Engineering Trust-based Software Intensive Systems

Abstract of a keynote speech given at the Strategic Research Workshop on Engineering Software Intensive Systems

Global Computing II. Terms of reference for the FP6-EU-FET call.

The European Commission has decided to continue and develop its FET “Global Computing,” and will shortly announce the opening of “Global Computing II.” The call is expected in May 2004, with application deadlines in September, and expected start date for selected projects in March 2005

Communication Interference in Mobile Boxed Ambients (talk)

Talk given at FST&TCS 200

A Note on Logic Programming Fixed-Point Semantics

In this paper, we present an account of classical Logic Programming fixed-point semantics in terms of two standard categorical constructions in which the least Herbrand model is characterized by properties of universality. In particular, we show that, given a program $P$, the category of models of $P$ is reflective in the category of interpretations for $P$. In addition, we show that the immediate consequence operator gives rise to an endofunctor ${T}_P$ on the category of Herbrand interpretations for $P$ such that category of algebras for ${T}_P$ is the category of Herbrand models of $P$. As consequences, we have that the least Herbrand model of $P$ is the least fixed-point of ${T}_P$ and is the reflection of the empty Herbrand interpretation

A Calculus for Trust Management (talk)

Talk given at GC 2004: MyThS/MIKADO/DART Meeting, Venice 16.06.0

An Approach to the Category of Net Computations

We introduce the notion of strongly concatenable process as a refinement of concatenable processes [DMM89] which can be expressed axiomatically via a functor $Q[-]$ from the category of Petri nets to an appropriate category of symmetric strict monoidal categories, in the precise sense that, for each net $N$, the strongly concatenable processes of $N$ are isomorphic to the arrows of $Q[N]$. In addition, we identify a coreflection right adjoint to $Q[-]$ and characterize its replete image, thus yielding an axiomatization of the category of net computations

Algebraic Models for Contextual Nets

We extend the algebraic approach of Meseguer and Montanari from ordinary place/transition Petri nets to contextual nets, covering both the collective and the individual token philosophy uniformly along the two interpretations of net behaviors

Higher Dimensional Transition Systems

We introduce the notion of higher dimensional transition systems as a model of concurrency providing an elementary, set-theoretic formalisation of the idea of higher dimensional transition. We show an embedding of the category of higher dimensional transition systems into that of higher dimensional automata which cuts down to an equivalence when we restrict to non-degenerate automata. Moreover, we prove that the natural notion of bisimulation for such structures is a generalisation of the strong history preserving bisimulation, and provide an abstract categorical account of it via open maps. Finally, we define a notion of unfolding for higher dimensional transition systems and characterise the structures so obtained as a generalisation of event structures

Deriving Bisimulation Congruences using 2-Categories

We introduce G-relative-pushouts (GRPO) which are a 2-categorical generalisation of relative-pushouts (RPO). They are suitable for deriving labelled transition systems (LTS) for process calculi where terms are viewed modulo structural congruence. We develop their basic properties and show that bisimulation on the LTS derived via GRPOs is a congruence, provided that sufficiently many GRPOs exist. The theory is applied to a simple subset of CCS and the resulting LTS is compared to one derived using a procedure proposed by Sewell

BiLog - A Framework for Structural Logics (talk)

Talk given at Forum on Separation Logics, Cambridge 14.03.0