... . The dynamics of reactive systems, e.g. CCS, has often been de ned using a labelled transition system (LTS). More recently it has become natural in de ning dynamics to use reaction rules | i.e. unlabelled transition rules | together with a structural congruence. But LTSs lead more naturally to beha ..."
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Cited by 136 (13 self)
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. The dynamics of reactive systems, e.g. CCS, has often been de ned using a labelled transition system (LTS). More recently it has become natural in de ning dynamics to use reaction rules | i.e. unlabelled transition rules | together with a structural congruence. But LTSs lead more naturally to behavioural equivalences. So one would like to derive from reaction rules a suitable LTS. This paper shows how to derive an LTS for a wide range of reactive systems. A label for an agent a is de ned to be any context F which intuitively is just large enough so that the agent Fa (\a in context F ") is able to perform a reaction. The key contribution of this paper is a precise de nition of \just large enough", in terms of the categorical notion of relative pushout (RPO), which ensures that bisimilarity is a congruence when sucient RPOs exist. Two examples | a simpli ed form of action calculi and term-rewriting | are given, for which it is shown that su- cient RPOs indeed exist. The thrust of thi...
A Generic Type System for the Pi-Calculus
- Theoretical Computer Science
, 2003
"... We propose a general, powerful framework of type systems for the #-calculus, and show that we can obtain as its instances a variety of type systems guaranteeing non-trivial properties like deadlock-freedom and race-freedom. A key idea is to express types and type environments as abstract processe ..."
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Cited by 106 (9 self)
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We propose a general, powerful framework of type systems for the #-calculus, and show that we can obtain as its instances a variety of type systems guaranteeing non-trivial properties like deadlock-freedom and race-freedom. A key idea is to express types and type environments as abstract processes: We can check various properties of a process by checking the corresponding properties of its type environment. The framework clarifies the essence of recent complex type systems, and it also enables sharing of a large amount of work such as a proof of type preservation, making it easy to develop new type systems.
Multiagent Systems and Societies of Agents
, 1999
"... Introduction Agents operate and exist in some environment, which typically is both computational and physical. The environment might be open or closed, and it might or might not contain other agents. Although there are situations where an agent can operate usefully by itself, the increasing intercon ..."
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Cited by 87 (0 self)
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Introduction Agents operate and exist in some environment, which typically is both computational and physical. The environment might be open or closed, and it might or might not contain other agents. Although there are situations where an agent can operate usefully by itself, the increasing interconnection and networking of computers is making such situations rare, and in the usual state of affairs the agent interacts with other agents. Whereas the previous chapter defined the structure and characteristics of an individual agent, the focus of this chapter is on systems with multiple agents. At times, the number of agents may be too numerous to deal with them individually, and it is then more convenient to deal with them collectively, as a society of agents. In this chapter, we will learn how to analyze, describe, and design environments in which agents can operate effectively and interact with each other productively. The environments will provide a computational infrastructu
A brief history of process algebra
- Theor. Comput. Sci
, 2004
"... Abstract. This note addresses the history of process algebra as an area of research in concurrency theory, the theory of parallel and distributed systems in computer science. Origins are traced back to the early seventies of the twentieth century, and developments since that time are sketched. The a ..."
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Cited by 82 (1 self)
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Abstract. This note addresses the history of process algebra as an area of research in concurrency theory, the theory of parallel and distributed systems in computer science. Origins are traced back to the early seventies of the twentieth century, and developments since that time are sketched. The author gives his personal views on these matters. He also considers the present situation, and states some challenges for the future.
From Rewrite Rules to Bisimulation Congruences
- THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE
, 1998
"... The dynamics of many calculi can be most clearly defined by a reduction semantics. To work with a calculus, however, an understanding of operational congruences is fundamental; these can often be given tractable definitions or characterisations using a labelled transition semantics. This paper consi ..."
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Cited by 77 (2 self)
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The dynamics of many calculi can be most clearly defined by a reduction semantics. To work with a calculus, however, an understanding of operational congruences is fundamental; these can often be given tractable definitions or characterisations using a labelled transition semantics. This paper considers calculi with arbitrary reduction semantics of three simple classes, firstly ground term rewriting, then left-linear term rewriting, and then a class which is essentially the action calculi lacking substantive name binding. General definitions of labelled transitions are given in each case, uniformly in the set of rewrite rules, and without requiring the prescription of additional notions of observation. They give rise to bisimulation congruences. As a test of the theory it is shown that bisimulation for a fragment of CCS is recovered. The transitions generated for a fragment of the Ambient Calculus of Cardelli and Gordon, and for SKI combinators, are also discussed briefly.
Models of Sharing Graphs: A Categorical Semantics of let and letrec
, 1997
"... To my parents A general abstract theory for computation involving shared resources is presented. We develop the models of sharing graphs, also known as term graphs, in terms of both syntax and semantics. According to the complexity of the permitted form of sharing, we consider four situations of sha ..."
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Cited by 75 (9 self)
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To my parents A general abstract theory for computation involving shared resources is presented. We develop the models of sharing graphs, also known as term graphs, in terms of both syntax and semantics. According to the complexity of the permitted form of sharing, we consider four situations of sharing graphs. The simplest is first-order acyclic sharing graphs represented by let-syntax, and others are extensions with higher-order constructs (lambda calculi) and/or cyclic sharing (recursive letrec binding). For each of four settings, we provide the equational theory for representing the sharing graphs, and identify the class of categorical models which are shown to be sound and complete for the theory. The emphasis is put on the algebraic nature of sharing graphs, which leads us to the semantic account of them. We describe the models in terms of the notions of symmetric monoidal categories and functors, additionally with symmetric monoidal adjunctions and traced
