Discrete Event Systems: Models and Applications

Research in discrete systems is expanding rapidly, and specialized languages are proliferating. This book is a remarkable attempt to bring together researchers from a diverse range of application areas. This is the proceeding of a workshop on Discrete Event Systems Models. The 30 participants included researchers working in communication networks, manufacturing, digital signal processing, Markov decision theory, and automatic control. The purpose of the workshop was to establish the common features of the mathematical models, techniques and goals pursued in these diverse areas. The papers demonstrate that there is a large common core underlying these efforts, that researchers in one area can benefit from advances in other areas of discrete systems, and that it is not difficult to translate results expressed in one discrete event formation into another. The papers cover formal description methods, logical verification, simulation, performance evaluation, and optimization. Techniques covered include finite state machines, Petri nets, communicating sequential processes, queuing analysis, and perturbation analysis.