Monographs in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series – serie

In this book the author explains domain engineering and the underlying science, and he then shows how we can derive requirements prescriptions for computing systems from domain descriptions.

In this book the author explains domain engineering and the underlying science, and he then shows how we can derive requirements prescriptions for computing systems from domain descriptions.

​Congestion games are a fundamental class of games widely considered and studied in non-cooperative game theory, introduced to model several realistic scenarios in which people share a limited quantity of goods or services. In congestion games there are several selfish players competing for a set of resources, and each resource incurs a certain latency, expressed by a congestion-dependent function, to the players using it. Each player has a certain weight and an available set of strategies, where each strategy is a non-empty subset of resources, and aims at choosing a strategy minimizing her personal cost, which is defined as the sum of the latencies experienced on all the selected resources. The impact of selfish behavior in congestion games generally deteriorates the social welfare, thus reducing their performance. This deterioration is generally estimated by the price of anarchy, a metric that compares the worst Nash equilibrium configuration with the optimal social welfare, so that the larger the price of anarchy for a game, the higher the impact of selfish behavior. The book derives from the first author's thesis, which won the Best Italian PhD Thesis in Theoretical Computer Science in 2019, awarded by the Italian chapter of the EATCS. The book will be revised for broader audience, and the thesis supervisor is joining as coauthor following the suggestion of the series. The authors will introduce examples for initial definitions with detailed explanations, and expand the scope to the broader results in the area rather than their specific work.

?Congestion games are a fundamental class of games widely considered and studied in non-cooperative game theory, introduced to model several realistic scenarios in which people share a limited quantity of goods or services.

This is the first comprehensive introduction to the theory of word-representable graphs, a generalization of several classical classes of graphs, and a new topic in discrete mathematics.After extensive introductory chapters that explain the context and consolidate the state of the art in this field, including a chapter on hereditary classes of graphs, the authors suggest a variety of problems and directions for further research, and they discuss interrelations of words and graphs in the literature by means other than word-representability.The book is self-contained, and is suitable for both reference and learning, with many chapters containing exercises and solutions to seleced problems. It will be valuable for researchers and graduate and advanced undergraduate students in discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science, in particular those engaged with graph theory and combinatorics, and also for specialists in algebra.

This is the first comprehensive introduction to the theory of word-representable graphs, a generalization of several classical classes of graphs, and a new topic in discrete mathematics.After extensive introductory chapters that explain the context and consolidate the state of the art in this field, including a chapter on hereditary classes of graphs, the authors suggest a variety of problems and directions for further research, and they discuss interrelations of words and graphs in the literature by means other than word-representability.The book is self-contained, and is suitable for both reference and learning, with many chapters containing exercises and solutions to seleced problems. It will be valuable for researchers and graduate and advanced undergraduate students in discrete mathematics and theoretical computer science, in particular those engaged with graph theory and combinatorics, and also for specialists in algebra.

This book deals with the problem of finding suitable languages that can represent specific classes of Petri nets, the most studied and widely accepted model for distributed systems. Hence, the contribution of this book amounts to the alphabetization of some classes of distributed systems. The book also suggests the need for a generalization of Turing computability theory.It is important for graduate students and researchers engaged with the concurrent semantics of distributed communicating systems. The author assumes some prior knowledge of formal languages and theoretical computer science.

This book deals with the problem of finding suitable languages that can represent specific classes of Petri nets, the most studied and widely accepted model for distributed systems.

This monograph treats comprehensively central aspects of string rewriting systems in the form of semi-Thue systems. These are so general as to enable the discussion of all the basic notions and questions that arise in arbitrary replacement systems as used in various areas of computer science. The Church-Rosser property is used in its original meaning and the existence of complete monoid and group presentations is the central point of discussion. Decidability problems with their complexity are surveyed and congruential languages including the deterministic context-free NTS languages are discussed. The book contains a number of generalizations of results published elsewhere, e. g. , the uniqueness of complete string rewriting systems with respect to the underlying order. Completely new and unpublished results which serve as an exposition of techniques and new methods are discussed in detail. With the help of semi-Thue systems it is shown in which situations the famous Knuth-Bendix completion method does not terminate and why, and that in general complete replacement systems cannot always be used as algorithms to solve the word problem.It is suggested how these situations can be stated by using a certain control under which the rewriting is to be performed. This monograph is a reference for graduate students and active researchers in theoretical computer science. The reader is led to the forefront of current research in the area of string rewriting and monoid presentations.

The entire work Parsing Theory appears in two volumes, "Volume I: Languages and Parsing" and "Volume II: LR(k) and LL(k) Parsing". The two volumes form an integral work. Volume I is an introduction to the basic concepts of languages and parsing, and it also contains the relevant mathematical and computer scientific background needed in the development of the theory of deterministic parsing; it deals with topics such as algorithms on relations and graphs, regular languages and lexical analysis, context-free languages, left parsers and right parsers, strong LL(k) parsers and their implementation, simple precedence parsers. Volume II contains a thorough treatment of the theory of LR(k) and LL(k) parsing. "Parsing Theory" is a contemporary reference work on the theory of deterministic parsing of context-free languages. It emphasizes the LR(k) and LL(k) methods, which are developed in a uniform manner and pays special attention to their efficient implementation. Construction algorithms for parsers are derived from general graph-theoretic methods. Complexity questions about parsable grammars are analyzed.The work can be used as a textbook for graduate-level and senior undergraduate-level courses on parsing theory and compiler design. A one-semester course on the basic theory of languages and parsing can be taught from Volume I.

This book offers a modern approach to computational geo-metry, an area thatstudies the computational complexity ofgeometric problems. Combinatorial investigations play animportant role in this study.

Graphs are widely used to represent structural information in the form of objects and connections between them. Graph transformation is the rule-based manipulation of graphs, an increasingly important concept in computer science and related fields. This is the first textbook treatment of the algebraic approach to graph transformation, based on algebraic structures and category theory.Part I is an introduction to the classical case of graph and typed graph transformation. In Part II basic and advanced results are first shown for an abstract form of replacement systems, so-called adhesive high-level replacement systems based on category theory, and are then instantiated to several forms of graph and Petri net transformation systems. Part III develops typed attributed graph transformation, a technique of key relevance in the modeling of visual languages and in model transformation. Part IV contains a practical case study on model transformation and a presentation of the AGG (attributed graph grammar) tool environment. Finally the appendix covers the basics of category theory, signatures and algebras.The book addresses both research scientists and graduate students in computer science, mathematics and engineering.

Local search has been applied successfully to a diverse collection of optimization problems. It's appreciated for its basic conceptual foundation, its general applicability, and its power to serve as a source for new search paradigms. The typical characteristics of combinatorial optimization problems to which local search can be applied, its relation to complexity theory, and the combination with randomized search features have led to a wealth of interesting theoretical results. However, these results are scattered throughout the literature. This is the first book that presents a large collection of theoretical results in a consistent manner, thus providing the reader with a coherent overview of the achievements obtained so far, but also serving as a source of inspiration for the development of novel results in the challenging field of local search.

In a model-based development of software systems different views on a system are elaborated using appropriate modeling languages and techniques. Because of the unavoidable heterogeneity of the viewpoint models, a semantic integration is required, to establish the correspondences of the models and allow checking of their relative consistency.The integration approach introduced in this book is based on a common semantic domain of abstract systems, their composition and development. Its applicability is shown through semantic interpretations and compositional comparisons of different specification approaches. These range from formal specification techniques like process calculi, Petri nets and rule-based formalisms to semiformal software modeling languages like those in the UML family.

Duration calculus constitutes a formal approach to the development of real-time systems; as an interval logic with special features for expressing and analyzing time durations of states in real-time systems, it allows for representing and formally reasoning about requirements and designs at an appropriate level of abstraction.This book presents the logical foundations of duration calculus in a coherent and thorough manner. Through selective case studies it explains how duration calculus can be applied to the formal specification and verification of real-time systems. The book also contains an extensive survey of the current research in this field.The material included in this book has been used for graduate and postgraduate courses, while it is also suitable for experienced researchers and professionals.

This monograph presents a systematic, exhaustive and up-to-date overview of formal methods and theories for data analysis and inference inspired by the concept of rough set. The book studies structures with incomplete information from the logical, algebraic and computational perspective. The formalisms developed are non-invasive in that only the actual information is needed in the process of analysis without external sources of information being required. The book is intended for researchers, lecturers and graduate students who wish to get acquainted with the rough set style approach to information systems with incomplete information.

This book presents a consolidated survey of the vibrant field of research known as the theory of semi-feasible algorithms. This research stream perfectly showcases the richness of, and contrasts between, the central notions of complexity: running time, nonuniform complexity, lowness, and NP-hardness. Research into semi-feasible computation has already developed a rich set of tools, yet is young enough to have an abundance of fresh, open issues. Being essentially self-contained, the book requires neither great mathematical maturity nor an extensive background in computational complexity theory or in computer science in general. Newcomers are introduced to the field systematically and guided to the frontiers of current research. Researchers already active in the field will appreciate the book as a valuable source of reference.

Timing issues are of growing importance for the conceptualization and design of computer-based systems. Timing may simply be essential for the correct behaviour of a system, e. g. of a controller. Even if timing is not essential for the correct behaviour of a system, there may be good reasons to introduce it in such a way that suitable timing becomes relevant for the correct behaviour of a complex system. This book is unique in presenting four algebraic theories about processes, each dealing with timing from a different point of view, in a coherent and systematic way. The timing of actions is either relative or absolute and the underlying time scale is either discrete or continuous. All presented theories are extensions of the algebra of communicating processes. The book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students interested in timing issues in the context of the design and analysis of concurrent and communicating processes.

This monograph is concerned with the problem of getting computers to transform formal language definitions into compilers. Its purpose is to demonstrate how certain simple theoretical ideas can be used to generate compilers and even compiler generators. As the title suggests, a realistic assessment of the relationship between the complexity of realistic compilation and the relative simplicity studied in theoretical work is attempted. The monograph contains an overview of existing compiler generators. The CERES '83 compiler generator, developed by Neil D. Jones and the author, is described in detail. The CERES system is based on the idea of composing language definitions and it serves as an example of a powerful novel "bootstrapping" technique by which one can generate compiler generators as well as compilers by considering a compiler generator to be, in a sense which is made mathematically precise, a special kind of compiler. The core of the CERES system is a two-page-long machine generated compiler generator. The approach uses ideas from denotational semantics and many-sorted algebra and connects them with novel ideas about how to treat programs and language definitions as data.Considerable effort has been made to present the necessary theory in a manner suitable for readers who have some practical experience but not necessarily a theoretical background in semantics.

This is the second volume of a two-volume set representing an up-to-date reference work on the theory of deterministic parsing of context-free grammars. Volume I is an introduction to the basic concepts of formal language theory and context-free parsing. Volume II contains a thorough treatment of the theory of the two most important deterministic parsing methods. The two volumes together form an integrated work with chapters, theorems, lemmas, etc. numbered consecutively. The emphasis is on LR(k) and LL(k) methods, and special attention is paid to the efficient implementation of LR(k) and LL(k) parsers. Construction algorithms for parsers are derived from general graph-theoretic methods. Complexity questions about parsable grammars are analysed. The work can be used as a textbook in graduate and senior undergraduate courses on parsing theory and compiler design.

Two important new concepts, module specifications and constraints, are introduced in this second volume of a three-volume set on fundamentals of algebraic specification. These concepts are motivated by problems in practical software development and are studied here from a theoretical point of view. Modularization is one of the main structuring principles in software development. Modules and module specifications can be seen as the basic building blocks which are used in modularization of software systems and software system specification. Constraints are introduced to increase the expressive power of algebraic specifications in order to make them more useful for practical applications. The book is suitable both as a textbook for graduate courses in formal specification of data types and software systems and as a reference for researchers and system developers.

This book proposes a purely classical first-order logical approach to the theory of programming. The authors, leading members of the famous "Hungarian school", use this approach to give a unified and systematic presentation of the theory. This approach provides formal methods and tools for reasoning about computer programs and programming languages by allowing the syntactic and semantic characterization of programs, the description of program properties, and ways to check whether a given program satisfies certain properties. The basic methods are logical extension, inductive definition and their combination, all of which admit an appropriate first-order representation of data and time. The framework proposed by the authors allows the investigation and development of different programming theories and logics from a unified point of view. Dynamic and temporal logics, for example, are investigated and compared with respect to their expressive and proof-theoretic powers. The book should appeal to both theoretical researchers and students.For researchers in computer science the book provides a coherent presentation of a new approach which permits the solution of various problems in programming theory in a unified manner by the use of first-order logical tools. The book may serve as a basis for graduate courses in programming theory and logic as it covers all important questions arising between the theory of computation and formal descriptive languages and presents an appropriate derivation system.

(M. Pezze in Computing Reviews, August 1996)

This three-volume work presents a coherent description of the theoretical and practical aspects of coloured Petri nets. These CP-nets are shown to be a full-fledged language for the design, specification, simulation, validation and implementation of large software systems.The introductory first volume contains the formal definition of CP-nets and the mathematical theory behind their analysis methods. It gives a detailed presentation of many small examples and a brief overview of some industrial applications. The purpose of the book is to teach the reader how to construct CP-net models and analyse them by means of simulation. The book is also attractive to readers who are more interested in applications than in the underlying mathematics.

Restricted-orientation convexity is the study of geometric objects whose intersections with lines from some fixed set are connected. This notion generalizes standard convexity and several types of nontraditional convexity. We explore the properties of this generalized convexity in multidimensional Euclidean space, describes restricted-orientation analogs of lines, hyperplanes, flats, and halfspaces, and identify major properties of standard convex sets that also hold for restricted-orientation convexity. We then introduce the notion of strong restricted-orientation convexity, which is an alternative generalization of convexity, and show that its properties are also similar to those of standard convexity.

This book presents a step-by-step development of a rigorous framework for the specification and verification of concurrent systems. Petri Net Algebra takes its inspiration and methods from Process Algebra and Petri Nets, two prominent branches of concurrency theory. Added synergistic benefit is derived from combining their respective advantages. Petri nets are treated as composable objects, and as such they are embedded in a general process algebra. On the other hand, a generic process algebra is given an automatic Petri net semantics so that net-based verification techniques, based on structural invariants and causal partial orders, can be applied to the process algebra. The book contains full proofs, carefully chosen examples and several possible directions for further research. A unique aspect is that the development of the Petri net algebra is handled so as to allow for further application-oriented extensions and modifications.

Time-dependent scheduling involves problems in which the processing times of jobs depend on when those jobs are started. This book is a comprehensive study of complexity results and optimal and suboptimal algorithms concerning time-dependent scheduling in single-, parallel- and dedicated-machine environments. In addition to complexity issues and exact or heuristic algorithms which are typically presented in scheduling books, the author also includes more advanced topics such as matrix methods in time-dependent scheduling, and time-dependent scheduling with two criteria.The reader should be familiar with basic notions of calculus, discrete mathematics and combinatorial optimization theory, while the book offers introductory material on NP-complete problems, and the basics of scheduling theory. The author includes numerous examples, figures and tables, he presents different classes of algorithms using pseudocode, and he completes the book with an extensive bibliography, and author, symbol and subject indexes.The book is suitable for researchers working on scheduling, problem complexity, optimization, heuristics and local search algorithms.

By a specification language we understand a formal system of syntax, semantics and proof rules. The syntax and semantics define a language; the proof rules define a proof system. Specifications are expressions in the language, and reasoning over properties of these specifications is done within the proof system. This book presents comprehensive studies on nine specification languages and their logics of reasoning.The editors and authors are authorities on these specification languages and their application. Dedicated chapters address: the use of ASM (Abstract State Machines) in the classroom; the Event-B modelling method; a methodological guide to CafeOBJ logic; CASL, the Common Algebraic Specification Language; the Duration Calculus; the logic of the RAISE specification language (RSL); the specification language TLA+; the typed logic of partial functions and the Vienna Development Method (VDM); and Z logic and its applications. Each chapter is self-contained, with references, and symbol and concept indexes. Finally, in a unique feature, the book closes with short commentaries on the specification languages written by researchers closely associated with their original development.With extensive references and pointers to future developments, this book will be of interest to researchers and graduate students engaged with formal specification languages.

Model checking is a prominent technique used in the hardware and software industries for automatic verification. While it is very successful in finding subtle bugs in distributed systems, it faces the state explosion problem - the number of reachable states grows exponentially in the number of concurrent components. In this book the authors introduce unfoldings, an approach to model checking which alleviates the state explosion problem by means of concurrency theory. They offer a gentle introduction to the basics of the method, and in particular they detail an unfolding-based algorithm for model checking concurrent systems against properties specified as formulas of linear temporal logic (LTL). Self-contained chapters cover transition systems and their products; unfolding products; search procedures for basic verification problems, such as reachability and livelocks; and model checking LTL. The final chapter summarizes the results of the book, and points the reader to tools and case studies.The book will be of value to researchers and graduate students engaged in automatic verification and concurrency theory.