Decidability of mean value calculus

Mean Value Calculus(MVC)^[1] is a real-time logic which can be used to specify and verify real-time systems^[2].As a conservative extension of Duration Calculus(DC)^[3],MVC increases the expressive power but keeps the properties of DC.In this paper we present decidability results of MVC.An interesting result is that propositional MVC with chop star operator is still decidable,which develops the results of [4]and [5].     

Duration-constrained regular expressions

This paper investigates the logic-automata-connection for Duration Calculus. It has been frequently observed that Duration Calculus with linear duration terms comes close to being a logic of linear hybrid automata. We attempt to make this relation precise by constructing Kleene-connection between duration-constrained regular expressions and a subclass of linear hybrid automata called loop-reset automata in which any variable tested in a loop is reset in the same loop. The formalism of duration-constrained regular expressions is an extension of regular expressions with duration constraints, which are essentially formulas of Duration Calculus without negation, yet extended by a Kleene-star operator. In this paper, we show that this formalism is equivalent in expressive power to loop-reset automata by providing a translation procedure from expressions to automata and vice verse.Received June 1999Accepted in revised form September 2003 by M. R. Hansen and C. B. Jones     

Decidability of a Hybrid Duration Calculus

We present a logic which we call Hybrid Duration Calculus (HDC). HDC is obtained by adding the following hybrid logical machinery to the Restricted Duration Calculus (RDC): nominals, satisfaction operators, down-arrow binder, and the global modality. RDC is known to be decidable, and in this paper we show that decidability is retained when adding the hybrid logical machinery. Decidability of HDC is shown by reducing the satisfiability problem to satisfiability of Monadic Second-Order Theory of Order. We illustrate the increased expressive power obtained in hybridizing RDC by showing that HDC, in contrast to RDC, can express all of the 13 possible relations between intervals.     

Decidability and complexity of Petri nets with unordered data

We prove several decidability and undecidability results for ν-PN, an extension of P/T nets with pure name creation and name management. We give a simple proof of undecidability of reachability, by reducing reachability in nets with inhibitor arcs to it. Thus, the expressive power of ν-PN strictly surpasses that of P/T nets. We encode ν-PN into Petri Data Nets, so that coverability, termination and boundedness are decidable. Moreover, we obtain Ackermann-hardness results for all our decidable decision problems. Then we consider two properties, width-boundedness and depth-boundedness, that factorize boundedness. Width-boundedness has already been proven to be decidable. Here we prove that its complexity is also non-primitive recursive. Then we prove undecidability of depth-boundedness. Finally, we prove that the corresponding “place version” of all the boundedness problems is undecidable for ν-PN. These results carry over to Petri Data Nets.     

On decidability and closure properties of language classes with respect to bio-operations

We present general results that are useful in showing closure and decidable properties of large classes of languages with respect to biologically-inspired operations. We use these results to prove new decidability results and closure properties of some classes of languages under bio-operations such hairpin-inversion, the recently studied operation of pseudo-inversion, and other bio-operations. We also provide techniques for proving undecidability results. In particular, we give a new approach for proving the undecidability of problems for which the usual method of reduction to the undecidability of the Post Correspondence Problem seems hard to apply. Our closure and decidability results strengthen or generalize previous results.     

On the computational power of BlenX

We present some decidability and undecidability results for subsets of the BlenX Language, a process-calculi-based programming language developed for modelling biological processes. We show that for a core subset of the language (which considers only communication primitives) termination is decidable. Moreover, we prove that by adding either global priorities or events to this core language, we obtain Turing equivalent languages. The proof is through encodings of Random Access Machines (RAMs), a well-known Turing equivalent formalism, into our subsets of BlenX. All the encodings are shown to be correct.     

Specifying safety-critical systems with a decidable duration logic

Punctual timing constraints are important in formal modelling of safety-critical real-time systems. But they are very expensive to express in dense time. In most cases, punctuality and dense-time lead to undecidability. Efforts have been successful to obtain decidability; but the results are either non-primitive recursive or nonelementary. In this paper we propose a duration logic which can express quantitative temporal constraints and punctuality timing constraints over continuous intervals and has a reasonable complexity. Our logic allows most specifications that are interesting in practice, and retains punctuality. It can capture the semantics of both events and states, and incorporates the notions duration and accumulation. We call this logic ESDL (the acronym stands for Event- and State-based Duration Logic). We show that the satisfiability problem is decidable, and the complexity of the satisfiability problem is NEXPTIME. ESDL is one of a few decidable interval temporal logics with metric operators. Through some case studies, we also show that ESDL can specify many safety-critical real-time system properties which were previously specified by undecidable interval logics or their decidable reductions based on some abstractions.     

Comparing model checking and logical reasoning for real-time systems

We apply both model checking and logical reasoning to a real-time protocol for mutual exclusion. To this end we employ PLC-Automata, an abstract notion of programs for real-time systems. A logic-based semantics in terms of Duration Calculus is used to verify the correctness of the protocol by logical reasoning. An alternative but consistent operational semantics in terms of Timed Automata is used to verify the correctness by model checkers. Since model checking of the full model does not terminate in all cases within an acceptable time we examine abstractions and their influence on model-checking performance. We present two abstraction methods that can be applied successfully for the protocol presented.Received June 1999Accepted in revised form September 2003 by M.R. Hansen and C. B. Jones     

A hybrid,decidable, logic-based knowledge representation system1

The major problem with using standard first-order logic as a basis for knowledge representation systems is its undecidability. A variant of first-order tautological entailment, a simple version of relevance logic, has been developed that has decidable inference and thus overcomes this problem. However, this logic is too weak for knowledge representation and must be strengthened. One way to strengthen the logic is to create a hybrid logic by adding a terminological reasoner. This must be done with care to retain the decidability of the logic as well as its reasonable semantics. The result, a stronger decidable logic, is used in the design of a hybrid, decidable, logic-based knowledge representation system.     

Trees,grids, and MSO decidability: From graphs to matroids

Monadic second order (MSO) logic has proved to be a useful tool in many areas of application, reaching from decidability and complexity to picture processing, correctness of programs and parallel processes. To characterize the structural borderline between decidability and undecidability is a classical research problem here. This problem is related to questions in computational complexity, especially to the model checking problem, for which many tools developed in the area of decidability have proved to be useful. For more than two decades it was conjectured in [D. Seese, The structure of the models of decidable monadic theories of graphs, Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 53 (1991) 169–195] that decidability of monadic theories of countable structures implies that the theory can be reduced via interpretability to a theory of trees.     

Axiomatisation and decidability of multi-dimensional Duration Calculus

The Shape Calculus is a spatio-temporal logic based on an n-dimensional Duration Calculus tailored for the specification and verification of mobile real-time systems. After showing non-axiomatisability, we give a complete embedding in n-dimensional interval temporal logic and present two different decidable subsets, which are important for tool support and practical use.     

Undecidability of Multi-modal Hybrid Logics

This paper establishes undecidability of satisfiability for multi-modal logic equipped with the hybrid binder ↓, with respect to frame classes over which the same language with only one modality is decidable. This is in contrast to the usual behaviour of many modal and hybrid logics, whose uni-modal and multi-modal versions do not differ in terms of decidability and, quite often, complexity. The results from this paper apply to a wide range of frame classes including temporally and epistemically relevant ones.     

Some decidability problems of sentential formst †

Various decidability problems of SF-languages, i.e. sets of sentential forms, of Chomsky grammars are studied. Among the problems are the equivalence, ambiguity, equality to a regular set, and regularity of SF-languages, and the SF-ness of regular languages. All of these problems are undecidable for type 0 grammars, and many of them are decidable for minimal linear grammars. Strongest possible undecidability and decidability results are looked for.     

On First-Order Logic and CPDA Graphs

Higher-order pushdown automata (n-PDA) are abstract machines equipped with a nested ‘stack of stacks of stacks’. Collapsible pushdown automata (n-CPDA) extend these devices by adding ‘links’ to the stack and are equi-expressive for tree generation with simply typed λY terms. Whilst the configuration graphs of HOPDA are well understood, relatively little is known about the CPDA graphs. The order-2 CPDA graphs already have undecidable MSO theories but it was only recently shown by Kartzow (Log. Methods Comput. Sci. 9(1), 2013) that first-order logic is decidable at the second level. In this paper we show the surprising result that first-order logic ceases to be decidable at order-3 and above. We delimit the fragments of the decision problem to which our undecidability result applies in terms of quantifer alternation and the orders of CPDA links used. Additionally we exhibit a natural sub-hierarchy enjoying limited decidability.     

Transducer-based analysis of cryptographic protocols

Cryptographic protocols can be divided into (1) protocols where the protocol steps are simple from a computational point of view and can thus be modeled by simple means, for instance, by single rewrite rules—we call these protocols non-looping—and (2) protocols, such as group protocols, where the protocol steps are complex and typically involve an iterative or recursive computation—we call them recursive. While much is known on the decidability of security for non-looping protocols, only little is known for recursive protocols. In this paper, we prove decidability of security (with respect to the standard Dolev–Yao intruder) for a core class of recursive protocols and undecidability for several extensions. The key ingredient of our protocol model is specifically designed tree transducers which work over infinite signatures and have the ability to generate new constants (which allow us to mimic key generation). The decidability result is based on an automata-theoretic construction which involves a new notion of regularity, designed to work well with the infinite signatures we use.     

The light side of interval temporal logic: the Bernays-Schönfinkel fragment of CDT

Decidability and complexity of the satisfiability problem for the logics of time intervals have been extensively studied in the recent years. Even though most interval logics turn out to be undecidable, meaningful exceptions exist, such as the logics of temporal neighborhood and (some of) the logics of the subinterval relation. In this paper, we explore a different path to decidability: instead of restricting the set of modalities or imposing severe semantic restrictions, we take the most expressive interval temporal logic studied so far, namely, Venema’s CDT, and we suitably limit the negation depth of modalities. The decidability of the satisfiability problem for the resulting fragment, called CDT_BS, over the class of all linear orders, is proved by embedding it into a well-known decidable quantifier prefix class of first-order logic, namely, Bernays-Schönfinkel class. In addition, we show that CDT_BS is in fact NP-complete (Bernays-Schönfinkel class is NEXPTIME-complete), and we prove its expressive completeness with respect to a suitable fragment of Bernays-Schönfinkel class. Finally, we show that any increase in the negation depth of CDT_BS modalities immediately yields undecidability.     

Unification Grammars and Off-Line Parsability

Unification grammars are known to be Turing-equivalent; given a grammar G and a word w, it is undecidable whether w L(G). In order to ensure decidability, several constraints on grammars, commonly known as off-line parsability (OLP), were suggested, such that the recognition problem is decidable for grammars which satisfy OLP. An open question is whether it is decidable if a given grammar satisfies OLP. In this paper we investigate various definitions of OLP and discuss their interrelations, proving that some of the OLP variants are indeed undecidable. We then present a novel, decidable OLP constraint which is more liberal than the existing decidable ones.     

Deciding Emptiness for Stack Automata on Infinite Trees

We show that the emptiness problem for Büchi stack automata on infinite trees is decidable in elementary time. We first establish the decidability of the emptiness problem for pushdown automata on infinite trees. This is done using a pumping-like argument applied to computation trees. We then show how to reduce the emptiness problem for stack automata to the emptiness problem for pushdown automata. Elsewhere, we have used the result to establish the decidability of several versions of nonregular dynamic logic.     

Decidability and Combination Results for Two Notions of Knowledge in Security Protocols

In formal approaches, messages sent over a network are usually modeled by terms together with an equational theory, axiomatizing the properties of the cryptographic functions (encryption, exclusive or, ...). The analysis of cryptographic protocols requires a precise understanding of the attacker knowledge. Two standard notions are usually considered: deducibility and indistinguishability. Those notions are well-studied and several decidability results already exist to deal with a variety of equational theories. Most of the existing results are dedicated to specific equational theories and only few results, especially in the case of indistinguishability, have been obtained for equational theories with associative and commutative properties (AC)(\textsf{AC}). In this paper, we show that existing decidability results can be easily combined for any disjoint equational theories: if the deducibility and indistinguishability relations are decidable for two disjoint theories, they are also decidable for their union. We also propose a general setting for solving deducibility and indistinguishability for an important class (called monoidal) of equational theories involving AC\textsf{AC} operators. As a consequence of these two results, new decidability and complexity results can be obtained for many relevant equational theories.