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Decidability and undecidability results for duration calculus. (English) Zbl 0811.68115
Enjalbert, Patrice (ed.) et al., STACS 93. 10th annual symposium on theoretical aspects of computer science, Würzburg, Germany, February 25-27, 1993. Proceedings. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 665, 58-68 (1993).
Duration calculus extends interval temporal logic with assertions about the duration of states, without mention of absolute time. It is used for specification and verification of real-time systems.
This paper identifies decidable and undecidable subsets of duration calculus. We show that for the subset whose only primitive formula is $$\lceil P \rceil$$, which means “$$P$$ holds almost everywhere”, satisfiability is decidable for discrete and dense time. It is still decidable for discrete time when the primitive formula $$\ell = k$$, which means “the interval has length $$k$$”, is allowed, but becomes undecidable for dense time. Adding the integral equation $$\int P = \int Q$$, which means “$$P$$ and $$Q$$ hold for the same duration”, or adding universal quantification $$(\forall x.\dots \ell = x \dots)$$ over durations, makes satisfiability undecidable for discrete as well as dense time.
For the entire collection see [Zbl 0866.00060].
Reviewer: Chaochen Zhou

MSC:
 68T27 Logic in artificial intelligence 03D35 Undecidability and degrees of sets of sentences 68Q05 Models of computation (Turing machines, etc.) (MSC2010) 68Q45 Formal languages and automata
Keywords:
duration calculus; temporal logic