Philippe Schnoebelen receives the LICS Test-of-Time Award 2022 for the article Temporal Logic with Forgettable Past co-authored with François Laroussinie (Université Paris-Cité) and Nicolas Markey (IRISA, CNRS). At the time of the writing of the article in 2002, the three authors were members of the same laboratory LSV which integrated the LMF in 2021.
The LICS - Logic in Computer Science conference is the most prestigious annual forum on theoretical and practical topics in computer science related to logic in a broad sense. The LICS Test-of-Time Award award recognizes a small number of papers from the LICS proceedings over the past 20 years (i.e., the paper in question dates from LICS 2002 and was considered this year) that have best stood the "test of time." In selecting these papers, the award committee considers the influence they have had since their publication; due to the fundamental nature of LICS work, the impact is often not felt immediately, hence the 20-year perspective.
Lasting impact on the foundations of automatic verification
According to the awarding jury, "This extraordinarily clear and elegant paper provides well-motivated and complete characterizations of succinctness and complexity of linear temporal logic with past operators and with forgettable past. It has contributed to spur a vibrant research program on logics and automata over infinite alphabets, from hardness results to the translations of logical formulas into alternating register automata, along with the attendant powerful algorithmic consequences for model checking. It has also strongly influenced the development of the field of nominal computation, and it is no exaggeration to state that the present paper has tangibly led to a number of invited talks, Dagstuhl-type workshops, research grants, academic positions, and prizes, and continues to have an ongoing and lasting impact in the areas of automata theory and the foundations of automated verification."
The award will be presented at the conference awards session LICS 2022 organized from August 2 to 5 in the framework of FLOC 2022 -- Federated Logic Conference in Haifa, Israel.