A classification of the expressive power of well-structured transition systems

We compare the expressive power of a class of well-structured transition systems that includes relational automata (extensions of), Petri nets, lossy channel systems, constrained multiset rewriting systems, and data nets. For each one of these models we study the class of languages generated by labeled transition systems describing their semantics. We consider here two types of accepting conditions: coverability and reachability of a fixed a priori configuration. In both cases we obtain a strict hierarchy in which constrained multiset rewriting systems is the most expressive model.     

On the Regularity of Petri Net Languages

Petri nets are known to be useful for modeling concurrent systems. Once modeled by a Petri net, the behavior of a concurrent system can be characterized by the set of all executable transition sequences, which in turn can be viewed as a language over an alphabet of symbols corresponding to the transitions of the underlying Petri net. In this paper, we study the language issue of Petri nets from a computational complexity viewpoint. We analyze the complexity of theregularity problem(i.e., the problem of determining whether a given Petri net defines an irregular language or not) for a variety of classes of Petri nets, includingconflict-free,trap-circuit,normal,sinkless,extended trap-circuit,BPP, andgeneralPetri nets. (Extended trap-circuit Petri nets are trap-circuit Petri nets augmented with a specific type ofcircuits.) As it turns out, the complexities for these Petri net classes range from NL (nondeterministic logspace), PTIME (polynomial time), and NP (nondeterministic polynomial time), to EXPSPACE (exponential space). In the process of deriving the complexity results, we develop adecomposition approachwhich, we feel, is interesting in its own right, and might have other applications to the analysis of Petri nets as well. As a by-product, an NP upper bound of the reachability problem for the class of extended trap-circuit Petri nets (which properly contains that of trap-circuit (and hence, conflict-free) and BPP-nets, and is incomparable with that of normal and sinkless Petri nets) is derived.     

On the ω-language Expressive Power of Extended Petri Nets

In this paper, we study the expressive power of several monotonic extensions of Petri nets. We compare the expressive power of Petri nets, Petri nets extended with non-blocking arcs and Petri nets extended with transfer arcs, in terms of ω-languages. We show that the hierarchy of expressive powers of those models is strict. To prove these results, we propose original techniques that rely on well-quasi orderings and monotonicity properties.     

On sets of numbers accepted by P/T systems composed by join

Recently, some studies linked the computational power of abstract computing systems based on multiset rewriting to models of Petri nets and the computation power of these nets to their topology. In turn, the computational power of these abstract computing devices can be understood by just looking at their topology, that is, information flow.Here we continue this line of research by introducing J languages and proving that they can be accepted by place/transition systems whose underlying net is composed only by join. Moreover, we study how J languages relate to other families of formal languages.     

Reduction rules for reset/inhibitor nets

Reset/inhibitor nets are Petri nets extended with reset arcs and inhibitor arcs. These extensions can be used to model cancellation and blocking. A reset arc allows a transition to remove all tokens from a certain place when the transition fires. An inhibitor arc can stop a transition from being enabled if the place contains one or more tokens. While reset/inhibitor nets increase the expressive power of Petri nets, they also result in increased complexity of analysis techniques. One way of speeding up Petri net analysis is to apply reduction rules. Unfortunately, many of the rules defined for classical Petri nets do not hold in the presence of reset and/or inhibitor arcs. Moreover, new rules can be added. This is the first paper systematically presenting a comprehensive set of reduction rules for reset/inhibitor nets. These rules are liveness and boundedness preserving and are able to dramatically reduce models and their state spaces. It can be observed that most of the modeling languages used in practice have features related to cancellation and blocking. Therefore, this work is highly relevant for all kinds of application areas where analysis is currently intractable.     

An iterative method for synthesizing non-blocking supervisors for a class of generalized Petri nets using mathematical programming

This paper presents a novel and computational deadlock prevention policy for a class of generalized Petri nets, namely G-systems, which allows multiple resource acquisitions and flexible routings with machining, assembly and disassembly operations. In this research, a mixed integer programming (MIP)-based deadlock detection technique is used to find an insufficiently marked minimal siphon from a maximal deadly marked siphon for generalized Petri nets. In addition, two-stage control method is employed for deadlock prevention in Petri net model. Such proposed method is an iterative approach consisting of two stages. The first one is called siphons control, which adds a control place to the original net for each insufficiently marked minimal siphon. The objective is to prevent minimal siphons from being insufficiently marked. The second one, called control-induced siphons control, is to add a control place to the augmented net with its output arcs connecting to source transitions, which assures that there is no new insufficiently marked siphon generated due to the addition of the monitors. Compared with the existing approaches, the proposed deadlock prevention policy can usually lead to a non-blocking supervisor with more permissive behavior and high computational efficiency for a sizeable plant model due to avoiding complete siphon enumeration. Finally, a practical flexible manufacturing system (FMS) example is utilized to illustrate the proposed method.     

Fluid approximation of Petri net models with relatively small populations

Fluidization is an appealing relaxation technique based on the removal of integrality constraints in order to ease the analysis of discrete Petri nets. The result of fluidifying discrete Petri nets are the so called Fluid or Continuous Petri nets. As with any relaxation technique, discrepancies among the behaviours of the discrete and the relaxed model may appear. Moreover, such discrepancies may have a comparatively bigger effect when the population of the system, the marking in Petri net terms, is “relatively” small. This paper proposes two complementary approaches to obtain a better fluid approximation of discrete Petri nets. The first one focuses on untimed systems and is based on the addition of places that are implicit in the untimed discrete system but not in the continuous. The idea is to cut undesired spurious solutions whose existence worsens the fluidization. The second one focuses on a particular situation that can severely affect the quality of fluidization in timed systems. Namely, such a situation arises when the enabling degree of a transition is equal to 1. This last approach aims to alleviate such a state of affairs, which is termed the bound reaching problem, on systems under infinite servers semantics.     

带抑制弧Petri网的保性变换

Petri 网的保性化简是Petri网分析的一种重要途径。带抑制弧的增广Petri网在计算能力上与图灵机等价。针对带抑制的增广Petri网中串联变迁和串联库所两类情况进行了较深入的分析,在给出了相关化简方法的基础上,证明了通过这些化简规则所得到的网系统与原网在活性、有界性、弱公平性等动态性质上仍保持一致。     

Abstract processes of place/transition systems

A well-known problem in Petri net theory is to formalise an appropriate causality-based concept of process or run for place/transition systems. The so-called individual token interpretation, where tokens are distinguished according to their causal history, giving rise to the processes of Goltz and Reisig, is often considered too detailed. The problem of defining a fully satisfying more abstract concept of process for general place/transition systems has so-far not been solved. In this paper, we recall the proposal of defining an abstract notion of process, here called BD-process, in terms of equivalence classes of Goltz-Reisig processes, using an equivalence proposed by Best and Devillers. It yields a fully satisfying solution for at least all one-safe nets. However, for certain nets which intuitively have different conflicting behaviours, it yields only one maximal abstract process. Here we identify a class of place/transition systems, called structural conflict nets, where conflict and concurrency due to token multiplicity are clearly separated. We show that, in the case of structural conflict nets, the equivalence proposed by Best and Devillers yields a unique maximal abstract process only for conflict-free nets. Thereby BD-processes constitute a simple and fully satisfying solution in the class of structural conflict nets.     

Complexity of some problems in Petri nets

We consider the complexity of several standard problems for various classes of Petri nets. In particular, the reachability problem, the liveness problem and the k-boundedness problems are analyzed. Some polynomial time and polynomial space complete problems for Petri nets are given. We then show that the problem of deciding whether a Petri net is persistent is reducible to reachability, partially answering a question of Keller. Reachability and boundedness are proved to be undecidable for the Time Petri net introduced by Merlin. Also presented is the concept of controllability, i.e., the capability of a set of transitions to disable a given transition. We show that the controllability problem requires exponential space, even for 1-bounded nets.     

Bounded self-stabilizing Petri nets

We investigate the property of self-stabilization in bounded Petri nets. We give characterizations for both self-stabilizing bounded ordinary Petri nets (i.e., Petri nets without multiple arcs) and self-stabilizing bounded general Petri nets (i.e., Petri nets with multiple arcs). These characterizations allow us to determine the complexity of deciding self-stabilization for each of these classes. In particular, we show the self-stabilization problem to be PTIME-complete for bounded ordinary Petri nets and PSPACE-complete for bounded general Petri nets.Louis Rosier passed away on May 6, 1991, while this paper was under review     

The synthesis problem of Petri nets

The synthesis problem of concurrent systems is the problem of synthesizing a concurrent system model from sequential observations. The paper studies the synthesis problem for elementary Petri nets and transition systems. A characterization of the class of transition systems which correspond to elementary Petri nets is proven. It is shown how to generate all elementary Petri nets corresponding to a given transition system. If there is any such elementary Petri net, it is proven that there always exists a small one which has only polynomially many elements in the size of the transition system. Received October 5, 1992 / April 11, 1995     

Executability of scenarios in Petri nets

In this paper, we show that it can be tested in polynomial time as to whether a scenario is an execution of a Petri net. This holds for a wide variety of Petri net classes, ranging from elementary nets to general inhibitor nets. Scenarios are given by causal structures expressing causal dependencies and concurrency among events. In the case of elementary nets and of place/transition nets, such causal structures are partial orders among transition occurrences. For several extended Petri net classes, the extension of partial orders to stratified order structures is considered.The algorithms are based on the representation of the non-sequential behavior of Petri nets by so-called token flow functions and a characterization of Petri net executions called token flow property. This property allows nontrivial transformations into flow optimization problems, which can be solved in polynomial time. The paper is a revised, consolidated and extended version of the conference papers [G. Juhás, R. Lorenz, J. Desel, Can I execute my scenario in your net?, in: G. Ciardo, P. Darondeau (Eds.), ICATPN, in: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 2005, pp. 289–308; R. Lorenz, S. Mauser, R. Bergenthum, Testing the Executability of Scenarios in General Inhibitor Nets, in: ACSD, IEEE Computer Society, 2007, pp. 167–176] and includes parts of the habilitation thesis [R. Lorenz, Szenario-basierte Verifikation und Synthese von Perinetzen: Theorie und Anwendungen, Habilitation, 2006].     

基于同步合成的结构复杂Petri网的行为描述

首先分析了一类结构简单的Petri网--S-网的语言性质,得到了它们的行为描述方法.拓展了Petri网同步合成的概念,证明了给定一个结构复杂的Petri网都可通过一组S-网的同步合成运算而得到,并给出了相应的求解算法.引入语言的同步交运算,分析了结构复杂的Petri网与其同步合成子网之间的行为关系,给出了结构复杂Petri网的行为描述算法,为利用网语言分析实际系统的行为特征提供了可靠的理论依据和方法.     

YAWL: yet another workflow language

Based on a rigorous analysis of existing workflow management systems and workflow languages, a new workflow language is proposed: yet another workflow language (YAWL). To identify the differences between the various languages, we have collected a fairly complete set of workflow patterns. Based on these patterns we have evaluated several workflow products and detected considerable differences in their ability to capture control flows for non-trivial workflow processes. Languages based on Petri nets perform better when it comes to state-based workflow patterns. However, some patterns (e.g. involving multiple instances, complex synchronisations or non-local withdrawals) are not easy to map onto (high-level) Petri nets. This inspired us to develop a new language by taking Petri nets as a starting point and adding mechanisms to allow for a more direct and intuitive support of the workflow patterns identified. This paper motivates the need for such a language, specifies the semantics of the language, and shows that soundness can be verified in a compositional way. Although YAWL is intended as a complete workflow language, the focus of this paper is limited to the control-flow perspective.     

Decidability and complexity of Petri nets with unordered data

We prove several decidability and undecidability results for ν-PN, an extension of P/T nets with pure name creation and name management. We give a simple proof of undecidability of reachability, by reducing reachability in nets with inhibitor arcs to it. Thus, the expressive power of ν-PN strictly surpasses that of P/T nets. We encode ν-PN into Petri Data Nets, so that coverability, termination and boundedness are decidable. Moreover, we obtain Ackermann-hardness results for all our decidable decision problems. Then we consider two properties, width-boundedness and depth-boundedness, that factorize boundedness. Width-boundedness has already been proven to be decidable. Here we prove that its complexity is also non-primitive recursive. Then we prove undecidability of depth-boundedness. Finally, we prove that the corresponding “place version” of all the boundedness problems is undecidable for ν-PN. These results carry over to Petri Data Nets.     

An equivalence theorem for labeled marked graphs

Petri nets and their languages are a useful model of systems exhibiting concurrent behavior. The sequential language associated with a given Petri net S consists of all possible firing sequences of S, where each element of a firing sequence is a single transition. The concurrent language associated with S consists of all possible concurrent firing sequences of S, where each element of a concurrent firing sequence is a set of transitions. The sequential language and the concurrent language associated with S are denoted by (L)(S) and (π)(S), respectively. In this paper, we consider an important special ease of Petri nets, called labeled marked graphs. The main result derived in this paper states that if Γ₁ and Γ₂ are two structurally deterministic labeled marked graphs, then (L)(Γ₁)=L(Γ₂)&rlhar2;π(Γ ₁)=π(Γ₂)     

Steady-state performance evaluation of continuous mono-T-semiflow Petri nets

The number of states in discrete event systems can increase exponentially with respect to the size of the system. A way to face this state explosion problem consists of relaxing the system model, for example by converting it to a continuous one. In the scope of Petri nets, the firing of a transition in a continuous Petri net system is done in a real amount. Hence, the marking (state) of the net system becomes a vector of non-negative real numbers. The main contribution of the paper lies in the computation of throughput bounds for continuous Petri net systems with a single T-semiflow. For that purpose, a branch and bound algorithm is designed. Moreover, it can be relaxed and converted into a linear programming problem. Some conditions, under which the system always reaches the computed bounds, are extracted. The results related to the computation of the bounds can be directly applied to a larger class of nets called mono T-semiflow reducible.