Howard Bowman

Rodolfo Gomez

Intheworldweliveinconcurrencyisthenorm.Forexample,thehumanbody isamassivelyconcurrentsystem,comprisingahugenumberofcells,allsim- taneously evolving and independently engaging in their individual biological processing.Inaddition,inthebiologicalworld,trulysequentialsystemsrarely arise. However, they are more common when manmade artefacts are cons- ered. In particular, computer systems are often developed from a sequential perspective. Why is this? The simple reason is that it is easier for us to think about sequential, rather than concurrent, systems. Thus, we use sequentiality as a device to simplify the design process. However, the need for increasingly powerful, ?exible and usable computer systems mitigates against simplifying sequentiality assumptions. A good - ample of this is the all-powerful position held by the Internet, which is highly concurrent at many di?erent levels of decomposition. Thus, the modern c- puter scientist (and indeed the modern scientist in general) is forced to think aboutconcurrentsystemsandthesubtleandintricatebehaviourthatemerges from the interaction of simultaneously evolving components. Over a period of 25 years, or so, the ?eld of concurrency theory has been involved in the development of a set of mathematical techniques that can help system developers to think about and build concurrent systems. These theories are the subject matter of this book.

Calculi an Automata for Modelling Untimed and Timed Concurrent Systems

Concurrency Theory

John Derrick

This book presents the leading edge in several related fields, specifically object orientated programming, open distributed systems and formal methods for object oriented systems. With increased support within industry regarding these areas, this book captures the most up-to-date information on the subject. Many topics are discussed, including the following important areas: object oriented design and programming; formal specification of distributed systems; open distributed platforms; types, interfaces and behaviour; formalisation of object oriented methods.

Howard Bowman

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