Graph abstraction and abstract graph transformations (Amended version)

Many important systems such as concurrent heap-manipulating programs, communication networks, or distributed algorithms, are hard to verify due to their inherent dynamics and unboundedness. Graphs are an intuitive representation for the states of these systems, where transitions can be conveniently described by graph transformation rules. We present a framework for the abstraction of graphs supporting abstract graph transformation. The abstraction method naturally generalises previous approaches to abstract graph transformation. The set of possible abstract graphs is finite. This has the pleasant consequence of generating a finite transition system for any start graph and any finite set of transformation rules. Moreover, abstraction preserves a simple logic for expressing properties on graph nodes. The precision of the abstraction can be adjusted according to the properties expressed in this logic that are to be verified.

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