Joachim Steinbach

• Orderings on polynomial interpretations of operators represent a powerful technique for proving thetermination of rewriting systems. One of the main problems of polynomial orderings concerns thechoice of the right interpretation for a given rewriting system. It is very difficult to develop techniquesfor solving this problem. Here, we present three new heuristic approaches: (i) guidelines for dealingwith special classes of rewriting systems, (ii) an algorithm for choosing appropriate special polynomialsas well as (iii) an extension of the original polynomial ordering which supports the generation ofsuitable interpretations. All these heuristics will be applied to examples in order to illustrate theirpractical relevance.