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Generalised Dining Philosophers as Feedback Control

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Distributed Computing and Internet Technology (ICDCIT 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11969))

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Abstract

We examine the mutual exclusion problem of concurrency through the systematic application of modern feedback control theory, by revisiting the classical problem involving mutual exclusion: the Generalised Dining Philosophers problem. The result is a modular development of the solution using the notions of system and system composition in a formal setting that employs simple equational reasoning. The modular approach separates the solution architecture from the algorithmic minutiae and has the benefit of simplifying the design and correctness proofs.

Two variants of the problem are considered: centralised and distributed topology with N philosophers. In each case, solving the Generalised Dining Philosophers reduces to designing an appropriate feedback controller.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Due to page limit constraints, all proofs are delegated to a technical report [3].

  2. 2.

    “In the design of reactive systems it is sometimes not clear what is given and what the designer is expected to produce.” Chandy and Misra [4, p. 290].

  3. 3.

    Regardless of the initial state, the algorithm eventually converges to a legal state, and will therefore remain only in legal states.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India

    Venkatesh Choppella, Arjun Sanjeev & Kasturi Viswanath

  2. University at Buffalo (SUNY), New York, USA

    Bharat Jayaraman

Authors
  1. Venkatesh Choppella
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  2. Arjun Sanjeev
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  3. Kasturi Viswanath
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  4. Bharat Jayaraman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arjun Sanjeev .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam

    Dang Van Hung

  2. International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, India

    Meenakshi D´Souza

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Choppella, V., Sanjeev, A., Viswanath, K., Jayaraman, B. (2020). Generalised Dining Philosophers as Feedback Control. In: Hung, D., D´Souza, M. (eds) Distributed Computing and Internet Technology. ICDCIT 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11969. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36987-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36987-3_9

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-36987-3

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