On specification of Read/Write shared variables

Haldar, S.; Vidyasankar, K.

doi:10.1145/1314690.1314695

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…From the perspective of "pure theory," there has been initial work to classify shared read/write variables [33], much as Steinke and Nutt classified known memory consistency systems. It would be useful to explore further the weak consistency, like GWO, offered by registers that simulate the binding of selfassembling agents, whether in DNA or another medium.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory Consistency Conditions for Self-Assembly Programming

Sterling

2009

Preprint

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Perhaps the two most significant theoretical questions about the programming of selfassembling agents are: (1) necessary and sufficient conditions to produce a unique terminal assembly, and (2) error correction. We address both questions, by reducing two well-studied models of tile assembly to models of distributed shared memory (DSM), in order to obtain results from the memory consistency systems induced by tile assembly systems when simulated in the DSM setting. The Abstract Tile Assembly Model (aTAM) can be simulated by a DSM system that obeys causal consistency, and the locally deterministic tile assembly systems in the aTAM correspond exactly to the concurrent-write free programs that simulate tile assembly in such a model. Thus, the detection of the failure of local determinism (which had formerly been an open problem) reduces to the detection of data races in simulating programs. Further, the Kinetic Tile Assembly Model can be simulated by a DSM system that obeys GWO, a memory consistency condition defined by Steinke and Nutt. (To our knowledge, this is the first natural example of a DSM system that obeys GWO, but no stronger consistency condition.) We combine these results with the observation that self-assembly algorithms are local algorithms, and there exists a fast conversion of deterministic local algorithms into deterministic self-stabilizing algorithms. This provides an "immediate" generalization of a theorem by Soloveichik et al. about the existence of tile assembly systems that simultaneously perform two forms of self-stabilization: proofreading and selfhealing. Our reductions and proof techniques can be extended to the programming of self-assembling agents in a variety of media, not just DNA tiles, and not just two-dimensional surfaces.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory Consistency Conditions for Self-Assembly Programming

Sterling

2009

Preprint

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“…Comprehensive reviews of shared memory consistency models can be found in [26], [10], [7]. Among the consistency models, sequential consistency is most simple and intuitive model that naturally extends the memory behavior of uniprocessor system to multiprocessors systems.…”

Section: System Model and Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Yet Another Simple Solution for the Concurrent Programming Control Problem

Aravind

2011

IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst.

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As multicore processors are becoming increasingly common everywhere, the future computing systems and devices are becoming inevitably concurrent. Also, on the applications side, automation is steadily infiltrating into everyday life, and hence, most software systems are becoming increasingly complex and concurrent. As a result, recent developments and projections indicate that we are entering into the era of concurrent programming. Synchronizing asynchronous concurrent processes in accessing a shared resource is an important issue. Among the synchronization issues, mutual exclusion is fundamental. Solutions to most higher level synchronization problems rely on the assurance of mutual exclusion. Several algorithms with varying characteristics are proposed in the literature to solve the mutual exclusion problem. This paper presents two new algorithms to solve the mutual exclusion problem. The algorithms are simple and have many nice properties.

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“…Basically, a consistency criterion defines which value has to be returned when a read operation on a shared object is invoked by a process [11], [14], [18]. The strongest (i.e., most constraining) consistency criterion is atomic consistency [20], also called linearizability [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Methodological Construction of an Efficient Sequentially Consistent Distributed Shared Memory

Cholvi

Fernández

Jiménez

et al. 2009

The Computer Journal

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The paper proposes a simple protocol that ensures sequential consistency. The protocol assumes that the shared memory abstraction is supported by the local memories of nodes, that can communicate only by exchanging messages through reliable channels. Unlike other sequential consistency protocols, the one proposed here does not rely on a strong synchronization mechanism, such as an atomic broadcast primitive or a central node managing a copy of every shared object. From a methodological point of view, the protocol is built incrementally starting from the very definition of sequential consistency. It has the noteworthy property that a process that issues a write operation never has to wait for other processes. Depending on the current local state, most read operations issued also have the same property.Keywords: Distributed Systems, Distributed Shared Memory, Sequential Consistency. I. INTRODUCTIONThe definition of a consistency criterion is crucial for the correctness of a multiprocess program [10], [23]. Basically, a consistency criterion defines which value has to be returned when a read operation on a shared object is invoked by a process [11], [14], [18]. The strongest (i.e., most constraining) consistency criterion is atomic consistency [20], also called linearizability [13]. It states that a read returns the value written by the latest preceding write, "latest" referring to real-time occurrence order (concurrent writes being totally ordered). Causal consistency [3], [5] is a weaker criterion, stating that a read does not get an overwritten value. Causal consistency allows concurrent writes; consequently, it is possible that concurrent read operations on the same object get different values. This occurs when those values have been produced by concurrent writes. Other consistency criteria weaker than causal consistency have also been proposed [1], [27]. This paper focuses on sequential consistency [16]. This criterion lies between atomic consistency and causal consistency. Informally, it states that a multiprocess program executes correctly if its results could have been produced by executing that program on a single processor system. This means that an execution is correct if we can totally order its operations in such a way that 1) The order of operations in each process is preserved, and 2) Each read operation obtains the latest previously written value, "latest" referring here to the total order. The difference between atomic consistency and sequential consistency lies in the meaning of the word "latest". This word refers to real-time when we consider atomic consistency, while it refers to a logical time notion when we consider sequential consistency. Namely, the logical time defined by the total order.

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On specification of Read/Write shared variables

Cited by 4 publications

References 27 publications

Memory Consistency Conditions for Self-Assembly Programming

Memory Consistency Conditions for Self-Assembly Programming

Yet Another Simple Solution for the Concurrent Programming Control Problem

A Methodological Construction of an Efficient Sequentially Consistent Distributed Shared Memory

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