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Programming Distributed Collective Processes for Dynamic Ensembles and Collective Tasks

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Coordination Models and Languages (COORDINATION 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13908))

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Abstract

Recent trends like the Internet of Things (IoT) suggest a vision of dense and multi-scale deployments of computing devices in nearly all kinds of environments. A prominent engineering challenge revolves around programming the collective adaptive behaviour of such computational ecosystems. This requires abstractions able to capture concepts like ensembles (dynamic groups of cooperating devices) and collective tasks (joint activities carried out by ensembles). In this work, we consider collections of devices interacting with neighbours and that execute in nearly-synchronised sense–compute–interact rounds, where the computation is given by a single control program. To support programming whole computational collectives, we propose the abstraction of a distributed collective process (DCP), which can be used to define at once the ensemble formation logic and its collective task. We implement the abstraction in the eXchange Calculus (XC), a core language based on neighbouring values (maps from neighbours to values) where state management and interaction is handled through a single primitive, exchange. Then, we discuss the features of the abstraction, its suitability for different kinds of distributed computing applications, and provide a proof-of-concept implementation of a wave-like process propagation.

This publication is part of the project NODES which has received funding from the MUR - M4C2 1.5 of PNRR with grant agreement no. ECS00000036. The work was also partially supported by the Italian PRIN project “CommonWears” (2020HCWWLP) and the EU/MUR FSE PON-R &I 2014-2020.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università di Torino, Torino, Italy

    Giorgio Audrito, Ferruccio Damiani & Gianluca Torta

  2. Università di Bologna, Cesena, Italy

    Roberto Casadei & Mirko Viroli

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  1. Giorgio Audrito
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  2. Roberto Casadei
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  3. Ferruccio Damiani
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  4. Gianluca Torta
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  5. Mirko Viroli
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Correspondence to Roberto Casadei .

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  1. Open University of The Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Sung-Shik Jongmans

  2. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Antónia Lopes

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Audrito, G., Casadei, R., Damiani, F., Torta, G., Viroli, M. (2023). Programming Distributed Collective Processes for Dynamic Ensembles and Collective Tasks. In: Jongmans, SS., Lopes, A. (eds) Coordination Models and Languages. COORDINATION 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13908. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35361-1_4

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