Towards a theory of networked computation

Towards a Theory of Networked Computation

The emergence of large networks like the Web and the Internet is one of the most profound shifts in focus in computer science since its inception. During the last 50 years, computer science has focused primarily on understanding how best to design, build, analyze, and program a computer. The emergence of the Internet and the Web represents a radical shift of focus in our thinking about computat...

Towards a Theory of Actor Computation

In this paper we present preliminary results of a rigorous development of the actor model of computation. We present an actor language which is an extension of a simple functional language, and provide a precise operational semantics for this extension. Our actor systems are open distributed systems, meaning we explicitly take into account the interface with external components in the speciicat...

Towards a Mechanically Checked Theory of Computation : A Progress

Formal mathematical logic is ideally suited to describing computational processes. We discuss the use of a mechanized mathematical logic, namely ACL2 (A Computational Logic for Applicative Common Lisp) to model computational problems and to prove theorems about such models. 1 Prelude In 1961, John McCarthy rst presented the seminal paper \A Basis for a Mathematical Theory of Computa-tion" 23]. ...

Reactive Networked Computation

Networked systems are built from communicating components that are reactive. For example, a server is a continuously running daemon that responds to client requests online [9]. As another example, a TCP source adaptively and dynamically regulates its sending rate depending on the realtime stream of acknowledgment packets [8]. Major objectives of reactive distributed systems are, among others, i...

Towards a Theory of Local and Global in Computation