Proof theory for exception handling

in a tasking environmen

Partially Ordered Two-way B\"uchi Automata

We introduce partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata and characterize their expressive power in terms of fragments of first-order logic FO[<]. Partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata are B\"uchi automata which can change the direction in which the input is processed with the constraint that whenever a state is left, it is never re-entered again. Nondeterministic partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata coincide with the first-order fragment Sigma2. Our main contribution is that deterministic partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata are expressively complete for the first-order fragment Delta2. As an intermediate step, we show that deterministic partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata are effectively closed under Boolean operations. A small model property yields coNP-completeness of the emptiness problem and the inclusion problem for deterministic partially ordered two-way B\"uchi automata.Comment: The results of this paper were presented at CIAA 2010; University of Stuttgart, Computer Scienc

An Algebraic Decision Procedure for Two-Variable Logic with a Between Relation

In earlier work (LICS 2016), the authors introduced two-variable first-order logic supplemented by a binary relation that allows one to say that a letter appears between two positions. We found an effective algebraic criterion that is a necessary condition for definability in this logic, and conjectured that the criterion is also sufficient, although we proved this only in the case of two-letter alphabets. Here we prove the general conjecture. The proof is quite different from the arguments in the earlier work, and required the development of novel techniques concerning factorizations of words. We extend the results to binary relations specifying that a factor appears between two positions

Concurrent Kleene Algebra: Free Model and Completeness

Concurrent Kleene Algebra (CKA) was introduced by Hoare, Moeller, Struth and Wehrman in 2009 as a framework to reason about concurrent programs. We prove that the axioms for CKA with bounded parallelism are complete for the semantics proposed in the original paper; consequently, these semantics are the free model for this fragment. This result settles a conjecture of Hoare and collaborators. Moreover, the techniques developed along the way are reusable; in particular, they allow us to establish pomset automata as an operational model for CKA.Comment: Version 2 includes an overview section that outlines the completeness proof, as well as some extra discussion of the interpolation lemma. It also includes better typography and a number of minor fixes. Version 3 incorporates the changes by comments from the anonymous referees at ESOP. Among other things, these include a worked example of computing the syntactic closure by han

A Comparison of Petri Net Semantics under the Collective Token Philosophy

In recent years, several semantics for place/transition Petri nets have been proposed that adopt the collective token philosophy. We investigate distinctions and similarities between three such models, namely configuration structures, concurrent transition systems, and (strictly) symmetric (strict) monoidal categories. We use the notion of adjunction to express each connection. We also present a purely logical description of the collective token interpretation of net behaviours in terms of theories and theory morphisms in partial membership equational logic

The Word Problem for Omega-Terms over the Trotter-Weil Hierarchy

For two given $\omega$-terms $\alpha$ and $\beta$, the word problem for $\omega$-terms over a variety $\boldsymbol{\mathrm{V}}$ asks whether $\alpha=\beta$ in all monoids in $\boldsymbol{\mathrm{V}}$. We show that the word problem for $\omega$-terms over each level of the Trotter-Weil Hierarchy is decidable. More precisely, for every fixed variety in the Trotter-Weil Hierarchy, our approach yields an algorithm in nondeterministic logarithmic space (NL). In addition, we provide deterministic polynomial time algorithms which are more efficient than straightforward translations of the NL-algorithms. As an application of our results, we show that separability by the so-called corners of the Trotter-Weil Hierarchy is witnessed by $\omega$-terms (this property is also known as $\omega$-reducibility). In particular, the separation problem for the corners of the Trotter-Weil Hierarchy is decidable

Prompt interval temporal logic

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 \u201csomething good eventually happens\u201d, 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