Time and exceptional behavior in multiparty structured interactions

Abstract

The Conversation Calculus (CC) is a model of multiparty interactions which extends the π-calculus with the notion of conversation-a possibly distributed medium in which participants may communicate. Here we study the interplay of time and exceptional behavior for models of structured communications based on conversations. We propose C3, a timed variant of the CC in which conversations feature both standard and exceptional behavior. The exceptional behavior may be triggered either by the passing of time (a timeout) or by an explicit signal for conversation abortion. By presenting a compelling example from a healthcare scenario, we argue that the combination of time and exceptional behavior leads to more meaningful models of structured communications. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.