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Reducing expressions in CP

Reducing expressions in CP

Background

CP is a process calculus presented by Philip Wadler in his paper "Propositions as sessions" (https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2364568), as an attempt to bridge π-calculus with Linear logic.

Process calculus (like CP) provides a mean of modelling and describing the interactions and communications between a bunch of independent processes. The interaction between these processes are often described with some reduction rules.

To better illustrate this, say, we have 3 process, P, Q and R. They are parallelly composed with the binary operator |:

(P | Q) | R

Since | is associative and commutative, the order or the sequence of composition doesn't matter. We can omit the parentheses, and place them however we like. What we have is basically a soup of processes:

P | Q | R

Moreover, these processes may react with each other. Suppose there's a reduction rule like this:

P | Q => P' | Q'

After applying the rule (along with some other structural rules), the soup would become like this:

P | Q | R => P' | Q' | R

This is basically how processes interacts with each other. However, things are a bit more tricky in CP.

Parallel composition in CP

The parallel composition | in CP is different, in that the operator is now indexed with some channels.

P <=x=> Q

Moreover, the processes also specify which channel they are communicating with.

[x]P <=x=> [x]Q

In order for the interaction to take place, both the processes and the composition operator must all have matching channels (in this example, x).

An because structural properties like associativity and commutativity are also different. We can't think of them as a soup of processes anymore, but a tree of processes.

It's also not so obvious how reductions may take place anymore, because the processes are now in a tree. The matching process (of which the reduction will happen) may be placed at different subtrees. Keeping them from interacting with each other:

[x]P <=x=> ( [x]Q <=y=> [y]R )

To put the matching processes in the same subtree, we must rotate the tree (by applying some structural rules):

[x]P <=x=> ( [x]Q <=y=> [y]R )
  => ( [x]P <=x=> [x]Q ) <=y=> [y]R

Sequence of tree rotations

to be continued

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