A graphical representation of interval logic

There are two typical ways to formalize reasoning over time. The first is in a modal logic where time is characterized implicitly through tense operators. The second addresses time explicitly in a first-order theory, where the reasoning is itself essentially first order. In this paper we shall introduce an amalgamated temporal logic which combines the tense operators of the modal approach with the referential aspects of the first-order approach.The modal operators of the new logic, called IQ-C, include the familiar tense operators plus a few new ones; together they allow complex temporal propositions to be represented in a compact form. Unlike standard modal temporal logics, IQ-C contains terms which refer to times; this allows the logic to characterize certain temporal properties and operators which cannot be axiomatized or defined by conventional modal operators. IQ-C is expressively complete over any connected flow of time, and has several other interesting theoretical properties, some of which will be developed in this paper.Most interval logics take one of two approaches to temporal assertions; either they analyze assertions for intervals in terms of assertions at points, or they treat intervals as primitive, allowing assertions for intervals but not at points. IQ-C allows assertions both for intervals and at points, and treats them as independent; this yields a special degree of semantic discrimination and at the same time simplifies the representation of several temporal properties. In this paper we shall outline the IQ-C framework, specifying its special features and defining its semantics. We shall also extend a method of skolemization, which is designed to support a resolution based approach to the proof theory. This will be sketched in some detail, with a view to providing a preliminary account of the basic proof theory. A complete specification of the deductive theory, together with relevant proofs, will be developed elsewhere.KeywordsIntervalsPointsTemporal Representation and ExpressivenessHomogeneitySkolemizationand Modal Theorem Proving

As an important complex problem, the temporal logic model checking problem is still far from being fully resolved under the circumstance of DNA computing, especially Computation Tree Logic (CTL), Interval Temporal Logic (ITL), and Projection Temporal Logic (PTL), because there is still a lack of approaches for DNA model checking. To address this challenge, a model checking method is proposed for checking the basic formulas in the above three temporal logic types with DNA molecules. First, one-type single-stranded DNA molecules are employed to encode the Finite State Automaton (FSA) model of the given basic formula so that a sticker automaton is obtained. On the other hand, other single-stranded DNA molecules are employed to encode the given system model so that the input strings of the sticker automaton are obtained. Next, a series of biochemical reactions are conducted between the above two types of single-stranded DNA molecules. It can then be decided whether the system satisfies the formula or not. As a result, we have developed a DNA-based approach for checking all the basic formulas of CTL, ITL, and PTL. The simulated results demonstrate the effectiveness of the new method.

17 Automata-theoretic techniques for temporal reasoning

Modern hardware designs are typically based on multiple clocks. While a singly-clocked hardware design is easily described in standard temporal logics, describing a multiply-clocked design is cumbersome. Thus, it is desirable to have an easier way to formulate properties related to clocks in a temporal logic. In [6] a relatively simple solution built on top of the traditional ltl semantics was suggested and adopted by the IEEE standard temporal logic psl. The suggested semantics was examined relative to a list of design goals, and it was shown that it answered all requirements except for preserving the least fixed point characterization of the until operator under multiple clocks. In this work we show that with a minor addition to the semantics of [6] this requirement is met as well.

The paper describes an implementation in the HOL theorem prover of the quantitative Temporal Logic (qTL) of Morgan and McIver [18,4]. qTL is a branching-time temporal logic suitable for reasoning about probabilistic nondeterministic systems. The interaction between probabilities and nondeterminism, which is generally very difficult to reason about, is handled by interpreting the logic over real- rather than boolean-valued functions. In theqTL framework many laws of standard branching-time temporal logic generalize nicely giving access to a number of logical tools for reasoning about quantitative aspects of randomized algorithms.

Interval logic has been introduced as a temporal logic that provides higher-level constructs and an intuitive graphical representation, making it easier in interval logic than in other temporal log...

Interval temporal logics are expressive formalisms for temporal representation and reasoning, which use time intervals as primitive temporal entities. They have been extensively studied for the past two decades and successfully applied in AI and computer science. Unfortunately, they lack the ability of expressing promptness conditions, as it happens with the commonly-used temporal logics, e.g., LTL: whenever we deal with a liveness request, such as “something good eventually happens”, there is no way to impose a bound on the delay with which it is fulfilled. In the last years, such an issue has been addressed in automata theory, game theory, and temporal logic. In this paper, we approach it in the interval temporal logic setting. First, we introduce PROMPT- PNL, a prompt extension of the well-studied interval temporal logic PNL, and we prove the undecidability of its satisfiability problem; then, we show how to recover decidability (NEXPTIME-completeness) by imposing a natural syntactic restriction on it.

Temporal logic has been extensively utilized in academia and industry to formally specify and verify behavioural properties of numerous kinds of hardware and software. We present a novel way to apply temporal logic to the study of a version of itself, namely, propositional linear-time temporal logic (PTL). This involves a hierarchical framework for obtaining standard results for PTL, including a small model property, decision procedures and axiomatic completeness. A large number of the steps involved are expressed in a propositional version of Interval Temporal Logic (ITL) which is referred to as PITL. It is a natural generalization of PTL and includes operators for reasoning about periods of time and sequential composition. Versions of PTL with finite time and infinite time are both considered and one benefit of the framework is the ability to systematically reduce infinite-time reasoning to finite-time reasoning. The treatment of PTL with the operator until and past time naturally reduces to that for PTL without either one. The interval-oriented methodology differs from other analyses of PTL which typically use sets of formulas and sequences of such sets for canonical models. Instead, we represent models as time intervals expressible in PITL. The analysis furthermore relates larger intervals with smaller ones. Being an interval-based formalism, PITL is well suited for sequentially combining and decomposing the relevant formulas. Consequently, we can articulate issues of equal significance in more conventional analyses of PTL but normally only considered at the metalevel. A good example of this is the existence of bounded models with periodic suffixes for PTL formulas which are satisfiable in infinite time. We also describe decision procedures based on binary decision diagrams and exploit some links with finite-state automata. Beyond the specific issues involving PTL, the research is a significant application of ITL and interval-based reasoning and illustrates a general approach to formally reasoning about sequential and parallel behaviour in discrete linear time. The work also includes some interesting representation theorems. In addition, it has relevance to hardware description and verification since the specification languages PSL/Sugar (IEEE Standard 1850) and ‘temporal e’ (part of IEEE Standard 1647) both contain temporal constructs concerning intervals of time as does the related SystemVerilog Assertion language contained in SystemVerilog (IEEE Standard 1800), an extension of the IEEE 1364–2001 Verilog language.

In an earlier paper by the author, Åqvist (1999), I presented an approach to the logic of historical necessity, or inevitability, in the sense of a “two‐dimensional” combination of tense and modal logic for worlds, or histories, with the same time order, known as T × W logic. Distinctive features of that approach were, apart from its two‐dimensionality, its being based on discrete and finite time, and its use of so‐called systematic frame constants in order to enable us to indicate longitudes (x‐values) and latitudes (y‐values) of any points in the co‐ordinate systems under consideration. This led us to study and axiomatize an infinite hierarchy HTWxy of two‐dimensional modal tense logics with the characteristic operators for historical necessity and possibility added to the original basic vocabulary. The main purpose of the present paper is then twofold: (A) to extend the logics HTWxy to the interesting branch of philosophical logic constituted by deontic logic as combined with tense (or temporal) logic; and (B) to deal with a curious puzzle known as the so‐called epistemic obligation paradox – a well known stumbling‐block in this area of research in philosophical logic. We argue for a solution to both these problems, which appeals to a new infinite hierarchy DHTWxym of extensions of the HTWxy in the sense of logics combining dyadic deontic modalities with temporal ones such as those for historical necessity and other two‐dimensional modalities.

Temporal logic model checking is a useful method for verifying properties of finite-state concurrent systems. However, due to the state explosion problem modular methods like compositional minimisation based on semantic congruences are essential in making the verification task manageable. In this paper we show that the so-called CFFD-equivalence defined by initial stability, infinite traces, divergence traces and stable failures is exactly the weakest compositional equivalence preserving nexttimeless linear temporal logic with an extra operator distinguishing deadlocks from divergences. Furthermore, a slight modification of CFFD, called the NDFD-equivalence, is exactly the weakest compositional equivalence preserving standard nexttimeless linear temporal logic.

Summary form only given. We briefly present a rule-based framework, called EAGLE, shown to be capable of defining and implementing finite trace monitoring logics, including future and past time temporal logic, extended regular expressions, real-time and metric temporal logics (MTL), interval logics, forms of quantified temporal logics, and so on. In this paper we focus on a linear temporal logic (LTL) specialisation of EAGLE. For an initial formula of size m, we establish upper bounds of O(m/sup 2/2/sup m/logm) and O(m/sup 4/2/sup 2m/log/sup 2/m) for the space and time complexity, respectively, of single step evaluation over an input trace. EAGLE has been successfully used, in both LTL and metric LTL forms, to test a real-time controller of an experimental NASA planetary rover.

Hybrid systems are heterogenous dynamical systems characterized by interacting continuous and discrete dynamics. Interval Temporal Logic (ITL) is a temporal logic which includes a basic construct for the sequential composition of two formulas as well as an analog of Kleene star. In this paper, Interval Temporal Logic is applied to represent the hybrid systems. This method is demonstrated by an example in water industry systems.

Failures are unavoidable in many circumstances. For example, an agent may fail at some point to perform a task in a dynamic environment. Robust systems typically have mechanisms to handle such failures. Temporal logic is a widely used representation language for reasoning about the behaviour of systems, although dealing with failures is not part of the language. In this paper, it is investigated how interval temporal logic can be extended with an operator describing failure. This logic has a close relationship to exception handling mechanisms in programming languages, which provides an elegant mechanism for modelling and handling failures. The approach is motivated from the context of specification of systems that have to operate in highly dynamic environments. A case study of the formal modelling and verification of the treatment of diabetes mellitus type 2 illustrates the practical usefulness of the approach.

In the last years, the model checking (MC) problem for interval temporal logic (ITL) has received an increasing attention as a viable alternative to the traditional (point-based) temporal logic MC, which can be recovered as a special case. Most results have been obtained by imposing suitable restrictions on interval labeling. In this paper, we overcome such limitations by using regular expressions to define the behavior of proposition letters over intervals in terms of the component states. We first prove that MC for Halpern and Shoham’s ITL (HS), extended with regular expressions, is decidable. Then, we show that formulas of a large class of HS fragments, namely, all fragments featuring (a subset of) HS modalities for Allen’s relations meets, met-by, starts, and started-by, can be model checked in polynomial working space (MC for all these fragments turns out to be PSPACE-complete).

This paper introduces a tableau method for propositional interval temporal logic (ITL) [14]. Beyond the usual operators of linear temporal logic, ITL contains sequencing and iterative operators, ‘;’ and proj akin to programming combinators. Central to our approach is a normal form for the formulas of ITL, particularly ‘;’ and proj, in terms of the ‘◯’ operator of the logic.