An integrated first-order theory of points and intervals : expressive power in the class of all linear orders

There are two natural and well-studied approaches to temporal ontology and reasoning, that is, pointbased and interval-based. Usually, interval-based temporal reasoning deals with points as a particular case of duration-less intervals. Recently, a two-sorted point-interval temporal logic in a modal framework in which time instants (points) and time periods (intervals) are considered on a par has been presented. We consider here two-sorted first-order languages, interpreted in the class of all linear orders, based on the same principle, with relations between points, between intervals, and intersort. First, for those languages containing only interval-interval, and only inter-sort relations we give complete classifications of their sub-fragments in terms of relative expressive power, determining how many, and which, are the different two-sorted first-order languages with one or more such relations. Then, we consider the full two-sorted first-order logic with all the above mentioned relations, restricting ourselves to identify all expressively complete fragments and all maximal expressively incomplete fragments, and posing the basis for a forthcoming complete classification

Decidability of the interval temporal logic ABBar over the natural numbers

In this paper, we focus our attention on the interval temporal logic of the Allen's relations "meets", "begins", and "begun by" (ABBar for short), interpreted over natural numbers. We first introduce the logic and we show that it is expressive enough to model distinctive interval properties,such as accomplishment conditions, to capture basic modalities of point-based temporal logic, such as the until operator, and to encode relevant metric constraints. Then, we prove that the satisfiability problem for ABBar over natural numbers is decidable by providing a small model theorem based on an original contraction method. Finally, we prove the EXPSPACE-completeness of the proble

Complexity of ITL model checking: some well-behaved fragments of the interval logic HS

Model checking has been successfully used in many computer science fields, including artificial intelligence, theoretical computer science, and databases. Most of the proposed solutions make use of classical, point-based temporal logics, while little work has been done in the interval temporal logic setting. Recently, a non-elementary model checking algorithm for Halpern and Shoham's modal logic of time intervals HS over finite Kripke structures (under the homogeneity assumption) and an EXPSPACE model checking procedure for two meaningful fragments of it have been proposed. In this paper, we show that more efficient model checking procedures can be developed for some expressive enough fragments of HS

Approximate Model Checking of Real-Time Systems for Linear Duration Invariants

Real-time systems are usually modelled with timed automata and real-time requirements relating to the state durations of the system are often specifiable using Linear Duration Invariants, which is a decidable subclass of Duration Calculus formulas. Various algorithms have been developed to check timed automata or real-time automata for linear duration invariants, but each needs complicated preprocessing and exponential calculation. To the best of our knowledge, these algorithms have not been implemented. In this paper, we present an approximate model checking technique based on a genetic algorithm to check real-time automata for linear durration invariants in reasonable times. Genetic algorithm is a good optimization method when a problem needs massive computation and it works particularly well in our case because the fitness function which is derived from the linear duration invariant is linear. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): D.2.4, C.3