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Process Algebra

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Book cover A Process Algebraic Approach to Software Architecture Design

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Abstract

Process algebra is a formal tool for the specification and the verification of concurrent and distributed systems. It supports compositional modeling through a set of operators able to express concepts like sequential composition, alternative composition, and parallel composition of action-based descriptions. It also supports mathematical reasoning via a two-level semantics, which formalizes the behavior of a description by means of an abstract machine obtained from the application of structural operational rules and then introduces behavioral equivalences able to relate descriptions that are syntactically different. In this chapter, we present the typical behavioral operators and operational semantic rules for a process calculus in which no notion of time, probability, or priority is associated with actions. Then, we discuss the three most studied approaches to the definition of behavioral equivalences – bisimulation, testing, and trace – and we illustrate their congruence properties, sound and complete axiomatizations, modal logic characterizations, and verification algorithms. Finally, we show how these behavioral equivalences and some of their variants are related to each other on the basis of their discriminating power.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Urbino Ist. di Scienze e Tecnologie dell’Informazione, Piazza della Repubblica 13, 61029, Urbino, Italy

    Alessandro Aldini & Marco Bernardo

  2. Dip.to di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Camerino, Via Madonna delle Carceri 9, 62032, Camerino, Italy

    Flavio Corradini

Authors
  1. Alessandro Aldini
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  2. Flavio Corradini
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  3. Marco Bernardo
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Correspondence to Alessandro Aldini .

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Aldini, A., Corradini, F., Bernardo, M. (2010). Process Algebra. In: A Process Algebraic Approach to Software Architecture Design. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-223-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-223-4_1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84800-222-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84800-223-4

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