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Contrasting themes in the semantics of imperative concurrency

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Current Trends in Concurrency

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 224))

Abstract

A survey is given of work performed by the authors in recent years concerning the semantics of imperative concurrency. Four sample languages are presented for which a number of operational and denotational semantic models are developed. All languages have parallel execution through interleaving, and the last three have as well a form of synchronization. Three languages are uniform, i.e., they have uninterpreted elementary actions; the fourth is nonuniform and has assignment, tests and value-passing communication. The operational models build on Hennessy-Plotkin transition systems; as denotational structures both metric spaces and cpo domains are employed. Two forms of nondeterminacy are distinguished, viz. the local and global variety. As associated model-theoretic distinction that of linear time versus branching time is investigated. In the former we use streams, i.e. finite or infinite sequences of actions; in the latter the (metrically based) notion of process is introduced. We furthermore study a model with only finite observations. Ready sets also appear, used as technical tool to compare various semantics. Altogether, ten models for the four languages are described, and precise statements on (the majority of) their interrelationships are made. The paper supplies no proofs; for these references to technical papers by the authors are provided.

The research of J.W. de Bakker was partially supported by ESPRIT Project 415: Parallel Architectures and Languages.

The research of J.N. Kok was supported by the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.), grant 125-20-04.

The research of J.I. Zucker was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. MCS-8010728.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science, Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    J. W. de Bakker & J. N. Kok

  2. Subfaculteit Wiskunde en Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    J. -J. Ch. Meyer

  3. Institut für Informatik, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Olshausenstrasse 40–60, 2300, Kiel 1, Federal Republic of Germany

    E.-R. Olderog

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of Buffalo (SUNY), 226 Bell Hall, 14260, Buffalo, New York, USA

    J. I. Zucker

Authors
  1. J. W. de Bakker
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  2. J. N. Kok
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  3. J. -J. Ch. Meyer
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  4. E.-R. Olderog
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  5. J. I. Zucker
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J. W. de Bakker W. -P. de Roever G. Rozenberg

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de Bakker, J.W., Kok, J.N., Meyer, J.J.C., Olderog, ER., Zucker, J.I. (1986). Contrasting themes in the semantics of imperative concurrency. In: de Bakker, J.W., de Roever, W.P., Rozenberg, G. (eds) Current Trends in Concurrency. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 224. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0027040

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