On branching and looping, part II

AbstractIn Part I of this paper a theoretical framework has been developed for studying certain aspects of branching and looping in discrete processes. The present paper uses the formalism from Part I, based on the concept of finite branching automaton, to a detailed analysis of looping. In particular, two types of loops are distinguished in branching automata (the idle and the productive loops) and their occurrence is related to certain properties of families of languages associated with these automata