Informal introduction to petri nets -- Elementary net systems -- Place/transition Petri Nets -- Principles of high-level net theory -- Petri nets in performance analysis: An introduction -- Basic linear algebraic techniques for place/transition nets -- Linear algebraic and linear programming techniques for the analysis of place/transition net systems -- Decidability and complexity of Petri net problems — An introduction -- The state explosion problem -- Theory of regions -- Petri nets and other models of concurrency -- Distributed versions of linear time temporal logic: A trace perspective.

The two-volume set originates from the Advanced Course on Petri Nets held in Dagstuhl, Germany in September 1996; beyond the lectures given there, additional chapters have been commissioned to give a well-balanced presentation of the state of the art in the area. Together with its companion volume "Lectures on Petri Nets II: Applications" this book is the actual reference for the area and addresses professionals, students, lecturers, and researchers who are - interested in systems design and would like to learn to use Petri nets familiar with subareas of the theory or its applications and wish to view the whole area - interested in learning about recent results presented within a unified framework - planning to apply Petri nets in practical situations - interested in the relationship of Petri nets to other models of concurrent systems.