D.M. Dhamdhere, S.R. Iyer and E.K.K. Reddy,
Distributed termination detection of dynamic systems,
Parallel Computing, Vol 22, No 14 (1997), pp 2025-2045.

abstract

A symmetric algorithm for detecting the termination of a distributed computation is presented. The algorithm does not require global information concerning the system and does not assume any communication features barring finite delays in the delivery of messages. %The algorithm does not require acknowledgements to %inter-process messages, and does not assume FIFO channel behaviour. It permits dynamic creation and destruction of processes participating in the computation. It provides for destruction of a process by external processes, such as the OS kernel. It also provides for external processes spontaneously joining an ongoing computation.