We extend Nelson-Oppen combination procedure to the case of theories which are compatible with respect to a common subtheory in the shared signature. The notion of compatibility relies on model completions and related concepts from classical model theory.

In this paper we outline a theoretical framework for the combination of decision procedures for constraint satisfiability. We describe a general combination method which, given a procedure that decides constraint satisfiability with respect to a constraint theory T1 and one that decides constraint satisfiability with respect to a constraint theory T2, produces a procedure that (semi-)decides constraint satisfiability with respect to the union of T1 and T2. We provide a number of model-theoretic conditions on the constraint language and the component constraint theories for the method to be sound and complete, with special emphasis on the case in which the signatures of the component theories are non-disjoint. We also describe some general classes of theories to which our combination results apply, and relate our approach to some of the existing combination methods in the field.

. We present a flexible framework for cooperating decision procedures. We describe the properties needed to ensure correctness and show how it can be applied to implement an efficient version of Nelson and Oppen's algorithm for combining decision procedures. We also show how a Shostak style decision procedure can be implemented in the framework in such a way that it can be integrated with the Nelson-Oppen method. 1 Introduction Decision procedures for fragments of first-order or higher-order logic are potentially of great interest because of their versatility. Many practical problems can be reduced to problems in some decidable theory. The availability of robust decision procedures that can solve these problem within reasonable time and memory could save a great deal of effort that would otherwise go into implementing special cases of these procedures. Indeed, there are several publicly distributed prototype implementations of decision procedures, such as Presburger arithmetic...

The Nelson-Oppen combination method combines decision procedures for first-order theories over disjoint signatures into a single decision procedure for the union theory. To be correct, the method requires that the component theories be stably infinite. This restriction makes the method inapplicable to many interesting theories such as, for instance, theories having only finite models.

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We introduce a new method (derived from model theoretic general combination procedures in automated deduction) for proving fusion decidability in modal systems. We apply it to show fusion decidability in case not only the boolean connectives, but also a universal modality and nominals are shared symbols.

Abstract. Basically, the connection of two many-sorted theories is obtained by taking their disjoint union, and then connecting the two parts through connection functions that must behave like homomorphisms on the shared signature. We determine conditions under which decidability of the validity of universal formulae in the component theories transfers to their connection. In addition, we consider variants of the basic connection scheme. 1

Previous results for combining decision procedures for the word problem in the non-disjoint case do not apply to equational theories induced by modal logics---whose combination is not disjoint since they share the theory of Boolean algebras. Conversely, decidability results for the fusion of modal logics are strongly tailored towards the special theories at hand, and thus do not generalize to other equational theories.

this paper. On the one hand, dening a semantics for the combined system may depend on methods and results from formal logic and universal algebra. On the other hand, an ecient combination of the actual constraint solvers often requires the possibility of communication and cooperation between the solvers.

Decision procedures are algorithms that can reason about the validity or satisfiability of logical formulae in a given decidable theory, and that always terminate with a positive or negative answer.