In: ISCIS XI: Eleventh International Symposium on Computer and Information Science, Nov, 1996, pages 7-16. 1996.
Abstract: This paper presents an equivalence relation and a set of transformation rules on a class of high level Petri nets, called M-nets, which are designed as a compact high level representation of Boxes, equivalence classes of labelled Petri nets. Like most other high level models, the M-net model allows vertical unfolding, but it is also provided with a set of operators for horizontal compositionwhich satisfy some algebraic properties. It was an open problem which equivalence relation on M-nets corresponds to the equivalence relation which defines Boxes. Therefore, at first a subclass of M-nets, called simple M-nets, is defined to represent Boxes in the M-net model which are used as the domain for the unfolding of general M-nets. An equivalence relation based on the net structure is then defined which identifies all M-nets whose simple nets are equivalent in the sense of Boxes. A set of transformations is defined, which preserve the defined equivalence and are complete with respect to it in the finite case. Thus the here defined equivalence relation on M-nets relates all those M-nets whose unfoldings represent the same Box. This `mirrors' the equivalence relation of Boxes into the M-net-model.