Net theory is a theory of systems organization which had its origins, about 20 years ago, in the dissertation of C. A. Petri [1]. Since this seminal paper, nets have been applied in various areas, at the same time being modified and theoretically investigated. In recent time, computer scientists are taking a broader interest in net theory. The main concern of this book is the presentation of those parts of net theory which can serve as a basis for practical application. It introduces the basic net theoretical concepts and ways of thinking, motivates them by means of examples and derives relations between them. Some extended examples il lustrate the method of application of nets. A major emphasis is devoted to those aspect which distinguish nets from other system models. These are for instance, the role of concurrency, an awareness of the finiteness of resources, and the pos sibility of using the same representation technique of different levels of ab straction. On completing this book the reader should have achieved a system atic grounding in the subject allowing him access to the net literature [25]. These objectives determined the subjects treated here. The presentation of the material here is rather more axiomatic than in ductive. We start with the basic notions of 'condition' and 'event' and the con cept of the change of states by (concurrently) occurring events. By generali zation of these notions a part of the theory of nets is presented.

Autorentext
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Reisig is a professor at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany. He has over 30 years experience in the theory, applications, and teaching of Petri nets and related techniques; and he has been closely involved in the key community initiatives such as related conferences. Among his books are titles in the areas of Petri nets, distributed algorithmsm, and computational systems biology.

Inhalt

1. Introductory Examples and Basic Definitions.- 1.1 Examples from Different Areas.- 1.2 Examples from Logic Circuits and Operating Systems.- 1.3 Non-Sequential Programs.- 1.4 An Example for Systems Analysis.- 1.5 Some Basic Definitions.- 1.6 Summary and Overview.- Exercises for Chapter 1.- 1. Condition/Event-Systems.- 2. Nets Consisting of Conditions and Events.- 3. Processes of Condition/Event-Systems.- 4. Properties of Systems.- 2. Place/Transition-Nets.- 5. Nets Consisting of Places and Transitions.- 6. Net Invariants.- 7. Liveness Criteria for Special Classes of Nets.- 3. Nets with Individual Tokens.- 8. Predicate/Event-Nets.- 9. Relation Nets.- Appendix. Mathematical Notions and Notation.- I. Sets.- II. Relations.- III. Mappings, Functions.- IV. Partial Orders.- VII. Vectors and Matrices.- Further Reading.- 1. Some Landmarks in the Development of Net Theory.- 2. Conferences on Petri Nets.- 3. Text Books.- 4. Bibliographies.- 5. References to Chapter 2.- 6. References to Chapter 3.- 7. References to Chapter 4.- 8. References to Chapter 5.- 9. References to Chapter 6.- 10. References to Chapter 7.- 11. References to Chapter 8.- 12. References to Chapter 9.- 13. Modifications and Generalizations of Place/Transition-Nets.- 14. Applications.- 15. Implementation and Automatic Analysis of Nets.- 16. Related System Models.