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Proving liveness for networks of communicating finite state machines

Authors:

Mohammed G. Gouda,

Chung-Kuo ChangAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), Volume 8, Issue 1

Pages 154 - 180

https://doi.org/10.1145/5001.5002

Published: 02 January 1986 Publication History

Abstract

Consider a network of communicating finite state machines that exchange messages over unbounded FIFO channels. Each machine in the network can be defined by a directed graph whose nodes represent the machine states and whose edges represent its transitions. In general, for a node in one of the machines to be live (i.e., encountered infinitely often during the course of communication), each machine in the network should progress in some fair fashion. We define three graduated notions of fair progress (namely, node fairness, edge fairness, and network fairness), and on this basis we define three corresponding degrees of node liveness. We discuss techniques to verify that a given node is live under each of these fairness assumptions. These techniques can be automated; and they are effective even if the network under consideration has an infinite number of reachable states. We use our techniques to establish the liveness of some practical communication protocols; these include an unbounded start-stop protocol, an unbounded alternating bit protocol, and a simplified version of the CSMA/CD protocol for local area networks.

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Cited By

Barbanera FLanese ITuosto E(2020)Composing Communicating Systems, SynchronouslyLeveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation: Verification Principles10.1007/978-3-030-61362-4_3(39-59)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems Volume 8, Issue 1

The MIT Press scientific computation series

Jan. 1986

182 pages

ISSN:0164-0925

EISSN:1558-4593

DOI:10.1145/5001

Editor:
Susan L. Graham

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1986 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 02 January 1986

Published in TOPLAS Volume 8, Issue 1

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Cited By

Barbanera FLanese ITuosto E(2020)Composing Communicating Systems, SynchronouslyLeveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation: Verification Principles10.1007/978-3-030-61362-4_3(39-59)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-61362-4_3
Laubenbacher RJarrah AMortveit HRavi S(2020)Agent-Based Modeling, Mathematical Formalism forComplex Social and Behavioral Systems10.1007/978-1-0716-0368-0_10(683-703)Online publication date: 21-Aug-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0368-0_10
Tošić PLarson KWinikoff MDas SDurfee E(2017)Phase Transitions in Possible Dynamics of Cellular and Graph Automata Models of Sparsely Interconnected Multi-Agent SystemsProceedings of the 16th Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems10.5555/3091125.3091195(474-483)Online publication date: 8-May-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3091125.3091195
Laubenbacher RJarrah AMortveit HRavi S(2014)Agent-Based Modeling, Mathematical Formalism forEncyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_10-5(1-25)Online publication date: 24-May-2014
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27737-5_10-5
TOŠIĆ P(2012)ON THE COMPLEXITY OF COUNTING FIXED POINTS AND GARDENS OF EDEN IN SEQUENTIAL DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS ON PLANAR BIPARTITE GRAPHSInternational Journal of Foundations of Computer Science10.1142/S012905410600433917:05(1179-1203)Online publication date: 25-Jan-2012
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0129054106004339
Chen THu PLi HTse T(2012)An enhanced flow analysis technique for detecting unreachability faults in concurrent systemsInformation Sciences: an International Journal10.1016/j.ins.2011.11.034194(254-269)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ins.2011.11.034
Laubenbacher RJarrah AMortveit HRavi S(2012)Agent Based Modeling, Mathematical Formalism forComputational Complexity10.1007/978-1-4614-1800-9_6(88-104)Online publication date: 2012
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1800-9_6
Laubenbacher RJarrah AMortveit HRavi S(2009)Agent Based Modeling, Mathematical Formalism forEncyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science10.1007/978-0-387-30440-3_10(160-176)Online publication date: 2009
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Barrett CHunt HMarathe MRavi SRosenkrantz DStearns RThakur M(2007)Predecessor existence problems for finite discrete dynamical systemsTheoretical Computer Science10.1016/j.tcs.2007.04.026386:1-2(3-37)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2007
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Barrett CHunt HMarathe MRavi SRosenkrantz DStearns R(2006)Complexity of reachability problems for finite discrete dynamical systemsJournal of Computer and System Sciences10.1016/j.jcss.2006.03.00672:8(1317-1345)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2006
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