Compositional refinements in multiple blackboard systems (Q1899098)

We introduce CONESP, a concurrent system built according to the SMoLCS methodology to provide an abstract model of the coordination language Extended Shared Prolog (ESP), which is based on the integration of the blackboard paradigm with Logic Programming. CONESP is hierarchy of blackboard systems, each consisting of a passive blackboard tree and a collection of active components including parallel agents and dynamic (sub)systems. An implementation relationship between two hierarchies is defined, which is shown to be compositional. Some techniques have also been developed for the direct proof, i.e. the basic step in the inductive proof that one system implements another. ESP is being used in the Oikos environment for software process modelling. The results of this paper are the basis for the formal verification of the correctness of the software process models built by stepwise-refinements in Oikos.