Abstract
How should time be represented in models for inter-process communication? The global-time axiom implies that all events can be represented by intervals on one time-axis. Its use simplifies the analysis of protocols and allows for intuitive proofs of their properties. On the other hand,some researchers believe it is too strong an assumption which should be avoided. In order to suggest an answer to this question we study the notion of a system-execution introduced by Lamport. We develop a practical tool which enables the investigation of protocols and allows for intuitive proofs of their properties. We apply our approach to prove that in many cases the global time axiom can be safely used. The main mathematical tool we employ is the theory of interval partial orders and we prove some new results along a line that goes back to the work of Russell and Wiener.
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References
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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Abraham, U., Ben-David, S., Magidor, M. (1990). On Global-Time and Inter-process Communication. In: Semantics for Concurrency. Workshops in Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3860-0_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3860-0_19
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19625-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3860-0
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