Pietro Sala Ph.D.

Associate Professor


Department of Computer Science, University of Verona
Office: Room 1.61
Ca' Vignal 2
strada le Grazie 15
I - 37134 Verona - VR - Italy
e-mail: pietro.sala AT univr.it
phone: ++39 045 802 7850
fax: ++39 045 802 7068

OFFICE HOURS: Friday, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM,

On this page:

Education

Short Bio

Pietro Sala was born in 1981. In 2003 he received the Bachelor Degree in Computer Science by the University of Udine. In 2006 he received the Master Degree in Computer Science by the University of Udine. In 2010 he received the Ph.D. in Computer Science by the department of Computer Science of the University of Udine under the supervion of prof. Angelo Montanari. From March 2010 to February 2012 he was Post-Doc fellow at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Verona under the supervision of prof. Carlo Combi. From March 2012 to February 2013 he was Post-Doc fellow at the Department of Diagnostics and Public Health of the University of Verona under the supervision of prof. Ugo Moretti. From March 2013 to June 2016 he was Post-Doc fellow at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Verona under the supervision of prof. Carlo Combi. From July 2016 to November 2019 he was Temporary Assistant Professor Junior (RTD-A) at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Verona. From December 2019 to November 2022 he was Temporary Assistant Professor Senior (RTD-B) at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Verona.

Current position: since December 2022, he works as an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Verona.

National Academic Qualification (01/A1): on the 15th of June 2023 he attained the National Academic Qualification as Full Professor in Mathematical Logic (01/A1).

National Academic Qualification (09/H1): on the 5th of June 2023 he attained the National Academic Qualification as Full Professor in Computer Engineering (09/H1).

Research Interests

Main research interests may be organized into three strongly related macro arguments.

Temporal Logics

This research interest focuses on the study of decidability of the model checking, satisfiability problems and synthesis problems for temporal logics. The main topics of study are the following:

Temporal Data-Mining and its application to Biomedical domains

This research interest focuses on the study and implementation of algorithms for extracting temporal information from large quantities of data borrowed from the biomedical domains. The study is both methodological and practical. On one side it studies the best way of representing concise and significative information about the evolution of data in temporal databases. Then it evaluates the computational complexity of extracting such knowledge and proposes a efficient algorithms for performing such operations. Finally, a prototype is developed and information are extracted from data provided by real world biomediacal applications. In order to prove the usefulness of such approach a constant validation by domain experts (e.g., physicians, pharmacologists and psychiatrists in this case) is performed. The main topics of study are the following:

Modelling and checking temporal properties in Business Processes

This research interest focuses on modelling and verifying temporal properties on processes represented as Business process Modelling and Notation (BPMN). Using BPMN powerful and intuitive notation we are able to best represent real-world scenarios in various time critical domains domains such as Emergency Medicine. In such domains the efficient interaction among resources is mandatory and thus time plays a crucial role. On one hand the study aims to introduce constructs in BPMN that express complex temporal constrains between the execution of tasks. On the other hand the study focuses on verifying temporal constraints on BPMN process via formal methods (e.g., temporal logics, model checking and automata).

Publications

Additional information about Pietro Sala's publications may be found in DBLP, Google Scholar and Scopus as well as in other sites of this kind.

Peer - reviewed papers in International Conferences

[c51] Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Gabriele Puppis, Pietro Sala. The Logic of Prefixes and Suffixes is Elementary under Homogeneity. LICS 2023. 1-12

[c50] Beatrice Amico, Carlo Combi, Romeo Rizzi, Pietro Sala. Discovering Predictive Dependencies on Multi-Temporal Relations. TIME 2023. 4:1-4:19

[c49] Manuel Medina, Pietro Sala. On the early detection of Sepsis in MIMIC-III. ICHI 2021. 171-180

[c48] Laura Bozzelli, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Pspace-Completeness of the Temporal Logic of Sub-Intervals and Suffixes. TIME 2021. 9:1-9:19

[c47] Laura Bozzelli, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Adding the Relation Meets to the Temporal Logic of Prefixes and Infixes makes it EXPSPACE-Complete. GandALF 2021. 179-194

[c46] Laura Bozzelli, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. On a Temporal Logic of Prefixes and Infixes. MFCS 2020. 21:1-21:14

[c45]Carlo Combi, Barbara Oliboni, Pietro Sala. Customizing BPMN Diagrams Using Timelines. TIME 2019. 5:1-5:17

[c44]Nicola Gigante, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. A Novel Automata-theoretic Approach to Timeline-based Planning. KR 2018. 541-550

[c43]Carlo Combi, Pietro Sala, Francesca Zerbato. A Logical Formalization of Time-Critical Processes with Resources. BPM (Forum) 2018. 20-36.

[c42]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Satisfiability and Model Checking for the Logic of Sub-Intervals under the Homogeneity Assumption. ICALP 2017. 120:1-120:14

[c41]Carlo Combi, Matteo Mantovani, Pietro Sala. Discovering Quantitative Temporal Functional Dependencies on Clinical Data. ICHI 2017. 248-257

[c40]Dario Della Monica, Nicola Gigante, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Bounded Timed Propositional Temporal Logic with Past Captures Timeline-based Planning with Bounded Constraints. IJCAI 2017. 1008-1014

[c39]Carlo Combi, Pietro Sala, Francesca Zerbato. Driving time-dependent paths in clinical BPMN processes. SAC 2017. 743-750

[c38]Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Beyond $\omega$BS-regular Languages: $\omega$T-regular Expressions and Counter-Check Automata. GandALF 2017. 223-237

[c37]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Interval Temporal Logic Model Checking: The Border Between Good and Bad HS Fragments. IJCAR 2016. 389-405

[c36]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Interval vs. Point Temporal Logic Model Checking. an Expressiveness Comparison. FSTTCS 2016: 26:1-26:14

[c35]Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Aniello Murano, Pietro Sala. Prompt Interval Temporal Logic. JELIA 2016. 207-222

[c34]Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Model Checking Well-Behaved Fragments of HS: The (Almost) Final Picture. KR 2016. 473-483

[c33]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Model Checking the Logic of Allen's Relations Meets and Started-by is PNP-Complete. GandALF 2016. 76-90

[c32]Emilio Munoz-Velasco, Mercedes Pelegrin-Garcia, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. On Coarser Interval Temporal Logics and their Satisfiability Problem. CAEPIA 2015. 105-115

[c31]Pietro Sala, Carlo Combi, Matteo Cuccato, Andrea Galvani, Alberto Sabaini. A Framework for Mining Evolution Rules and Its Application to the Clinical Domain. ICHI 2015. 293-302

[c30]Davide Bresolin, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. On the Complexity of Fragments of the Modal Logic of Allen's Relations over Dense Structures. LATA 2015. 511-523

[c29]Carlo Combi, Romeo Rizzi, Pietro Sala. The Price of Evolution in Temporal Databases. TIME 2015. 47-58

[c28]Angelo Montanari, Gabriele Puppis, Pietro Sala. Decidability of the Interval Temporal Logic $\mathsf{A\bar{A}B\bar{B}}$ over the Rationals. MFCS (1) 2014. 451-463

[c27]Angelo Montanari, Marco Pazzaglia, Pietro Sala. Metric Propositional Neighborhood Logic with an Equivalence Relation. TIME 2014. 49-58

[c26]Pietro Sala. Approximate Interval-Based Temporal Dependencies: The Complexity Landscape. TIME 2014. 69-78

[c25]Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Interval-based Synthesis. GandALF 2014. 102-115

[c24]Carlo Combi, Paolo Parise, Pietro Sala, Giuseppe Pozzi. Mining Approximate Temporal Functional Dependencies Based on Pure Temporal Grouping. ICDM Workshops 2013. 258-265

[c23]Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Interval Logics and $\omega$B-Regular Languages. LATA 2013. 431-443

[c22]Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Adding an Equivalence Relation to the Interval Logic ABB: Complexity and Expressiveness. LICS 2013. 193-202

[c21]Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. The Importance of the Past in Interval Temporal Logics: The Case of Propositional Neighborhood Logic. Logic Programs, Norms and Action 2012. 79-102

[c20]Davide Bresolin, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Interval Temporal Logics over Finite Linear Orders: the Complete Picture. ECAI 2012. 199-204

[c19]Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. An Optimal Tableau System for the Logic of Temporal Neighborhood over the Reals. TIME 2012. 39-46

[c18]Davide Bresolin, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Interval Temporal Logics over Strongly Discrete Linear Orders: the Complete Picture. GandALF 2012. 155-168

[c17]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. What's Decidable about Halpern and Shoham's Interval Logic? The Maximal Fragment ABBL. LICS 2011. 387-396

[c16]Carlo Combi, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. A Uniform Framework for Temporal Functional Dependencies with Multiple Granularities. SSTD 2011. 404-421

Peer - reviewed papers in International Journals

[j25]Laura Bozzelli, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. The addition of temporal neighborhood makes the logic of prefixes and sub-intervals EXPSPACE-complete. Logical Methods in Computer Science. 20(1) (2024)

[j24]Laura Bozzelli, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Pspace-completeness of the temporal logic of sub-intervals and suffixes. Information and Computation. 294: 105083 (2023)

[j23]Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. An interval temporal logic characterization of extended ω-regular languages. Theoretical Computer Science 962: 113929 (2023)

[j22]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Satisfiability and Model Checking for the Logic of Sub-Intervals under the Homogeneity Assumption. Logical Methods in Computer Science 18(1) (2022)

[j21]Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Reactive synthesis from interval temporal logic specifications. Theoretical Computer Science 899: 48-79 (2022)

[j20] Antonino Aparo, Pietro Sala, Vincenzo Bonnici, Rosalba Giugno. TEDAR: Temporal dynamic signal detection of adverse reactions. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. 122: 102212 (2021).

[j19] Carlo Combi, Romeo Rizzi, and Pietro Sala. Checking Sets of Pure Evolving Association Rules Fundamenta Informaticae. 178(4): 283-313 (2021).

[j18] Pietro Sala, Carlo Combi, Matteo Mantovani and Romeo Rizzi. Discovering Evolving Temporal Information: Theory and Application to Clinical Databases SN Computer Science volume 1, Article number: 153 (2020).

[j17]David Barozzini, David de Frutos-Escrig, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari and Pietro Sala. Beyond omega-regular languages: omegaT-regular expressions and their automata and logic counterparts Theoretical Computer Science. 813: 270-304 (2020).

[j16]Davide Bresolin, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Decidability and Complexity of the Fragments of the Modal Logic of Allen’s Relations over the Rationals Information and Computation. 266: 97-125 (2019).

[j15]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Interval vs. Point Temporal Logic Model Checking: An Expressiveness Comparison ACM Transactions on Computational Logic. 20(1): 4:1-4:31 (2019).

[j14]Emilio Muñoz-Velasco, Mercedes Pelegrín, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco, Ionel Eduard Stan. On Coarser Interval Temporal Logics Artificial Intelligence. 266: 1-26 (2019).

[j13]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Which Fragments of the Interval Temporal Logic HS are Tractable in Model Checking? Theoretical Computer Science. 764: 125-144 (2019).

[j12]Laura Bozzelli, Alberto Molinari, Angelo Montanari, Adriano Peron, Pietro Sala. Model Checking for Fragments of the Interval Temporal Logic HS at the Low Levels of the Polynomial Time Hierarchy. Information and Computation. 262(Part): 241-264 (2018)

[j11]Carlo Combi, Pietro Sala. Mining approximate interval-based temporal dependencies. Acta Inf. 53(6-8). 547-585 (2016)

[j10]Angelo Montanari, Marco Pazzaglia, Pietro Sala. Metric propositional neighborhood logic with an equivalence relation. Acta Inf. 53(6-8). 621-648 (2016)

[j9]Angelo Montanari, Marco Pazzaglia, Pietro Sala. Adding one or more equivalence relations to the interval temporal logic. Theor. Comput. Sci. 629. 116-134 (2016)

[j8]Carlo Combi, Matteo Mantovani, Alberto Sabaini, Pietro Sala, Francesco Amaddeo, Ugo Moretti, Giuseppe Pozzi. Mining approximate temporal functional dependencies with pure temporal grouping in clinical databases. Comp. in Bio. and Med. 62. 306-324 (2015)

[j7]Angelo Montanari, Gabriele Puppis, Pietro Sala. A decidable weakening of Compass Logic based on cone-shaped cardinal directions. Logical Methods in Computer Science 11(4) (2015)

[j6]Carlo Combi, Pietro Sala. Interval-based temporal functional dependencies: specification and verification. Ann. Math. Artif. Intell. 71(1-3). 85-130 (2014)

[j5]Davide Bresolin, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Interval temporal logics over strongly discrete linear orders: Expressiveness and complexity. Theor. Comput. Sci. 560. 269-291 (2014)

[j4]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Optimal decision procedures for MPNL over finite structures, the natural numbers, and the integers. Theor. Comput. Sci. 493. 98-115 (2013)

[j3]Davide Bresolin, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. On Begins, Meets and before. Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci. 23(3). 559-583 (2012)

[j2]Davide Bresolin, Valentin Goranko, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Tableaux for Logics of Subinterval Structures over Dense Orderings. J. Log. Comput. 20(1). 133-166 (2010)

[j1]Valentin Goranko, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. A general tableau method for propositional interval temporal logics: Theory and implementation. J. Applied Logic 4(3). 305-330 (2006)


[c15]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Optimal Tableau Systems for Propositional Neighborhood Logic over All, Dense, and Discrete Linear Orders. TABLEAUX 2011. 73-87

[c14]Carlo Combi, Pietro Sala. Temporal Functional Dependencies Based on Interval Relations. TIME 2011. 23-30

[c13]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. An Optimal Decision Procedure for MPNL over the Integers. GandALF 2011. 192-206

[c12]Angelo Montanari, Gabriele Puppis, Pietro Sala. Maximal Decidable Fragments of Halpern and Shoham's Modal Logic of Intervals. ICALP (2) 2010. 345-356

[c11]Angelo Montanari, Gabriele Puppis, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Decidability of the Interval Temporal Logic ABB over the Natural Numbers. STACS 2010. 597-608

[c10]Angelo Montanari, Ian Pratt-Hartmann, Pietro Sala. Decidability of the Logics of the Reflexive Sub-interval and Super-interval Relations over Finite Linear Orders. TIME 2010. 27-34

[c9]Davide Bresolin, Pietro Sala, Dario Della Monica, Angelo Montanari, Guido Sciavicco. A Decidable Spatial Generalization of Metric Interval Temporal Logic. TIME 2010. 95-102

[c8]Davide Bresolin, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Begin, After, and Later: a Maximal Decidable Interval Temporal Logic. GANDALF 2010. 72-88

[c7]Davide Bresolin, Valentin Goranko, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Complete and Terminating Tableau for the Logic of Proper Subinterval Structures Over Dense Orderings. Electr. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 231. 131-151 (2009)

[c6]Angelo Montanari, Gabriele Puppis, Pietro Sala. A Decidable Spatial Logic with Cone-Shaped Cardinal Directions. CSL 2009. 394-408

[c5]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. A Tableau-Based System for Spatial Reasoning about Directional Relations. TABLEAUX 2009. 123-137

[c4]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala, Guido Sciavicco. Optimal Tableaux for Right Propositional Neighborhood Logic over Linear Orders. JELIA 2008. 62-75

[c3]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. An optimal tableau for Right Propositional Neighborhood Logic over Trees. TIME 2008. 110-117

[c2]Davide Bresolin, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. An Optimal Tableau-Based Decision Algorithm for Propositional Neighborhood Logic. STACS 2007. 549-560

[c1]Davide Bresolin, Valentin Goranko, Angelo Montanari, Pietro Sala. Tableau Systems for Logics of Subinterval Structures over Dense Orderings. TABLEAUX 2007. 73-89

Professional Activities

Other professional activities are listed below.

Teaching

Teaching activities ordered by academic year:

Students

List of the co-supervised master theses in Computer Science :

Committees

Chair of the following International Conferences:
Member of the following committees of International Conferences:

Academic Councils

Member of the following committees:

Invited Relations

Invited relations so far:

Projects


Principal investigator of the project granted by the Veneto ''Regional Operative Program'' (POR) and funded by the ''European Regional Development Fund'' (FESR) entitled:
''Tecniche di Data Mining e controllo del Modello per la previsione del comportamento dei clienti'' in collaboration with CRMVillage.

Principal investigator of the joint-project granted and funded by the University of Verona in 2018 entitled:
''Tecniche di Data Mining e Model Checking per predire il comportamento dei clienti in sistemi CRM process-driven'' in collaboration with CRMVillage.

Member of the following National/International research projects:

Review Activity

Reviews for the following international journals and conferences:
Fundamenta Informaticae Science of Computer Programming (SCICO) PPDP 2016 LICS 2015 HSCC 2015 GandALF 2013 TIME 2013 Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research (JHIR) Journal Of Logic And Computation (JLC) Journal of Applied Logic (JAL) Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (AMAI) Mobile Information Systems (MIS) ACM BCB 2017 IJCAI 2018 CiE 2018 Distributed and Parallel Databases (DAPD) Journal of Biomedical Informatics (JBI) CONCUR 2018

Spin-off

Involved in the following companies:

Awards

Recipient of the following awards: