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

The operational semantics of interactive systems is usually described by labeled transition systems. Abstract semantics is defined in terms of bisimilarity that, in the finite case, can be computed via the well-known partition refinement algorithm. However, the behaviour of interactive systems is in many cases infinite and thus checking bisimilarity in this way is unfeasible. Symbolic semantics allows to define smaller, possibly finite, transition systems, by employing symbolic actions and avoiding some sources of infiniteness. Unfortunately, the standard partition refinement algorithm does not work with symbolic bisimilarity.

Abstract. The operational semantics of interactive systems is usually described by labeled transition systems. Abstract semantics (that is defined in terms of bisimilarity) is characterized by the final morphism in some category of coalgebras. Since the behaviour of interactive systems is for many reasons infinite, symbolic semantics were introduced as a mean to define smaller, possibly finite, transition systems, by employing symbolic actions and avoiding some sources of infiniteness. Unfortunately, symbolic bisimilarity has a different “shape ” with respect to ordinary bisimilarity, and thus the standard coalgebraic characterization does not work. In this paper, we introduce its coalgebraic models. 1

Name passing calculi are nowadays an established field on its own. Besides their practical relevance, they offered an intriguing challenge, since the standard operational, denotational and logical methods often proved inadequate to reason about these formalisms. A domain which has been successfully employed for languages with asymmetric communication, like the π-calculus, are presheaf categories based on (injective) relabelings, such as Set. Calculi with symmetric binding, in the spirit of the fusion calculus, give rise to new research problems. In this work we examine the calculus of explicit fusions, and propose to model its syntax and semantics using the presheaf category Set E,whereE is the category of equivalence relations and equivalence preserving morphisms.

We introduce a symbolic characterisation of the operational semantics of COWS, a formal language for specifying and combining service-oriented applications, while modelling their dynamic behaviour. This alternative semantics avoids infinite representations of COWS terms due to the value-passing nature of communication in COWS and is more amenable for automatic manipulation by analytical tools, such as e.g. equivalence and model checkers. We illustrate our approach through a ‘translation service’ scenario.

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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 they represent

Abstract Name passing calculi are nowadays one of the preferred formalisms for the specification of concurrent and distributed systems with a dynamically evolving topology. Despite their widespread adoption as a theoretical tool, though, they still face some unresolved semantic issues, since the standard operational, denotational and logical methods often proved inadequate to reason about these formalisms. A domain which has been successfully employed for languages with asymmetric communication, like the π-calculus, are presheaf categories based on (injective) relabellings, such as Set I.Calculiwithsymmetric binding, in the spirit of the fusion calculus, give rise to novel research challenges. In this work we examine the explicit fusion This work was carried out during the first author’s tenure of an ERCIM “Alain Bensoussan” Fellowship Programme. The third author has been supported by the Comunidad de Madrid program ProMeSaS (S-0505/TIC/0407) and by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific