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From: gdheinze@faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Gerhard Heinzel )
Newsgroups: comp.parallel,comp.object
Subject: data flow concepts in distributed systems
Message-ID: <11839@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 14:12:37 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.clemson.edu
Organization: CSD, University of Erlangen, W-Germany
Lines: 26
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

My master thesis in Computer Science is concerned with the application
of data flow modells to the communication in distributed systems.
In order to characterize the various existing approaches, I use a basic
modell of communication which looks like this:
  - communicating structures consist of a graph where edges can connect two
    or more vertices
  - vertices can have (possibly several) potential behaviors (roles)
  - a potential behavior defines the way vertices are to react to the
    arrival of messages
  - messages travel along the edges
  - edges have defined semantics
I am interested in identifying the dimensions of the design space
for this problem. Especially interesting seem to be problems of 
changing structures dynamically, describing structures in a declarative
way, reusing structures and defining structures that not only carry data
but perform functions on them (like building local sums).

Since the first phase of this work will be a survey of existing ideas,
I would like you to supply references related to this topic. Please use
email rather than posting. If there is interest in the results, I will
summarize and make a copy ftp-able.

Thank you in advance

Gerhard
gdheinze@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de