Temporal logic is gaining recognition as an attractive and versatile formalism for rigorously specifying and reasoning about computer programs, digital circuits and message-passing systems. This book introduces Tempura, a programming language based on temporal logic, Tempura provides a way of directly executing suitable temporal logic specifications of digital circuits, parallel programs and other dynamic systems. Since every Tempura statement is also a temporal formula, the entire temporal logic formalism can be used as the assertion language and semantics. One result is that Tempura has the two seemingly contradictory properties of being a logic programming language and having imperative constructs such as assignment statements. The presentation investigates Interval Temporal Logic, a formalism with conventional temporal operators such as next and always as well as lesser known ones such as chop. This provides the basis for Tempura. The design of an interpreter for Tempura is also included, as are a variety of sample Tempura programs illustrating how to model both hardware and software.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 27th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, ICALP 2000, held in Geneva, Switzerland in July 2000. The 69 revised full papers presented together with nine invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 196 extended abstracts submitted for the two tracks on algorithms, automata, complexity, and games and on logic, semantics, and programming theory. All in all, the volume presents an unique snapshot of the state-of-the-art in theoretical computer science.

This reader collects and introduces important work in linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, and computational linguistics on the use of linguistic devices in natural languages to situate events in time: whether they are past, present, or future; whether they are real or hypothetical; when an event might have occurred, and how long it could have lasted. In focussing on the treatment and retrieval of time-based information it seeks to lay the foundation for temporally-aware natural language computer processing systems, for example those that process documents on the worldwide web to answer questions or produce summaries. The development of such systems requires the application of technical knowledge from many different disciplines. The book is the first to bring these disciplines together, by means of classic and contemporary papers in four areas: tense, aspect, and event structure; temporal reasoning; the temporal structure of natural language discourse; and temporal annotation. Clear, self-contained editorial introductions to each area provide the necessary technical background for the non-specialist, explaining the underlying connections across disciplines. A wide range of students and professionals in academia and industry will value this book as an introduction and guide to a new and vital technology. The former include researchers, students, and teachers of natural language processing, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, computer science, information retrieval (including the growing speciality of question-answering), library sciences, human-computer interaction, and cognitive science. Those in industry include corporate managers and researchers, software product developers, and engineers in information-intensive companies, such as on-line database and web-service providers.

Constraint programming is like an octopus spreading its tentacles into databases, operations research, artificial intelligence, and many other areas. The concept of constraint programming was introduced in artificial intelligence and graphics in the 1960s and 1970s. Now the related techniques are used and studied in many fields of computing. Different aspects of constraint processing are investigated in theoretical computer science, logic programming, knowledge representation, operations research, and related application domains. Constraint programming has been included in the lists of related topics of many conferences. Nevertheless, only in 1993 were the first forums held, devoted as a whole to this field of knowledge. These were the First Workshop on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (PPCP'93) which was held in Newport, Rhode Island, USA, April 28-30, the International Workshop on Constraint Processing (at CSAM'93) held in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 20-21, and the NATO Advanced Study Institute (NATO AS!) on Constraint Programming held in Parnu, Estonia, August 13-24. NATO A Sis are aimed to be schools bringing together leading researchers and practitioners from industry and academia in some area of knowledge to provide a concise picture of the work done and results obtained by different groups. This is intended for dissemination of advanced knowledge not yet taught regularly in of new topics university. However, ASis must also encourage the introduction into university curricula as well as foster international scientific contacts.

The name "temporal logic" may sound complex and daunting; but while they describe potentially complex scenarios, temporal logics are often based on a few simple, and fundamental, concepts - highlighted in this book. An Introduction to Practical Formal Methods Using Temporal Logic provides an introduction to formal methods based on temporal logic, for developing and testing complex computational systems. These methods are supported by many well-developed tools, techniques and results that can be applied to a wide range of systems. Fisher begins with a full introduction to the subject, covering the basics of temporal logic and using a variety of examples, exercises and pointers to more advanced work to help clarify and illustrate the topics discussed. He goes on to describe how this logic can be used to specify a variety of computational systems, looking at issues of linking specifications, concurrency, communication and composition ability. He then analyses temporal specification techniques such as deductive verification, algorithmic verification, and direct execution to develop and verify computational systems. The final chapter on case studies analyses the potential problems that can occur in a range of engineering applications in the areas of robotics, railway signalling, hardware design, ubiquitous computing, intelligent agents, and information security, and explains how temporal logic can improve their accuracy and reliability. Models temporal notions and uses them to analyze computational systems Provides a broad approach to temporal logic across many formal methods - including specification, verification and implementation Introduces and explains freely available tools based on temporal logics and shows how these can be applied Presents exercises and pointers to further study in each chapter, as well as an accompanying website providing links to additional systems based upon temporal logic as well as additional material related to the book.

This volume includes the best papers of the IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Computer and Information Science, ICIS 2009, held on June 2009 in Shanghai, China.