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Summary: A Generalized Kahn Principle for Abstract Asynchronous
Networks
Samson Abramsky
Department of Computing
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
180 Queen's Gate
London SW7 2BZ
England
Published in the Proceedings of the Symposium on
Mathematical Foundations of Programming Language Semantics,
Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science 442, pp. 1{21
November 3, 1989
Abstract
Our general motivation is to answer the question: \What is a model of concurrent compu-
tation?". As a preliminary exercise, we study data
ow networks. We develop a very general
notion of model for asynchronous networks. The \Kahn Principle", which states that a net-
work built from functional nodes is the least xpoint of a system of equations associated
with the network, has become a benchmark for the formal study of data
ow networks. We
formulate a generalized version of the Kahn Principle, which applies to a large class of non-
deterministic systems, in the setting of abstract asynchronous networks; and prove that the
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