Game Interpretation of the Deadlock Avoidance Problem The deadlock avoidance problem may be defined informally as the determination, from some a priori information about the processes, resources, operating system, etc., of the "safe situations" which may be realized without endangering the smooth running of the system. When each process specifies its future needs by a flowchart of need-defined steps, a global approach to the phenomenon and its in terpretation as a game between the operating system and the processes allows formalization of risk and safety concepts. The bipartite graph representation of this game may then be used to construct explicitly the set of safe states and to study their properties. CACM October, 1977 Devillers, R. operating system, multiprogramming, time-sharing, resource allocation, deadlock, in terlock, deadly embrace, deadlock avoidance, flowchart 4.30 4.32 CA771006 JB December 27, 1977 10:50 AM 2228 4 2920 2280 4 2920 2379 4 2920 2482 4 2920 2740 4 2920 2851 4 2920 2920 4 2920 1877 5 2920 2920 5 2920 2920 5 2920 2920 5 2920