An Interval-Based Knowledge Model and Query Language for Temporal Information

Time plays a crucial role in describing dynamic domain and resources on the Web. Most of current ontology languages, without notion of time or change, can only describe domain knowledge in a static sense. In order to bring structure to time-varying information, we propose an interval-based knowledge model (IKM), which is composed of a temporal knowledge schema, temporal integrity constraints and an interpretation structure. In the IKM, a group of expressive temporal constructs are provided to capture the temporal features of concepts, attributes and relationships; a group of rules are defined to enrich expressivity of the model; formal meaning is given to the model via an interpretation with model-theoretical semantics. A high-level query language is defined on the model, too.