Coloured Petri nets: basic concepts, analysis methods and practical use, vol. 3.
Springer-Verlag, London, UK, 1997, 265 pp., ISBN 3-540-62867-3. [Monographs in theoretical computer science an EATCS series.]
This book completes the series of three volumes on Coloured Petri nets (CP-nets). The first volume presents the CPN model;
the second volume describes analysis methods; this volume presents several examples, that illustrate the use of the theory
in different applicative environments. This volume requires familiarity with CP-nets. I strongly recommend a careful study
of the first volume before reading this one. Familiarity with the second volume can help, but I do not think that it is
required to understand this volume. Some familiarity with the second volume is needed only to understand the details of
analysis based on occurrence graphs, that is given only for few of the case studies of the book.
This volume presents nineteen case studies taken from different applicative environments. Most of the material described in this book has been previously published, but the book is not a simple collection of papers. Each case study is described using the same notation and the same presentation style. Unlike most collections of case studies, that force the readers to adapt to several annoying variation of the same model and to different styles of presentations, in this volume all case studies refer to the CPN syntax described in volume one and are presented with the same style. Readers slide smoothly through the book and can easily compare results and solutions.
The presentation of each case study is articulated in four main sections: informal presentation, CPN model, validation, conclusions. The informal presentation of the problem frames the example and provides references to related publications. Readers can understand the problem before studying the CPN model. The presentation of the CPN model shows the general structure of the CPN model and gives the details of few interesting components, leaving out unnecessary details. Validation mostly illustrates results of simulation. In some cases the book presents also the occurrence graph. In few cases validation is based on other techniques tailored to the specific application. For some cases, validation is not specifically discussed. Presentation of implementation issues is limited to the first example. Conclusions provide interesting comments and data on the case studies. In several cases, the book gives many interesting details, too often ignored in similar books. Many practitioners and theoreticians may find particularly interesting the notes about the effort required for training, modeling, analysis, implementation.
The presented examples range from control systems, such as the Security System presented in Chapter one, the Electronic Funds Transfer System described in Chapter fourteen, and the Chemical Production System described in Chapter eighteen; to network and protocols, such as the Usage Parameter Control Algorithm for ATM Networks presented in Chapter two the BeoLink Protocol of Bang and Olufsen presented in Chapter three, the ISDN Supplementary Services described in Chapter six, the Intelligent Network described in Chapter seven, the Gateway between a Tactical Packet Radio Network and an ISDN network described in Chapter eight, the Basic Rate Interface protocol for ISDN networks described in Chapter nine, and the network management system described in Chapter sixteen; data processing, such as the On-Line Transaction Processing Applications described in Chapter four and the Document Storage System described in Chapter twelve; hardware design, such as the VLSI chip described in Chapter ten and the Arbiter Cascade described in chapter eleven; algorithm verification, such as the mutual exclusion problem described in Chapter five; system modeling, such as the Distributed Program Execution Protocol described in Chapter thirteen, the Bank Courier Network Described in Chapter fifteen, the Naval Vessel described in Chapter seventeen, and the Nuclear Waste Management Programme described in Chapter nineteen.
This book is a natural completion of the Jensen's mini series on CPN. It is for theoreticians looking after applicability of the theory, and for practitioners interested in understanding how theory impact on applications. It benefits form the excellent presentation style of Kurt Jensen, and, from a good typographical presentation, as all the books of the Springer Verlag EATCS series. It is not designed as a textbook, but it can be suggested as a completion of the former two books on CPNs.This page contains the final versions of the papers that have been accepted for presentation at CPN Workshop, June 10-12, Aarhus Denmark. Some of the best papers from the workshop has (after an additional round of reviewing and revision) been published in a Special Section on Coloured Petri Nets in the International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT).
- M. Pezzé, Milan, Italy
GENERAL TERMS: THEORY, VERIFICATION