  This paper revisits the classical notion of sampling in the setting of
real-time temporal logics for the modeling and analysis of systems. The
relationship between the satisfiability of Metric Temporal Logic (MTL) formulas
over continuous-time models and over discrete-time models is studied. It is
shown to what extent discrete-time sequences obtained by sampling
continuous-time signals capture the semantics of MTL formulas over the two time
domains. The main results apply to "flat" formulas that do not nest temporal
operators and can be applied to the problem of reducing the verification
problem for MTL over continuous-time models to the same problem over
discrete-time, resulting in an automated partial practically-efficient
discretization technique.
