Our concern is the data complexity of answering linear monadic datalog queries whose atoms in the rule bodies can be prefixed by operators of linear temporal logic LTL. We first observe that, for data complexity, answering any connected query with operators ○/○- (at the next/previous moment) is either in AC⁰, or in ACC⁰\AC⁰, or NC¹-complete, or L-hard and in NL. Then we show that the problem of deciding L-hardness of answering such queries is PSpace-complete, while checking membership in the classes AC⁰ and ACC⁰ as well as NC¹-completeness can be done in ExpSpace. Finally, we prove that membership in AC⁰ or in ACC⁰, NC¹-completeness, and L-hardness are undecidable for queries with operators ◇/◇- (sometime in the future/past) provided that NC¹ ≠ NL and L ≠ NL.

For fragments L of first-order logic (FO) with counting quantifiers, we consider the definability problem, which asks whether a given L -formula can be equivalently expressed by a formula in some fragment of L without counting, and the more general separation problem asking whether two mutually exclusive L-formulas can be separated in some counting-free fragment of L. We show that separation is undecidable for the two-variable fragment of FO extended with counting quantifiers and for the graded modal logic with inverse, nominals and universal modality. On the other hand, if inverse or nominals are dropped, separation becomes coNExpTime- or 2ExpTime-complete, depending on whether the universal modality is present. In contrast, definability can often be reduced in polynomial time to validity in L. We also consider uniform separation and show that it often behaves similarly to definability.

None of the first-order modal logics between $\mathsf{K}$ and $\mathsf{S5}$ under the constant domain semantics enjoys Craig interpolation or projective Beth definability, even in the language restricted to a single individual variable. It follows that the existence of a Craig interpolant for a given implication or of an explicit definition for a given predicate cannot be directly reduced to validity as in classical first-order and many other logics. Our concern here is the decidability and computational complexity of the interpolant and definition existence problems. We first consider two decidable fragments of first-order modal logic $\mathsf{S5}$: the one-variable fragment $\mathsf{Q^1S5}$ and its extension $\mathsf{S5}_{\mathcal{ALC}^u}$ that combines $\mathsf{S5}$ and the description logic$\mathcal{ALC}$ with the universal role. We prove that interpolant and definition existence in $\mathsf{Q^1S5}$ and $\mathsf{S5}_{\mathcal{ALC}^u}$ is decidable in coN2ExpTime, being 2ExpTime-hard, while uniform interpolant existence is undecidable. These results transfer to the two-variable fragment $\mathsf{FO^2}$ of classical first-order logic without equality. We also show that interpolant and definition existence in the one-variable fragment $\mathsf{Q^1K}$ of first-order modal logic $\mathsf{K}$ is non-elementary decidable, while uniform interpolant existence is again undecidable.

Algorithms for learning database queries from examples and unique characterisations of queries by examples are prominent starting points for developing automated support for query explanation and construction. We investigate how far recent results and techniques on learning and unique characterisations of atemporal queries mediated by an ontology can be extended to temporal data and queries. Based on a systematic review of the relevant approaches in the atemporal case, we obtain general transfer results identifying conditions under which temporal queries composed of atemporal ones are (polynomially) learnable and uniquely characterisable.

In reverse engineering of database queries, we aim to construct a query from a given set of answers and non-answers; it can then be used to explore the data further or as an explanation of the answers and non-answers. We investigate this query-by-example problem for queries formulated in positive fragments of linear temporal logic LTL over timestamped data, focusing on the design of suitable query languages and the combined and data complexity of deciding whether there exists a query in the given language that separates the given answers from non-answers. We consider both plain LTL queries and those mediated by LTL ontologies.

We first consider two decidable fragments of quantified modal logic S5: the one-variable fragment and its extension S5ALC that combines S5 and the description logic ALC with the universal role. As neither of them enjoys Craig interpolation or projective Beth definability, the existence of interpolants and explicit definitions of predicates---which is crucial in many knowledge engineering tasks---does not directly reduce to entailment. Our concern therefore is the computational complexity of deciding whether (uniform) interpolants and definitions exist for given input formulas, signatures and ontologies. We prove that interpolant and definition existence in the one-variable fragment of quantified modal logic S5 and in S5ALC is decidable in coN2ExpTime, being 2ExpTime-hard, while uniform interpolant existence is undecidable. Then we show that interpolant and definition existence in the one-variable fragment of quantified modal logic K is nonelementary decidable, while uniform interpolant existence is undecidable.

Our concern is the problem of determining the data complexity of answering an ontology-mediated query (OMQ) formulated in linear temporal logic LTL over (Z,<) and deciding whether it is rewritable to an FO(<)-query, possibly with some extra predicates. First, we observe that, in line with the circuit complexity and FO-definability of regular languages, OMQ answering in AC0, ACC0 and NC1 coincides with FO(<,≡)-rewritability using unary predicates x ≡ 0 (mod n), FO(<,MOD)-rewritability, and FO(RPR)-rewritability using relational primitive recursion, respectively. We prove that, similarly to known PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-completeness of recognising FO(<)-definability of regular languages, deciding FO(<,≡)- and FO(<,MOD)-definability is also PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-complete (unless ACC0 = NC1). We then use this result to show that deciding FO(<)-, FO(<,≡)- and FO(<,MOD)-rewritability of LTL OMQs is ExᴘSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-complete, and that these problems become PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-complete for OMQs with a linear Horn ontology and an atomic query, and also a positive query in the cases of FO(<)- and FO(<,≡)-rewritability. Further, we consider FO(<)-rewritability of OMQs with a binary-clause ontology and identify OMQ classes, for which deciding it is PSᴘᴀᴄᴇ-, Π2p- and coNP-complete.

We argue that linear temporal logic LTL in tandem with monadic first-order logic can be used as a ba- sic language for ontology-based access to tempo- ral data and obtain a classification of the resulting ontology-mediated queries according to the type of standard first-order queries they can be rewritten to.

Our concern is the problem of efficiently determining the data complexity of answering queries mediated by description logic ontologies and constructing their optimal rewritings to standard database queries. Originated in ontology-based data access and datalog optimisation, this problem is known to be computationally very complex in general, with no explicit syntactic characterisations available. In this article, aiming to understand the fundamental roots of this difficulty, we strip the problem to the bare bones and focus on Boolean conjunctive queries mediated by a simple covering axiom stating that one class is covered by the union of two other classes. We show that, on the one hand, these rudimentary ontology-mediated queries, called disjunctive sirups (or d-sirups), capture many features and difficulties of the general case. For example, answering d-sirups is Π2p-complete for combined complexity and can be in or L-, NL-, P-, or coNP-complete for data complexity (with the problem of recognising FO-rewritability of d-sirups being 2ExpTime-hard); some d-sirups only have exponential-size resolution proofs, some only double-exponential-size positive existential FO-rewritings and single-exponential-size nonrecursive datalog rewritings. On the other hand, we prove a few partial sufficient and necessary conditions of FO- and (symmetric/linear-) datalog rewritability of d-sirups. Our main technical result is a complete and transparent syntactic /NL/P/coNP tetrachotomy of d-sirups with disjoint covering classes and a path-shaped Boolean conjunctive query. To obtain this tetrachotomy, we develop new techniques for establishing P- and coNP-hardness of answering non-Horn ontology-mediated queries as well as showing that they can be answered in NL.

Aiming at ontology-based data access to temporal data, we design two-dimensional temporal ontology and query languages by combining logics from the (extended) DL-Lite family with linear temporal logic LTL over discrete time (Z,<). Our main concern is first-order rewritability of ontology-mediated queries (OMQs) that consist of a 2D ontology and a positive temporal instance query. Our target languages for FO-rewritings are two-sorted FO(<) -- first-order logic with sorts for time instants ordered by the built-in precedence relation < and for the domain of individuals---its extension FO(<, ≡) with the standard congruence predicates t ≡ 0 (mod n), for any fixed n > 1, and FO(RPR) that admits relational primitive recursion. In terms of circuit complexity, FO(<, ≡)- and FO(RPR)-rewritability guarantee answering OMQs in uniform AC0 and NC1, respectively. We proceed in three steps. First, we define a hierarchy of 2D DL-Lite/LTL ontology languages and investigate the FO-rewritability of OMQs with atomic queries by constructing projections onto 1D LTL OMQs and employing recent results on the FO-rewritability of propositional LTL OMQs. As the projections involve deciding consistency of ontologies and data, we also consider the consistency problem for our languages. While the undecidability of consistency for 2D ontology languages with expressive Boolean role inclusions might be expected, we also show that, rather surprisingly, the restriction to Krom and Horn role inclusions leads to decidability (and ExpSpace-completeness), even if one admits full Booleans on concepts. As a final step, we lift some of the rewritability results for atomic OMQs to OMQs with expressive positive temporal instance queries. The lifting results are based on an in-depth study of the canonical models and only concern Horn ontologies.

We show that deciding boundedness (aka FO-rewritability) of mon­adic single rule datalog programs (sirups) is 2\Exp-hard, which matches the upper bound known since 1988 and finally settles a long-standing open problem. We obtain this result as a byproduct of an attempt to classify monadic 'disjunctive sirups'---Boolean conjunctive queries $\q$ with unary and binary predicates mediated by a disjunctive rule $T(x) łor F(x) łeftarrow A(x)$---according to the data complexity of their evaluation. Apart from establishing that deciding FO-rewritability of disjunctive sirups with a dag-shaped $\q$ is also 2\Exp-hard, we make substantial progress towards obtaining a complete FO/Ł-hardness dichotomy of disjunctive sirups with ditree-shaped $\q$.

Our concern is the problem of determining the data complexity of answering an ontology-mediated query (OMQ) given in linear temporal logic LTL over (Z,<) and deciding whether it is rewritable to an FO(<)-query, possibly with extra predicates. First, we observe that, in line with the circuit complexity and FO-definability of regular languages, OMQ answering in AC0, ACC0 and NC1 coincides with FO(<,\equiv)-rewritability using unary predicates x \equiv 0 mod n), FO(<,MOD)-rewritability, and FO(RPR)-rewritability using relational primitive recursion, respectively. We then show that deciding FO(<)-, \FO(<,\equiv)- and FO(<,MOD)-rewritability of LTL OMQs is ExpSpace-complete, and that these problems become PSpace-complete for OMQs with a linear Horn ontology and an atomic query, and also a positive query in the cases of FO(<)- and FO(<,\equiv)-rewritability. Further, we consider FO(<)-rewritability of OMQs with a binary-clause ontology and identify OMQ classes, for which deciding it is PSpace-, Pi_2^p- and coNP-complete.

We investigate ontology-based data access to temporal data. We consider temporal ontologies given in linear temporal logic LTL interpreted over discrete time ( Z , < ) . Queries are given in LTL or MFO ( < ) , monadic first-order logic with a built-in linear order. Our concern is first-order rewritability of ontology-mediated queries (OMQs) consisting of a temporal ontology and a query. By taking account of the temporal operators used in the ontology and distinguishing between ontologies given in full LTL and its core, Krom and Horn fragments, we identify a hierarchy of OMQs with atomic queries by proving rewritability into either FO ( < ) , first-order logic with the built-in linear order, or FO ( < , ≡ ) , which extends FO ( < ) with the standard arithmetic predicates x ≡ 0 ( mod n ) , for any fixed n > 1 , or FO ( RPR ) , which extends FO ( < ) with relational primitive recursion. In terms of circuit complexity, FO ( < , ≡ ) - and FO ( RPR ) -rewritability guarantee OMQ answering in uniform and, respectively, . We obtain similar hierarchies for more expressive types of queries: positive LTL -formulas, monotone MFO ( < ) - and arbitrary MFO ( < ) -formulas. Our results are directly applicable if the temporal data to be accessed is one-dimensional; moreover, they lay foundations for investigating ontology-based access using combinations of temporal and description logics over two-dimensional temporal data.

Aiming to understand the data complexity of answering conjunctive queries mediated by an axiom stating that a class is covered by the union of two other classes, we show that deciding their first-order rewritability is PSPACE-hard and obtain a number of sufficient conditions for membership in AC0, L, NL, and P. Our main result is a complete syntactic AC0/NL/P/CONP tetrachotomy of path queries under the assumption that the covering classes are disjoint.

Traditionally, description logic has focused on representing and reasoning about classes rather than relations (roles), which has been justified by the deterioration of the computational properties if expressive role inclusions are added. The situation is even worse in the temporalised setting, where monodicity is viewed as an almost necessary condition for decidability. We take a fresh look at the description logic DL-Lite with expressive role inclusions, both with and without a temporal dimension. While we confirm that full Boolean expressive power on roles leads to FO^2-like behaviour in the atemporal case and undecidability in the temporal case, we show that, rather surprisingly, the restriction to Krom and Horn role inclusions leads to much lower complexity in the atemporal case and to decidability (and ExpSpace-completeness) in the temporal case, even if one admits full Booleans on concepts. The latter result is one of very few instances breaking the monodicity barrier in temporal FO. This is also reflected on the data complexity level, where we obtain new rewritability results into FO with relational primitive recursion and FO with unary divisibility predicates.

We investigate the data complexity of answering queries mediated by metric temporal logic ontologies under the event-based semantics assuming that data instances are finite timed words timestamped with binary fractions. We identify classes of ontology-mediated queries answering which can be done in AC0, NC1, L, NL, P, and coNP for data complexity, provide their rewritings to first-order logic and its extensions with primitive recursion, transitive closure or datalog, and establish lower complexity bounds.

Horn description logics are syntactically defined fragments of standard description logics that fall within the Horn fragment of first-order logic and for which ontology-mediated query answering is in PTime for data complexity. They were independently introduced in modal logic to capture the intersection of Horn first-order logic with modal logic. In this paper, we introduce model comparison games for the basic Horn description logic hornALC (corresponding to the basic Horn modal logic) and use them to obtain an Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé type definability result and a van Benthem style expressive completeness result for hornALC. We also establish a finite model theory version of the latter. The Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé type definability result is used to show that checking hornALC indistinguishability of models is ExpTime-complete, which is in sharp contrast to ALC indistinguishability (i.e., bisimulation equivalence) checkable in PTime. In addition, we explore the behavior of Horn fragments of more expressive description and modal logics by defining a Horn guarded fragment of first-order logic and introducing model comparison games for it.

Motivated by two industrial use cases that involve detecting events of interest in (asynchronous) time series from sensors in manufacturing rigs and gas turbines, we design an expressive rule language DslD equipped with interval aggregate functions (such as weighted average over a time interval), Allen’s interval relations and various metric constructs. We demonstrate how to model events in the uses cases in terms of DslD programs. We show that answering DslD queries in our use cases can be reduced to evaluating SQL queries. Our experiments with the use cases, carried out on the Apache Spark system, show that such SQL queries scale well on large real-world datasets.

Abstract Our concern is the completeness problem for spi-logics, that is, sets of implications between strictly positive formulas built from propositional variables, conjunction and modal diamond operators. Originated in logic, algebra and computer science, spi-logics have two natural semantics: meet-semilattices with monotone operators providing Birkhoff-style calculi and first-order relational structures (aka Kripke frames) often used as the intended structures in applications. Here we lay foundations for a completeness theory that aims to answer the question whether the two semantics define the same consequence relations for a given spi-logic.

We present the framework of ontology-based data access, a semantic paradigm for providing a convenient and user-friendly access to data repositories, which has been actively developed and studied in the past decade. Focusing on relational data sources, we discuss the main ingredients of ontology-based data access, key theoretical results, techniques, applications and future challenges.

We give solutions to two fundamental computational problems in ontology-based data access with the W3C standard ontology language OWL 2 QL : the succinctness problem for first-order rewritings of ontology-mediated queries (OMQs) and the complexity problem for OMQ answering. We classify OMQs according to the shape of their conjunctive queries (treewidth, the number of leaves) and the existential depth of their ontologies. For each of these classes, we determine the combined complexity of OMQ answering and whether all OMQs in the class have polynomial-size first-order, positive existential, and nonrecursive datalog rewritings. We obtain the succinctness results using hypergraph programs, a new computational model for Boolean functions, which makes it possible to connect the size of OMQ rewritings and circuit complexity.

We propose a novel framework for ontology-based access to temporal log data using a datalog extension datalogMTL of the Horn fragment of the metric temporal logic MTL. We show that datalogMTL is EXPSPACE-complete even with punctual intervals, in which case full MTL is known to be undecidable. We also prove that nonrecursive datalogMTL is PSPACE-complete for combined complexity and in AC0 for data complexity. We demonstrate by two real-world use cases that nonrecursive datalogMTL programs can express complex temporal concepts from typical user queries and thereby facilitate access to temporal log data. Our experiments with Siemens turbine data and MesoWest weather data show that datalogMTL ontology-mediated queries are efficient and scale on large datasets.

We advocate datalogMTL, a datalog extension of a Horn fragment of the metric temporal logic MTL, as a language for ontology-based access to temporal log data. We show that datalogMTL is EXPSPACE-complete even with punctual intervals, in which case MTL is known to be undecidable. Nonrecursive datalogMTL turns out to be PSPACE-complete for combined complexity and in AC0 for data complexity. We demonstrate by two real-world use cases that nonrecursive datalogMTL programs can express complex temporal concepts from typical user queries and thereby facilitate access to log data. Our experiments with Siemens turbine data and MesoWest weather data show that datalogMTL ontology-mediated queries are efficient and scale on large datasets of up to 11GB.

Our concern is the overhead of answering OWL 2 QL ontology-mediated queries (OMQs) in ontology-based data access compared to evaluating their underlying tree-shaped and, more generally, bounded treewidth conjunctive queries (CQs). We show that OMQs with bounded depth ontologies have nonrecursive datalog (NDL) rewritings that can be constructed and evaluated in LOGCFL for combined complexity, and even in NL if their CQs are tree-shaped with a bounded number of leaves. Thus, such OMQs incur no overhead in complexity-theoretic terms. For OMQs with arbitrary ontologies and bounded-leaf tree-shaped CQs, NDL-rewritings are constructed and evaluated in LOGCFL. We experimentally demonstrate feasibility and scalability of our rewritings compared to previously proposed NDL-rewritings. On the negative side, we prove that answering OMQs with tree-shaped CQs is not fixed-parameter tractable if the ontology depth or the number of leaves in the CQs is regarded as the parameter, and that answering OMQs with a fixed ontology (of infinite depth) is NP-complete for tree-shaped CQs and LOGCFL-complete for bounded-leaf CQs.

We discuss the use of various temporal knowledge representation formalisms for ontology-mediated query answering over temporal data. In particular, we analyse ontology and query languages based on the linear temporal logic LTL, the multi-dimensional Halpern-Shoham interval temporal logic HS_n, as well as the metric temporal logic MTL. Our main focus is on the data complexity of answering temporal ontology-mediated queries and their rewritability into standard first-order and datalog queries.

We investigate the satisfiability problem for Horn fragments of the Halpern-Shoham interval temporal logic depending on the type (box or diamond) of the interval modal operators, the type of the underlying linear order (discrete or dense), and the type of semantics for the interval relations (reflexive or irreflexive). For example, we show that satisfiability of Horn formulas with diamonds is undecidable for any type of linear orders and semantics. On the contrary, satisfiability of Horn formulas with boxes is tractable over both discrete and dense orders under the reflexive semantics and over dense orders under the irreflexive semantics but becomes undecidable over discrete orders under the irreflexive semantics. Satisfiability of binary Horn formulas with both boxes and diamonds is always undecidable under the irreflexive semantics.

We design a tractable Horn fragment of the Halpern-Shoham temporal logic and extend it to interval-based temporal description logics, instance checking in which is P-complete for both combined and data complexity.

We design temporal description logics (TDLs) suitable for reasoning about temporal conceptual data models and investigate their computational complexity. Our formalisms are based onDL-Litelogics with three types of concept inclusions (ranging from atomic concept inclusions and disjointness to the full Booleans), as well as cardinality constraints and role inclusions. The logics are interpreted over the Cartesian products of object domains and the flow of time (ℤ, <), satisfying the constant domain assumption. Concept and role inclusions of the TBox hold at all moments of time (globally), and data assertions of the ABox hold at specified moments of time. To express temporal constraints of conceptual data models, the languages are equipped with flexible and rigid roles, standard future and past temporal operators on concepts, and operators “always” and “sometime” on roles. The most expressive of our TDLs (which can capture lifespan cardinalities and either qualitative or quantitative evolution constraints) turns out to be undecidable. However, by omitting some of the temporal operators on concepts/roles or by restricting the form of concept inclusions, we construct logics whose complexity ranges between NLogSpaceand PSpace. These positive results are obtained by reduction to various clausal fragments of propositional temporal logic, which opens a way to employ propositional or first-order temporal provers for reasoning about temporal data models.

We design a decidable extension of the description logic SROIQ underlying the Web Ontology Language OWL 2. The new logic, called SR+OIQ, supports a controlled use of role axioms whose right-hand side may contain role chains or role unions. We give a tableau algorithm for checking concept satisfiability with respect to SR+OIQ ontologies and prove its soundness, completeness and termination.

We consider the quantifier-free languages, Bc and Bc °, obtained by augmenting the signature of Boolean algebras with a unary predicate representing, respectively, the property of being connected, and the property of having a connected interior. These languages are interpreted over the regular closed sets of R n ( n ≥ 2) and, additionally, over the regular closed semilinear sets of R n . The resulting logics are examples of formalisms that have recently been proposed in the Artificial Intelligence literature under the rubric Qualitative Spatial Reasoning. We prove that the satisfiability problem for Bc is undecidable over the regular closed semilinear sets in all dimensions greater than 1, and that the satisfiability problem for Bc and Bc ° is undecidable over both the regular closed sets and the regular closed semilinear sets in the Euclidean plane. However, we also prove that the satisfiability problem for Bc ° is NP-complete over the regular closed sets in all dimensions greater than 2, while the corresponding problem for the regular closed semilinear sets is ExpTime -complete. Our results show, in particular, that spatial reasoning is much harder over Euclidean spaces than over arbitrary topological spaces.

The OWL 2 profile OWL 2 QL, based on the DL-Lite family of description logics, is emerging as a major language for developing new ontologies and approximating the existing ones. Its main application is ontology-based data access, where ontologies are used to provide background knowledge for answering queries over data. We investigate the corresponding notion of query inseparability (or equivalence) for OWL 2 QL ontologies and show that deciding query inseparability is PSPACE-hard and in EXPTIME. We give polynomial time (incomplete) algorithms and demonstrate by experiments that they can be used for practical module extraction.

We investigate (quantifier-free) spatial constraint languages with equality, contact and connectedness predicates, as well as Boolean operations on regions, interpreted over low-dimensional Euclidean spaces. We show that the complexity of reasoning varies dramatically depending on the dimension of the space and on the type of regions considered. For example, the logic with the interior-connectedness predicate (and without contact) is undecidable over polygons or regular closed sets in ℝ2, EXPTIME-complete over polyhedra in ℝ3, and NP-complete over regular closed sets in ℝ3.

We design minimal temporal description logics that are capa- ble of expressing various aspects of temporal conceptual data models and investigate their computational complexity. We show that, depending on the required types of temporal and atemporal constraints, the satisfiability problem for temporal knowledge bases in the resulting logics can be NLOGSPACE-, NP- and PSPACE-complete, as well as undecidable.

The recently introduced series of description logics under the common moniker `DL-Lite' has attracted attention of the description logic and semantic web communities due to the low computational complexity of inference, on the one hand, and the ability to represent conceptual modeling formalisms, on the other. The main aim of this article is to carry out a thorough and systematic investigation of inference in extensions of the original DL-Lite logics along five axes: by (i) adding the Boolean connectives and (ii) number restrictions to concept constructs, (iii) allowing role hierarchies, (iv) allowing role disjointness, symmetry, asymmetry, reflexivity, irreflexivity and transitivity constraints, and (v) adopting or dropping the unique same assumption. We analyze the combined complexity of satisfiability for the resulting logics, as well as the data complexity of instance checking and answering positive existential queries. Our approach is based on embedding DL-Lite logics in suitable fragments of the one-variable first-order logic, which provides useful insights into their properties and, in particular, computational behavior.

We survey temporal description logics that are based on standard temporal logics such as LTL and CTL. In particular, we concentrate on the computational complexity of the satisfiability problem and algorithms for deciding it.

We show that the unification problem “is there a substitution instance of a given formula that is provable in a given logic?” is undecidable for basic modal logics K and K4 extended with the universal modality. It follows that the admissibility problem for inference rules is undecidable for these logics as well. These are the first examples of standard decidable modal logics for which the unification and admissibility problems are undecidable. We also prove undecidability of the unification and admissibility problems for K and K4 with at least two modal operators and nominals (instead of the universal modality), thereby showing that these problems are undecidable for basic hybrid logics. Recently, unification has been introduced as an important reasoning service for description logics. The undecidability proof for K with nominals can be used to show the undecidability of unification for Boolean description logics with nominals (such as ALCO and SHIQO). The undecidability proof for K with the universal modality can be used to show that the unification problem relative to role boxes is undecidable for Boolean description logics with transitive roles, inverse roles, and role hierarchies (such as SHI and SHIQ).

It is known that for temporal languages, such as first-order LTL, reasoning about constant (time-independent) relations is almost always undecidable. This applies to temporal description logics as well: constant binary relations together with general concept subsumptions in combinations of LTL and the basic description logic ALC cause undecidability. In this paper, we explore temporal extensions of two recently introduced families of 'weak' description logics known as DL-Lite and EL. Our results are twofold: temporalisations of even rather expressive variants of DL-Lite turn out to be decidable, while the temporalisation of EL with general concept subsumptions and constant relations is undecidable.

Categorisation of objects into classes is currently supported by (at least) two ‘orthogonal’ methods. In logic-based approaches, classifications are defined through ontologies or knowledge bases which describe the existing relationships among terms. Description logic (DL) has become one of the most successful formalisms for representing such knowledge bases, in particular because theoretically well-founded and efficient reasoning tools have been readily available. In numerical approaches, classifications are obtained by first computing similarity (or proximity) measures between objects and then categorising them into classes by means of Voronoi tessellations, clustering algorithms, nearest neighbour computations, etc. In many areas such as bioinformatics, computational linguistics or medical informatics, these two methods have been used independently of each other: although both of them are often applied to the same domain (and even by the same researcher), up to now no formal interaction mechanism has been developed. In this paper, we propose a DL-based integration of the two classification methods. Our formalism, called SL + ALCQIO, extends the expressive DL ALCQIO by means of the constructors of the similarity logic SL which allow definitions of concepts in terms of both comparative and absolute similarity. In the combined knowledge base the user should declare the similarity spaces where the new operators are interpreted. Of course, SL + ALCQIO can only be useful if classifications with this logic are supported by automated reasoning tools. We lay theoretical foundations for the development of such tools by showing that reasoning problems for SL + ALCQIO can be decomposed into the corresponding problems for its DL-part ALCQIO and similarity part SL. Then we investigate reasoning in SL and prove that consistency and many other reasoning problems are ExpTime-complete for this logic. Using this result and a recent complexity result of Pratt-Hartmann for ALCQIO, we prove that reasoning in SL + ALCQIO is

In this paper, we construct and investigate a hierarchy of spatio-temporal formalisms that result from various combinations of propositional spatial and temporal logics such as the propositional temporal logic PTL, the spatial logics RCC-8, BRCC-8, S4u and their fragments. The obtained results give a clear picture of the trade-off between expressiveness and `computational realisability' within the hierarchy. We demonstrate how different combining principles as well as spatial and temporal primitives can produce NP-, PSPACE-, EXPSPACE-, 2EXPSPACE-complete, and even undecidable spatio-temporal logics out of components that are at most NP- or PSPACE-complete.

Abstract We solve a major open problem concerning algorithmic properties of products of ‘transitive’ modal logics by showing that products and commutators of such standard logics asK4,S4,S4.1,K4.3,GL, orGrzare undecidable and do not have the finite model property. More generally, we prove that no Kripke complete extension of the commutator [K4, K4] with product frames of arbitrary finite or infinite depth (with respect to both accessibility relations) can be decidable. In particular, ifl1andl2are classes of transitive frames such that their depth cannot be bounded by any fixedn< ω, then the logic of the class {5ℑ1× ℑ2∣ ℑ1∈l1, ℑ2, ∈l2} is undecidable. (On the contrary, the product of, say,K4and the logic of all transitive Kripke frames of depth ≤n, for some fixedn< ω, is decidable.) The complexity of these undecidable logics ranges from r.e. to co-r.e. and Π11-complete. As a consequence, we give the first known examples of Kripke incomplete commutators of Kripke complete logics.

Abstract We propose a logic for reasoning about metric spaces with the induced topologies. It combines the ‘qualitative’ interior and closure operators with ‘quantitative’ operators ‘somewhere in the sphere of radiusr’ including or excluding the boundary. We supply the logic with both the intended metric space semantics and a natural relational semantics, and show that the latter (i) provides finite partial representations of (in general) infinite metric models and (ii) reduces the standard ‘ε-definitions’ of closure and interior to simple constraints on relations. These features of the relational semantics suggest a finite axiomatisation of the logic and provide means to prove its EXPTIME-completeness (even if the rational numerical parameters are coded in binary). An extension with metric variables satisfying linear rational (in)equalities is proved to be decidable as well. Our logic can be regarded as a ‘well-behaved’ common denominator of logical systems constructed in temporal, spatial, and similarity-based quantitative and qualitative representation and reasoning. Interpreted on the real line (with its Euclidean metric), it is a natural fragment of decidable temporal logics for specification and verification of real-time systems. On the real plane, it is closely related to quantitative and qualitative formalisms for spatial representation and reasoning, but this time the logic becomes undecidable.

In this paper we prove decidability of two kinds of branching time temporal logics. First we show that the non-local version of propositional PCTL*, in which truth values of atoms may depend on the branch of evaluation, is decidable. Then we use this result to establish decidability of various fragments of quantified PCTL*, where the next-time operator can be applied only to formulas with at most one free variable, all other temporal operators and path quantifiers are applicable only to sentences, and the first-order constructs follow the pattern of any of several decidable fragments of first-order logic.

We study the complexity of some fragments of first-order temporal logic over natural numbers time. The one-variable fragment of linear first-order temporal logic even with sole temporal operator /spl square/ is EXPSPACE-complete (this solves an open problem of J. Halpern and M. Vardi (1989)). So are the one-variable, two-variable and monadic monodic fragments with Until and Since. If we add the operators O/sup n/, with n given in binary, the fragment becomes 2EXPSPACE-complete. The packed monodic fragment has the same complexity as its pure first-order part - 2EXPTIME-complete. Over any class of flows of time containing one with an infinite ascending sequence - e.g., rationals and real numbers time, and arbitrary strict linear orders - we obtain EXPSPACE lower bounds (which solves an open problem of M. Reynolds (1997)). Our results continue to hold if we restrict to models with finite first-order domains.

We investigate the expressive power and computational properties of two different types of languages intended for speaking about distances. First, we consider a first-order language FM the two-variable fragment of which turns out to be undecidable in the class of distance spaces validating the triangular inequality as well as in the class of all metric spaces. Yet, this two-variable fragment is decidable in various weaker classes of distance spaces. Second, we introduce a variable-free modal language MS that, when interpreted in metric spaces, has the same expressive power as the two-variable fragment of FM. We determine natural and expressive fragments of MS which are decidable in various classes of distance spaces validating the triangular inequality, in particular, the class of all metric spaces.

In this paper we analyze the decision problem for fragments of first-order extensions of branching time temporal logics such as computational tree logics CTL and CTL* or Prior's Ockhamist logic of historical necessity. On the one hand, we show that the one-variable fragments of logics like first-order CTL*-such as the product of propositional CTL* with simple propositional modal logic S5, or even the one-variable bundled first-order temporal logic with sole temporal operator 'some time in the future'-are undecidable. On the other hand, it is proved that by restricting applications of first-order quantifiers to state (i.e., path-independent) formulas, and applications of temporal operators and path quantifiers to formulas with at most one free variable, we can obtain decidable fragments. The positive decidability results can serve as a unifying framework for devising expressive and effective time-dependent knowledge representation formalisms, e.g., temporal description or spatio-temporal logics.

We prove decidability of 'non local' propositional CTL*, where truth values of atoms may depend on the branch of evaluation. This result is then used to show decidability of the 'weak' one-variable fragment of first-order (local) CTL*, in which all temporal operators and path quantifiers except 'tomorrow' are applicable only to sentences. Various spatio-temporal logics based on combinations of CTL* and RCC-8 can be embedded into this fragment, and so are decidable.

Abstract The paper considers the set of first-order polymodal formulas the modal operators in which can be applied to subformulas of at most one free variable. Using a mosaic technique, we prove a general satisfiability criterion for formulas in , which reduces the modal satisfiability to the classical one. The criterion is then used to single out a number of new, in a sense optimal, decidable fragments of various modal predicate logics.

We study two‐dimensional Cartesian products of modal logics determined by infinite or arbitrarily long finite linear orders and prove a general theorem showing that in many cases these products are undecidable, in particular, such are the squares of standard linear logics like K4.3, S4.3, GL.3, Grz.3, or the logic determined by the Cartesian square of any infinite linear order. This theorem solves a number of open problems posed by Gabbay and Shehtman. We also prove a sufficient condition for such products to be not recursively enumerable and give a simple axiomatization for the square K4.3 × K4.3 of the minimal liner logic using non‐structural Gabbay‐type inference rules.

We construct a new concept description language intended for representing dynamic and intensional knowledge. The most important feature distinguishing this language from its predecessors in the literature is that it allows applications of modal operators to all kinds of syntactic terms: concepts, roles and formulas. Moreover, the language may contain both local (i.e., state-dependent) and global (i.e., state-independent) concepts, roles and objects. All this provides us with the most complete and natural means for reflecting the dynamic and intensional behaviour of application domains. We construct a satisfiability checking (mosaic-type) algorithm for this language (based on 𝒜ℒ𝒞) in (i) arbitrary multimodal frames, (ii) frames with universal accessibility relations (for knowledge) and (iii) frames with transitive, symmetric and euclidean relations (for beliefs). On the other hand, it is shown that the satisfaction problem becomes undecidable if the underlying frames are arbitrary strict linear orders, 〈 $\mathbb{N}$ , <〉, or the language contains the common knowledge operator for n ≥ 2 agents.

This paper, a continuation of the series [22, 24], presents two methods for establishing the finite model property (FMP, for short) of normal modal logics containing K4. The methods are oriented mainly to logics represented by their canonical axioms and yield for such axiomatizations several sufficient conditions of FMP. We use them to obtain solutions to two well known open FMP problems. Namely, we prove that • every normal extension of K4 with modal reduction principles has FMP and • every normal extension of S4 with a formula of one variable has FMP. These results are interesting not only from the technical point of view. Actually, they reveal important properties of a quite natural family of modal logics—formulas of one variable and, in particular, modal reduction principles are typical axioms in modal logic. Unfortunately, the technical apparatus developed in this paper is applicable only to logics with transitive frames, and the situation with FMP of extensions of K by modal reduction principles, even by axioms of the form □np → □mp still remains unclear. I think at present this is one of the major challenges in completeness theory. The language of the canonical formulas, introduced in [22] (I'll refer to that paper as Part I), is a way of describing the “geometry and topology” of formulas' refutation (general) frames by means of some finite refutation patterns.

This paper is a continuation of Zakharyaschev [25], where the following basic results on modal logics with transitive frames were obtained: • With every finite rooted transitive frame and every set of antichains (which were called closed domains) in two formulas α ( , , ⊥) and α( , ) were associated. We called them the canonical and negation free canonical formulas, respectively, and proved the Refutability Criterion characterizing the constitution of their refutation general frames in terms of subreduction (alias partial p-morphism), the cofinality condition and the closed domain condition. • We proved also the Completeness Theorem for the canonical formulas providing us with an algorithm which, given a modal formula φ, returns canonical formulas α( i, i), ⊥), for i = 1,…, n, such that if φ is negation free then the algorithm instead of α( i, i, ⊥) can use the negation free canonical formulas α( i, i). Thus, every normal modal logic containing K4 can be axiomatized by a set of canonical formulas. In this Part we apply the apparatus of the canonical formulas for establishing a number of results on the decidability, finite model property, elementarity and some other properties of modal logics within the field of K4. Our attention will be focused on the class of logics which can be axiomatized by canonical formulas without closed domains, i.e., on the logics of the form Adapting the terminology of Fine [11], we call them the cofinal subframe logics and denote this class by . As was shown in Part I, almost all standard modal logics are in .

This paper gives a solution to the old independent axiomatizability problem by presenting normal modal logics above K4 and Grz and an intermediate logic without independent axiomatizations. Incidentally Blok's problem is solved: the lattices of varieties of topological Boolean and pseudo-Boolean algebras are not strongly atomic. We also study the relationship between independent axiomatizability of intermediate logics and their modal companions above S4.

‘How can we recognize, given axioms and inference rules of a calculus, whether the calculus has such-and-such property?’ A question of this kind arises whenever we deal with a new logic system. For large families of logics, this question may be considered as an algorithmic problem, and a property is called decidable in a given family if there exists an algorithm which is capable of deciding, for a finite axiomatics of a calculus in the family, whether or not it has the property. In the class of intermediate propositional logics, for instance, nontrivial properties such as the tabularity, pretabularity, and interpolation property (Maksimova [1972, 1977]) are decidable. However, for many other important properties—decidability, finite model property, disjunction property, Halldén-completeness, etc.—effective criteria were not found in spite of considerable efforts. In this paper we show that the difficulties in investigating these properties in the classes of intermediate logics and normal modal logics containing S4 are of principal nature, since all of them turn out to be algorithmically undecidable. In other words, there are no algorithms which, given a finite set of axioms of an intermediate or modal calculus, can recognize whether or not it is decidable, Halldén-complete, has the finite model or disjunction property. The first results concerning the undecidability of properties of calculi seem to have been obtained by Linial and Post [1949], who proved the undecidability of the problem of equivalence to classical calculus in the class of all propositional calculi with the same language as the classical one and the two inference rules: modus ponens and substitution. Kuznetsov [1963] generalized this result having proved the undecidability of the problem of equivalence to any fixed intermediate calculus (for instance, to intuitionistic calculus or even the inconsistent one). However, these results will not hold if we confine ourselves only to the class of intermediate logics, though the problem of equivalence to the undecidable intermediate calculus of Shehtman [1978] is clearly undecidable in this class as well.

This paper presents a new technique for handling modal logics with transitive frames, i.e. extensions of the modal system K4. In effect, the technique is based on the following fundamental result, to be obtained below in §3. Given a formula φ, we can effectively construct finite frames 1, …, n which completely characterize the set of all transitive general frames refuting φ. More exactly, an arbitrary general frame refutes φ iff contains a (not necessarily generated) subframe such that (1) i, for some i ϵ {1, …, n}, is a p-morphic image of (after Fine [1985] we say is subreducible to i), (2) is cofinal in , and (3) every point in that is not in does not get into “closed domains” which are uniquely determined in i, by φ. This purely technical result has, as it turns out, rather unexpected and profound consequences. For instance, it follows at once that if φ determines no closed domains in the frames 1, …, n associated with it, then the normal extension of K4 generated by φ has the finite model property and so is decidable. Moreover, every normal logic axiomatizable by any (even infinite) set of such formulas φ also has the finite model property. This observation would not possibly merit any special attention, were it not for the fact that the class of such logics contains almost all the standard systems within the field of K4 (at least all those mentioned by Segerberg [1971] or Bull and Segerberg [1984]), all logics containing S4.3, all subframe logics of Fine [1985], and a continuum of other logics as well.