Generating Posets Beyond N

Abstract

We introduce iposets---posets with interfaces---equipped with a novel gluing composition along interfaces and the standard parallel composition. We study their basic algebraic properties as well as the hierarchy of gluing-parallel posets generated from singletons by finitary applications of the two compositions. We show that not only series-parallel posets, but also interval orders, which seem more interesting for modelling concurrent and distributed systems, can be generated, but not all posets. Generating posets is also important for constructing free algebras for concurrent semirings and Kleene algebras that allow compositional reasoning about such systems.