ITL semantics of composite Petri nets

interval temporal logic (itl) and Petri nets are two well developed formalisms for the specification and analysis of concurrent systems. itl allows one to specify both the system design and correctness requirements within the same logic based on intervals (sequences of states). As a result, verification of system properties can be carried out by checking that the formula describing a system implies the formula describing a requirement. Petri nets, on the other hand, have action and local state based semantics which allows for a direct expression of causality aspects in system behaviour. As a result, verification of system properties can be carried out using partial order reductions or invariant based techniques. In this paper, we investigate a basic semantical link between temporal logics and compositionally defined Petri nets. In particular, we aim at providing a support for the verification of behavioural properties of Petri nets using methods and techniques developed for itl.     

Markov regenerative stochastic Petri nets with general execution policies: supplementary variable analysis and a prototype tool

Stochastic Petri nets (SPNs) with general firing time distributions are considered. Generally timed transitions can have general execution policies: the preemption policy may be preemptive repeat different (prd) or preemptive resume (prs) and the firing time distribution can be marking-dependent. A stationary analysis method covering all possible combinations is presented by means of supplementary variables. The method is implemented in a prototype tool SPNica which is based on Mathematica. The use of the general execution policies is illustrated by a WWW server model.     

Failures semantics and deadlocking of modular Petri nets

Summary One can construct labelled P/T-nets in a modular fashion by exchanging subnets such that the behaviour of the whole net remains the same. We investigate which subnets can be exchanged such that deadlock-freeness is preserved and show that some variations of the failures semantics, which has been developed for TCSP, are useful in this context.     

A compositional dataflow semantics for Petri nets

We give a semantics for place/transition nets, which describes the input/out-put behaviour using fixed point techniques. The semantics is shown to be compositional w.r.t. the net operators parallel composition, feedback and output merging. We prove consistency with the step sequence semantics and thus give an equivalent operational semantics.This work was partially supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 342     

π演算的Petri网语义研究

为弥补π演算的固有缺陷．提出一种将π演算映射为Petri网语义的方法．该方法将π演算分为基本单元、顺序、并发、选择和递归等几种基本结构．分别映射为Petri网．然后复合构成复杂的系统．π演算的Petri网语义可形象地描述系统的物理结构和动态行为，可直接从模型网络结构上定性分析系统的性质．最后,利用该方法将移动汽车网络的π演算模型映射为Petri网，验证了方法的有效性．     

Symbolic execution of concurrent systems using Petri nets

Techniques for analyzing sequential programs in order to improve their reliability have been widely studied in the past. Among the most interesting analysis techniques, we consider symbolic execution. However, analysis techniques for concurrent programs, and in particular symbolic execution, are still an open research area. In this paper, we define a method for symbolic execution of concurrent systems, based on an extension of the Petri net formalism, called EF nets. EF nets are a powerful, highly expressive and general formalism. Depending on the level of abstraction of actions and predicates that one associates to the transitions of the net, EF nets can be used as a high-level specification formalism for concurrent systems, or as a lower level internal representation of concurrent programs. Thus, the model is not dependent on a particular concurrent programming language, but it is flexible enough to be the kernel model for the representation of a wide set of systems and programming languages. In the paper, in order to support the analysis of a concurrent system or program, at first a general algorithm for symbolically executing an EF net is defined. Then, a more efficient algorithm is given for the particular, though important, subclass of EF nets, defined as safe EF nets. Such algorithm is proved to significantly help in reducing the amount of information needed to characterize a symbolic execution. Both the modelling power of the EF nets and the usefulness of the concurrent symbolic execution algorithms defined are illustrated by means of a case study.     

Stability analysis of buffer priority scheduling policies using Petri nets

A Petri net approach to determining the conditions for stability of a re-entrant system with buffer priority scheduling policy is described in this paper.The concept of buffer boundedness based on the dynamic behavior of the markings in the system model is emphasized.The method is used to demonstrate the stability of the first buffer first served(FBFS)and the last buffer first served(LBFS)scheduling policies.Finally a sufficient condition for instability of systems with a positive feedback Joop(PFL) is established,and an example is given.     

A Petri nets semantics for data flow networks

This work presents a truly concurrent operational semantics for nondeterministic data flow networks. We introduce a model, the df-process, which is a notion similar to that of non-sequential process for a Petri net: a df-process is defined as a mapping from an occurrence net K to a data flow net N, such that the places and the transitions of K are mapped onto the channels and the nodes of N. A df-process contains, by means of some labelling of the places, information on the value and the order in which data flow through the channels during a computation. Df-processes for a data flow network are characterized in an abstract way by a set of properties and in general a df-process corresponds to a set of computations of the network. We give a way to build the df-process corresponding to a computation incrementally at each event occurrence: a main result of the paper is that the incremental construction yields exactly the same set of df-processes as abstractly defined. We also show that df-processes are compositional. The model is intended to be used by distributed systems designers: it contains enough information to be a guideline for the designer and to be a base to develop dynamic checking tools. We outline how df-processes can be used in the design phase of a system.Research supported in part by Progetto Coordinato CNR ANATRA     

Colouring: execution,debug and analysis of QVT-relations transformations through coloured Petri nets

QVT is the standard language sponsored by the OMG to specify model-to-model transformations. It includes three different languages, being QVT-relations (QVT-R) the one with higher-level of abstraction. Unfortunately, there is scarce tool support for it nowadays, with incompatibilities and disagreements between the few tools implementing it, and lacking support for the analysis and verification of transformations. Part of this situation is due to the fact that the standard provides only a semi-formal semantics for QVT-R. In order to alleviate this situation, this paper provides a semantics for QVT-R through its compilation into coloured Petri nets. The theory of coloured Petri nets provides useful techniques to analyse transformations (e.g. detecting relation conflicts, or checking whether certain structures are generated or not in the target model) as well as to determine their confluence and termination given a starting model. Our semantics is flexible enough to permit the use of QVT-R specifications not only for transformation and check-only scenarios, but also for model matching and model comparison, not covered in the original standard. As a proof of concept, we report on the use of CPNTools for the execution, debugging, verification and validation of transformations, and on a tool chain (named Colouring) to transform QVT-R specifications and their input models into the input format of CPNTools, as well as to export and visualize the transformation results back as models.     

Robot task plan representation by Petri nets: modelling, identification, analysis and execution

In this paper we introduce a framework to represent robot task plans based on Petri nets. Our approach enables modelling a robot task, analysing its qualitative and quantitative properties and using the Petri net representation for actual plan execution. The overall model is obtained from the composition of simple models, leading to a modular approach. Analysis is applied to a closed loop between the robot controller and the environment Petri net models. We focus here on the quantitative properties, captured by stochastic Petri net models. Furthermore, we introduce a method to identify the environment and action layer parameters of the stochastic Petri net models from real data, improving the significance of the model. The framework building blocks and a single-robot task model are detailed. Results of a case study with simulated soccer robots show the ability of the framework to provide a systematic modelling tool, and of determining, through well-known analysis methods for stochastic Petri nets, relevant properties of the task plan applied to a particular environment.     

Compositional analysis of Petri nets

Foundations of compositional analysis of Petri nets are presented. This analysis consist of the determination of properties of a given Petri net from the properties of its functional subnets. Compositional analysis covers the investigation of behavioral and structural properties of Petri nets with the help of matrix methods that use fundamental equations and invariants. The exponential acceleration of computations as a function of the dimensionality of a net is obtained. __________ Translated from Kibernetika i Sistemnyi Analiz, No. 1, pp. 143–154, January–February 2006.     

Performance analysis using Petri nets

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the implementation issues associated with using Petri nets for the performance analysis of discrete event dynamic systems while demonstrating several applications in manufacturing systems. Practical modeling issues will be discussed and several applications will be presented that illustrate the advantages and limitations of this methodology. These issues lead to the definition of several research problems in Petri nets for performance analysis.     

Perturbation analysis of stochastic Petri nets

This paper addresses the sensitivity analysis of stochastic Petri nets (SPNs) using simulations. The goal is to evaluate the derivatives of performance measures with respect to timing parameters. To characterize the underlying stochastic processes of SPNs, we use a generalized semi-Markov process (GSMP) representation and propose a new representation, called GSMP*, which differs from GSMP in the routing mechanism. By using existing results on perturbation analysis of GSMPs and by extending them to GSMP*, unbiased sensitivity estimators are obtained for SPNs simulated under a GSMP or GSMP* framework. Most importantly, we prove that only one simulation run is needed for evaluating both the performance measures and their derivatives for a class of free-choice nets simulated under a GSMP framework and for any free-choice net simulated under a GSMP* framework     

Giving semantics to SA/RT by means of high-level timed Petri nets

In the IPTES project a dual language approach is proposed for overcoming both the problems derived from the use of a user-friendly, high-level, but not-formally-defined language and from a lower-level, formal, but difficult-to-use language. The approach uses a user-friendly, high-level language as user interface and a lower-level, formal language asmachine language. In this way the users can both access the IPTES environment through a nice interface and can profit from non-ambiguity-checks and proofs algorithms based on the formal kernel machine language. The correspondence between the two languages is built-in in the IPTES environment that provides a transparent mapping mechanism that relates the users specifications expressed by means of the high-level interface-language with the formal definitions expressed in the formal machine language.This paper presents the mapping mechanism that relates the current IPTES user interface (SA/RT (Ward and Mellor 1985)) with the IPTES machine language (high-level timed Petri nets (Ghezzi, Mandrioli, Morasca and Pezzé 1991)). As a side effect, it also presents the formal semantics of SA/RT defined by means of high-level timed Petri nets.This material is based upon work supported by the CEC under the ESPRIT program project no. EP5570 IPTES, by the Piano Finalizzato Sistemi Informatici e Calcolo Parallelo (CNR) and by The Technical Development Centre of Finland (TEKES).     

Reachability analysis in T-invariant-less Petri nets

An algorithm for reachability analysis in place/transition Petri nets having no transition invariants (T-invariants) is proposed. Given a Petri net with initial and target markings, a so-called complemented Petri net is created first that consists of the given Petri net and an additional complementary transition. Thereby, the reachability task is reduced to computation and investigation of those minimal-support and linearly combined T-invariants of the complemented Petri net, in which the complementary transition fires only once. Then, for each T-invariant with a single firing of the complementary transition, the algorithm will try to create a reachability path from the given initial marking to the target marking.     

Petri网格构建探讨

介绍了Petri网的基本定义和对并发系统的描述.指出网格是完全异步并发的基础环境。分析了Web服务和网格资源是构造Petri网格的变化元素和状态元素,进而基于Web services标准和WSRF规范构造了Petri网格体系结构的层次模型,指出Petri网格应用就是构造Petri网模型实例。     

Sensitivity analysis and optimization of stochastic Petri nets

In this paper we define the notion of controlled stochastic Petri net (CSPN), which is a stochastic Petri net with controlled parameters and performance indices. Specifically, transition times and/or conflict resolution rules can depend on controlled parameters and transition times can have arbitrary distribution functions. A method for computing statistical estimates of performance indices and their gradients (sensitivities) with respect to controlled parameters is described. This method, which needs only one simulation of a CSPN, is considerably superior to conventional finite differences both in terms of precision and required amount of simulation and is based on likelihood ratio/score function approach, other possibilities based on extensions of infinitesimal perturbation analysis are outlined. These gradient estimates are used in stochastic optimization algorithms to obtain the optimal value of the aggregated performance function of the CSPN. A combined optimization and simulation tool is developed which includes approaches to the gradient estimation mentioned above. The numerical experiments presented in this paper confirm the efficiency of the proposed techniques.     

逻辑Petri网的S-组合及活性分析

基于Petri网和逻辑Petri网,提出了S-组合逻辑Petri网的概念。深入研究了S-组合逻辑Petri网的活性继承问题,给出了S-组合逻辑Petri网活性的判定定理和算法,并分析了S-组合网中几种资源共享情况。针对组合逻辑Petri网的几种资源共享情况,提出了相应的利用控制库所实现S-组合逻辑Petri网活性控制的方法。