Integrated Representation of Temporal Intervals and Durations for the Semantic Web

Abstract

Representation of temporal information for the Semantic Web often involves qualitative defined information (i.e., information described using natural language terms such as "before" or "lasts longer than"), since precise dates, times and durations are not always available. A basic aspect of temporal information is duration of intervals, thus embedding duration relations into ontologies along with their semantics and reasoning rules is an important practical issue. This work proposes a new representation for intervals and their durations in ontologies by means of OWL properties and reasoning rules in SWRL embedded into the ontology. The proposed representation is based on the decomposition of Interval Duration calculus relations (INDU) offering a compact representation and a tractable reasoning mechanism. Furthermore, by embedding reasoning rules using SWRL into the ontology, reasoning semantics are an integrated part of the representation which can be easily shared and modified without requiring additional specialized reasoning software. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.