Making the Unobservable, Unobservable

  • Authors:
  • Julian Rathke;Paweł Sobociński

  • Affiliations:
  • ecs, University of Southampton;ecs, University of Southampton

  • Venue:
  • Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS)
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Behavioural equivalences of various calculi for modelling distributed systems differ significantly because the properties which can be observed through interaction depend heavily upon their mode of communication. A typical approach to describing the semantics of communicating processes is to provide a labelled transition system (lts) which captures the interaction potential of the individual processes within a larger system. In many cases, a natural rendering of this lts leads to too fine a semantics as unobservability of certain communications is not accounted for. We propose that a standard approach to augmenting ltss allows morally unobservable communications to actually be modelled as unobservables in the semantics. This approach derives from a rule initially given by Honda and Tokoro to account for unobservability of reception in the asynchronous @p-calculus. We examine the implications of adding such rules to lts with respect to the proving behavioural equivalences for various synchronisation mechanisms.