Abstract
The control of large systems is always organized in a distributed hierarchy. We discuss two approaches to understanding such a hierarchy. The approach propagated by work in verification adopts a “one-world” semantics in which syntactical constructs at higher levels are “compiled” into a single interpretation at the lowest level. Many hierarchical systems, however, are designed and analyzed using a “multi-world” semantics, with a separate interpretation at each level. One-world semantics offers a sound way of stating and proving claims about the system, but multi-world semantics better conforms to practice. The paper poses the question: how to join the theoretical advantages of one-world semantics to the practical convenience of multi-world semantics.
Research supported by Office of Naval Research.
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Varaiya, P. (2000). A Question about Hierarchical Systems. In: Djaferis, T.E., Schick, I.C. (eds) System Theory. The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, vol 518. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5223-9_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5223-9_23
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