Integrated Representation of Temporal Intervals and Durations for the Semantic Web

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.