A refinement of Kahn's semantics to handle non-determinism and communication (Extended Abstract)

Systems of processes connected together by communication channels are studied semantically. A model for such systems, based on traces of communication events, is described. This semantic model is more general than the stream function model described by Kahn, in that it permits processes to have a nondeterministic behaviour. The relationship between these two semantics is discussed. It is shown that the merge anomaly of Brock and Ackermann does not arise in the trace semantics.