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Abstract State Machines (ASMs) have been successfully applied for modeling critical and complex systems in a wide range of application domains. However, unlike other well-known formalisms, e.g. Petri nets, ASMs lack inherent, domain-independent characterisations of computationally important properties. Here, we provide an ASM-based characterisation of thestarvation-freeproperty. The classic, informal notion of starvation, usually provided in literature, is analysed and expressed as a necessary condition in terms of ASMs. Thus, we enrich the ASM framework with the notion ofvulnerable ruleas a practical tool for analysing starvation issues in anoperationalfashion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]