Guest Editorial. Special Issue: Temporal logic in engineering

Logic-based models are thriving within artificial intelligence. A great number of new logics have been defined, and their theory investigated. Epistemic logics introduce modal operators for knowledge or belief; deontic logics are about norms, and introduce operators of deontic necessity and possibility (i.e., obligation or prohibition). And then we have a much investigated class—temporal logics—to whose application to engineering this special issue is devoted. This kind of formalism deserves increased widespread recognition and application in engineering, a domain where other kinds of temporal models (e.g., Petri nets) are by now a fairly standard part of the modelling toolbox.

Culture-bound technological solutions: An artificial theoretic insight

Sometimes, technological solutions to practical problems are devised that conspicuously take into account the constraints to which a given culture is subjecting the particular task or the manner in which it is carried out. The culture may be a professional culture (e.g., the practice of law), or an ethnic-cum-professional culture (e.g., dance in given ethnic cultures from South-East Asia), or, again, a denominational culture prescribing an orthopraxy impinging on everyday life through, for example, prescribed abstinence from given categories of workday activities, or dietary laws. Massimo Negrotti's Theory of the artificial is a convenient framework for discussing some of these techniques. We discuss a few examples, but focus on the contrast of two that are taken from the same cultural background, namely, technological applications in compliance with Jewish Law orthopraxy. •Soya-, mycoprotein- or otherwise derived meat surrogates are an example ofnaturoid; they emulate the flavours and olfactory properties, as well as the texture and the outer and inner appearance, of the meat product (its kind, cut, form) they set out to emulate (including amenability to cooking in the usual manner for the model), while satisfying cultural dietary prohibitions. •In contrast, the Sabbath Notebook, a writing surrogate we describe in this paper, is atechnoid: it emulates a technique (writing to store alphanumeric information), while satisfying the prohibition of writing at particular times of the liturgical calendar (the Sabbath and the major holidays).

Without prejudice: opening shots and negotiating documents

Reviews case law which has provided guidance on the law relating to without prejudice communications in landlord and tenant disputes. Considers: (1) the extent to which without prejudice communications are inadmissible in subsequent litigation; (2) exceptions to the without prejudice rule; (3) the specific context in which the rule applies; (4) the need for a dispute or negotiation to have arisen; (5) the prohibition on using "without prejudice" as an opening shot; and (6) the effect of changing the negotiating basis.