This chapter concentrates on a challenging problem of information system specification and design, namely how to cope on a high level of abstraction with concurrent behaviour and communication as implied by distribution. Since distributed information systems are reactive and open systems maintaining data bases and applications, it is crucial to develop high-level specification techniques that can cope with data and programs as well as with concurrent workflow and communication issues. Techniques from conceptual modeling, abstract data types, concurrent processes, and communication protocols are relevant and have to be combined. In the approach presented here, temporal logic is used for specifying sequential object behaviour, and communication facilities are added for specifying interaction between concurrent objects. We study two distributed temporal logics dealing with communication in two different ways.
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