Papers on bigraphs

Here are the slides for a lecture course on bigraphs. I gave it first in April 2005 at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

I have written the following papers on bigraphs, sometimes with co-authors. The most recent are first.

Pure bigraphs: structure and dynamics

Submitted for publication 2005. This is a revision of TR614.

Pure bigraphs

Technical Report TR614, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 2005.
This report presents pure bigraphs alone (i.e. without binding), showing a simple version of the theory that combines placing and linking non-trivially. As an illustration, it shows that bigraphical theory exactly recovers the strong bisimilarity of finite CCS.
Errata are listed here.

Bigraphs whose names have multiple locality

Technical Report TR603, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 2004.
A smooth generalisation of the binding bigraphs introduced in TR580; I hope it will ease the presentation of some dynamical systems (such as the lambda calculus) within this wider framework.

Transitions, link graphs and Petri nets with James J. Leifer

Technical Report TR598, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 2004. Submitted for publication.
The theory of s-categories, on which the bigraph model is based, is extracted from Jamey Leifer's PhD Dissertation and from TR580. It is applied to the simpler setting of link graphs -- essentially bigraphs without nested locations. Petri nets are used as illustration; a behavioural congruence is given for condition-event nets.

Axioms for bigraphical structure

Mathematical Structures in Computer Science 2005 (to appear).
A revised version of the complete axiomatisation reported in TR581. Slight corrections are made and fuller explanations given, thanks to referees' comments.

Axioms for bigraphical structure

Technical Report TR581, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 2004.
A complete axiomatisation for the static structure of bigraphs (i.e. their structural congruence).

Bigraphs and mobile processes (revised) with Ole Hogh Jensen

Technical Report TR580, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, 2004.
A thorough presentation (with index) of the main ideas and details of the bigraphical model. Bigraphs are a topographical model of distributed agents that can manipulate their own linkages and (nested) locations.
Bigraphs aim to model both man-made and natural systems, and draw inspiration from the pi calculus and the calculus of mobile ambients. The main technical advance is to generalise the behavioural theory of both these calculi. The report develops the underlying theory of supported monoidal precategories (later called s-categories), then presents bigraphs in terms of their constituent place graphs and link graphs. It derives the theory of binding bigraphs far enough to apply the whole theory to the finite asynchronous pi calculus, whose behavioural theory it recovers.
A list of errata appears here.
Parts of the theory are covered separately in later papers, which also correct the errata.