RE: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations

In fact the ‘there are no instants’ idea comes from Allen’s 1983 paper “Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals”.
Müller and Broßheit credit Allen for the comparison functions, but should probably also have made clear that the whole interval-based idea is from Allen as well.

From: Little, Chris [mailto:chris.little@metoffice.gov.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, 12 August 2015 7:12 PM
To: Frans Knibbe <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>; public-sdw-wg@w3.org
Cc: Svensson, Lars <L.Svensson@dnb.de>; Karl Grossner <karlg@stanford.edu>; Cox, Simon (L&W, Highett) <Simon.Cox@csiro.au>; Kerry.Taylor@acm.org; Ed Parsons <eparsons@google.com>
Subject: RE: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations

Frans, and WG members,

Some background info for your Proposal 1 below, ‘support for intervals as instants’:

The OGC Temporal Domain WG last year approved a discussion paper from Matthias Müller and Peter Broßheit basically proposing the view that there are no instants – all instants are just (small) intervals, and showing that everything hangs together, and gives a firm mathematical/logical basis for some assumptions people had made in existing standards, such as WMS, about intervals and the Allen algebra.

It is OGC 14-107 ‘A Conceptual Model and Text-based Notation for Temporal Geometry’. Copy attached for those who struggle with the OGC Portal.

HTH, Chris


From: Frans Knibbe [mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl]
Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 9:46 AM
To: public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>
Subject: Re: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations

Hello all,

Can we direct this discussion towards making concrete proposals for changing requirements or adding new ones? That would help the process of improving the UCR document, and it could help in keeping the upcoming meeting focussed.

  1.  Making it possible to deal with uncertainty in time is already covered by the temporal vagueness<http://w3c.github.io/sdw/UseCases/SDWUseCasesAndRequirements.html#TemporalVagueness> requirement. However, ISSUE-26<https://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/track/issues/26> was raised because it needs clarification. Shall we try to address that issue now, since we are on the subject? It seems to me that more and diverse examples could do the job. Or should we go as far as pointing towards a solution, e.g. making it possible to use intervals instead of instants for hasBeginning and hasEnd?
  2.  A new requirement was proposed: "OWL Time should be updated to conform to the 2012 update of OWL datatypes." The requirement seems clear enough. Is it phrased correctly? Or is better to just say that OWL time should support xsd:dateTimeStamp?
  3.  A new requirement was proposed, for temporal relationships. Perhaps something like "There should be support for temporal relationships (Allen's interval algebra)." But the funny thing is that it is already there. I feel that if we want to add this requirement it should at least come with an explanation of why this requirement is made explicit, because in general we do not repeat exising OWL time functionality in our requirements.
Greetings,
Frans



2015-08-12 8:13 GMT+02:00 Karl Grossner <karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>>:
Dear all,

I am unable to attend 6am meetings or F2Fs (no budget), so although I have
a keen interest in temporal representation and incorporating time into
spatial representations, I don¹t know how I can play an active part.
Anyway, I have added a short section to the bottom of the Time Wish List
on the wiki with the OWL-Time extensions I¹d like to see. The Library of
Congress EDTF work is very interesting however it doesn¹t include
intervals bounded by intervals, which I think is a priority; several other
good ideas, though.

https://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/wiki/Time_Wish_List


Best
Karl


‹
Karl Grossner, PhD
Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research
Stanford University Libraries
http://kgeographer.org





On 8/11/15, 12:16 PM, "Svensson, Lars" <L.Svensson@dnb.de<mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de>> wrote:
>Kerry, all,
>The Library of Congress has proposed the EDTF (Extended
> Date/Time Format) as an extension to ISO 8601 [1]. Their proposal is
>also of relevance for ³fuzzy² dates.
>[1]
>http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/pre-submission.html

>Best,
>Lars
>*** Lesen. Hören. Wissen. Deutsche Nationalbibliothek ***
>
>--
>
>Dr. Lars G. Svensson
>Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
>Informationsinfrastruktur und Bestanderhaltung
>Adickesallee 1
>D-60322 Frankfurt am Main
>Telefon: +49-69-1525-1752<tel:%2B49-69-1525-1752>
>Telefax: +49-69-1525-1799<tel:%2B49-69-1525-1799>
>mailto:l.svensson@dnb.de<mailto:l.svensson@dnb.de>
>http://www.dnb.de

>
>
>From: Little, Chris [mailto:chris.little@metoffice.gov.uk<mailto:chris.little@metoffice.gov.uk>]
>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 7:35 PM
>To: Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>
>Cc: karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>; frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>; public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>;
>Svensson, Lars; Simon.Cox@csiro.au<mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>
>Subject: RE: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations
>
>
>
>Kerry,
>Happy to present one or two slides highlighting the OGC Temporal DWG
>thinking/guidance
> on Œtemporal regimes¹, but still work in progress.
>Chris
>
>From:Simon.Cox@csiro.au [mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au<mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>]
>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 1:21 PM
>To:
>Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org> <mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>>
>Cc:
>karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu> <mailto:karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>>; frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>;
>public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>;
>L.Svensson@dnb.de<mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de> <mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de<mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de>>
>Subject: RE: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations
>
>
>
>Kerry ­
>
>Am more than happy to re-present the talk I gave (remotely) in Barcelona,
>if you
> think it would help. Its only 5 slides, including the title, so wouldn¹t
>take up much time.
>
>
>If it were helpful, I guess I could extend it a little to introduce the
>comparison
> predicates (inside, before, during, equals, finishes, meets, overlaps,
>starts) which are clearly of interest in this discussion but were not the
>subject of my paper.
>
>Simon
>From:
> Kerry Taylor [mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>]
>
>Sent: Monday, 10 August 2015 10:38 PM
>To: Cox, Simon (L&W, Highett) <Simon.Cox@csiro.au<mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>>
>Cc: <karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>> <karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>>; <Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>>
><Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>>;
> <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>> <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>>;
><public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>> <public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>>;
> <L.Svensson@dnb.de<mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de>> <L.Svensson@dnb.de<mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de>>
>Subject: Re: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations
>
>
>
>I am going to put ISSUE-14 on the agenda for this week. I agree that it
>is well within our scope to change OWL-Time as we see fit, although
> because  it has a large user base we should aim for backwards
>compatibility.   Dealing with "fuzzy time" seems necessary and is driven
>by several use cases.
>
>
>
>But for now, we are just aiming to clarify the requirement as described
>by Frans at the bottom of this thread.
>
>
>
>Karl, Simon, Chris why dont you nominate yourselves  for a " technical
>talk " on the wiki and we will give these ideas some air time! simon,
> you did a short one at the F2F, but repeating  in this context would not
>hurt.
>
>
>
>Lars, I do hope you can come!
>
>
>
>Kerry
>
>
>
>
>
>On 10 Aug 2015, at 10:04 am, <Simon.Cox@csiro.au<mailto:Simon.Cox@csiro.au>> wrote:
>
>
>Ø
>OWL-Time was published in 2006 and seems fixed.
>I already proposed a small extension to allow for non-Gregorian
>calendars, with
> the essential requirement that it preserves the existing encoding [1].
>I would suggest that we look at these other concerns with a similar goal
>in mind
> ­ to protect existing users of OWL-Time, but where possible to also
>accommodate the richer requirements.
>
>
>Simon
>
>From:
> Karl Grossner [mailto:karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>]
>
>Sent: Sunday, 9 August 2015 1:21 AM
>To: Kerry Taylor <Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>>; Frans Knibbe
><frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>>
>Cc: SDW WG Public List <public-sdw-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-sdw-wg@w3.org>>; Lars Svensson
><L.Svensson@dnb.de<mailto:L.Svensson@dnb.de>>
>Subject: Re: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations
>
>
>
>Frans, Kerry -
>
>
>
>OWL-time restricts the range of the hasBeginning and hasEnd properties to
>Instant. If that range were extended to include
> Interval, a great many of the temporal expressions we call ³fuzzy² (a
>misnomer, uncertain is better) could be encoded that can¹t be now,
>including:
>
>
>* ³[circa | early | mid | late]  [month | year | century]²
>
>The 4-part pattern (earliestStart, latestStart, earliestEnd, latestEnd)
>is as old as the hills elsewhere and intuitive - one
> sees it in timelines, from 18th century hand drawn ones of Priestley [1]
>to MIT¹s Simile Timeline.
>
>
>
>As noted, other kinds of uncertainty are handled by Allen¹s relations:
>before, during, after, etc. I would say they don¹t
> articulate actual relations well enough, but they do a basic job [2].
>
>
>
>OWL-Time was published in 2006 and seems fixed. I agree it
>should be extended. I guess I¹m not clear on how the expression of the
>requirement in this group¹s work will impact that standard. In the
>meantime, ad hoc data formats (like the Topotime extension to GeoJSON, or
> PeriodO) are tackling  the requirement, coupled with software to
>interpret data expressed in the new model(s).
>
>
>
>A more fundamental issue is that representation requirements for places
>and temporal entities are symmetrical: places have
> essential temporal attributes and occurrences have essential spatial
>attributes. Events are geospatial phenomena; historical periods are
>aggregations of geospatial phenomena. But I digressŠ
>
>
>
>Cheers
>
>Karl
>
>
>
>[1] http://math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/images/priestley.gif

>
>[2] For example, ³before² could be intervalBefore, intervalStarts, or
>intervalOverlaps. A really nice treatment of this is
> in Freksa, C. (1992). Temporal reasoning based on semi-intervals.
>Artificial Intelligence, 54: 199-227
>
>
>
>On 8/8/15, 7:32 AM, "Kerry Taylor" <Kerry.Taylor@acm.org<mailto:Kerry.Taylor@acm.org>>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>>Frans,
>>
>>This requirement is asking for temporal relations which, as you suggest,
>>are already in OWL-time (Allen's). I think that it
>> is perfectly reasonable to  leave that in as a requirement for our work
>>even so. There were several relevant use cases.
>>
>>
>>
>>The "xsd formats" part of the requirement came specifically from use
>>case
>>http://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/wiki/Working_Use_Cases#Publishing_Cultural

>>_Heritage_Data_.28Best_Practice.2C_Time.2C_Coverage.29
>>
>>submitted by Lars, where he said that the xsd time formats available in
>>OWL are insufficient.  I suspect, however, that OWL-time
>> addresses, or should address, that need, so perhaps the "( xsd
>>formats)" part of the requirement can just be  dropped.  Almost
>>certainly I was the one who wrote it, rather cryptically.
>>
>>
>>
>>Having said that, there is indeed a (fresh and separate) requirement
>>that I think should replace that cryptic comment. OWL
>> was updated in 2012 to adopt the updated 2012 xsd datatypes, but
>>owl-time remains pre-2012. Xsd:datetimeStamp, at least, should be
>>handled in OWL-time ( as OWL does).  A requirement like "conform to the
>>2012 update of OWL datatypes" would do, and could apply
>> to both owl-time and also ssn.
>>
>>
>>
>>On the fuzzy time requirement, I wonder whether the intervals that can
>>be represented in owl-time are good enough? Just wondering
>> -- this is not a requirements question.
>>
>>
>>@Lars, will you be able to come to the meeting this week?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Kerry
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On 7 Aug 2015, at 11:33 pm, Frans Knibbe <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Hello Karl,
>>
>>
>>
>>Should the OWL time ontology make it possible to work with vague or
>>fuzzy time, which already is a requirement, do you think
>> there is a need for an additional requirement?
>>
>>
>>
>>I am fully convinced that time is important and that in many cases time
>>can not be encoded in ISO 8601. But the main issue
>> in this discussion is getting the requirement (if there is one)
>>straight. At least the editors of the UCR document are not clear on what
>>is meant by the proposed requirement. Do you see a clear requirement and
>>could you explain it? Perhaps there is something
>> useful in Topotime that is not in OWL Time and is not coveredr by the
>>requirements currently in the UCR document?
>>
>>
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Frans
>>
>>2015-08-04 17:56 GMT+02:00 Karl Grossner <karlg@stanford.edu<mailto:karlg@stanford.edu>>:
>>
>>Hello,
>>
>>Don't know whether or how this may be useful in the business of SDW;
>>I've been largely absent
>> from the group due to timing of meetings:
>>
>>Use Case 4.17 states, "There is no framework available to describe fuzzy
>>temporal information."
>> There are, however two nascent efforts that will accommodate
>>'fuzziness' in varying degree: the
>>Periods, Organized project [1] and Topotime [2]. In both cases,
>>timespans can be described not only by pairs of instants, but also by
>>pairs of intervals. This pattern has appeared elsewhere (e.g. in the
>>SIMILE Timeline software). Additionally, Topotime
>> includes operators like before (<), after (>), and about (~), and
>>differentiates 'some time/duration within' and 'throughout.' It is
>>currently in active (re-)development as a GeoJSON extension [3].
>>
>>All phenomena occurring at a location have temporal attributes of
>>co-equal importance (which isn't
>> to say we always know them, or care, or that people aren't prone to
>>using spatial snapshots). But general models of natural phenomena should
>>permit representing their most important characteristics, including the
>>'where' and 'when' of them. What motivates
>> Topotime is that in historical data we are very frequently representing
>>entities with shapes and positions that change over time, and for which
>>spatial-temporal extents are uncertain in various ways.
>>
>>
>>Happy to discuss further - in or out of this thread :^)
>>
>>Karl
>>
>>[1]
>>http://perio.do

>>[2]
>>http://dh.stanford.edu/topotime

>>[3]
>>https://github.com/kgeographer/topotime

>>
>>
>>--
>>Karl Grossner, PhD
>>Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Research
>>Stanford University Libraries
>>http://kgeographer.org

>>________________________________________
>>
>>From:
>> Frans Knibbe <frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>>
>>Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 6:33 AM
>>To: SDW WG Public List
>>Subject: ISSUE 14: temporal reasoning and relations
>>
>>
>>
>>Hello,
>>
>>
>>
>>The oldest remaining issue with the UCR document is
>>ISSUE-14 <http://www.w3.org/2015/spatial/track/issues/14>: Not
>> clear Time req. - temporal reasoning and relations (xsd formats). Until
>>now the issue had no related e-mail thread. This message changes that. I
>>hope we can all think about this issue and work towards resolving it -
>>hopefully in next week's meeting.
>>
>>
>>
>>My personal understanding is that this issue could be intended to lead
>>to addition of a new requirement that is the temporal
>> equivalent of the spatial operators requirement
>><http://w3c.github.io/sdw/UseCases/SDWUseCasesAndRequirements.html#Spatia

>>lOperators>.
>> Especially when considering inexact dates and times I think it would be
>>good to have operators like 'before', 'after', 'during' at one's
>>disposal. But when looking at the Time Ontology I see such concepts are
>>already there. I understand them to be only usable
>> with exact dates and times, but there already is a requirement for
>>temporal
>> vagueness
>><http://w3c.github.io/sdw/UseCases/SDWUseCasesAndRequirements.html#Tempor

>>alVagueness>. Could this mean there is no reason to add another
>>requirement?
>>
>>
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Frans
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>
>>Frans Knibbe
>>
>>Geodan
>>
>>President Kennedylaan 1
>>
>>1079 MB Amsterdam (NL)
>>
>>
>>
>>T
>>+31 (0)20 - 5711 347<tel:%2B31%20%280%2920%20-%205711%20347> <tel:%2B31%20%280%2920%20-%205711%20347>
>>
>>E
>>frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>
>>
>>www.geodan.nl<http://www.geodan.nl> <http://www.geodan.nl>
>>
>>disclaimer <http://www.geodan.nl/disclaimer>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>
>>Frans Knibbe
>>
>>Geodan
>>
>>President Kennedylaan 1
>>
>>1079 MB Amsterdam (NL)
>>
>>
>>
>>T +31 (0)20 - 5711 347<tel:%2B31%20%280%2920%20-%205711%20347>
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>>E
>>frans.knibbe@geodan.nl<mailto:frans.knibbe@geodan.nl>
>>
>>www.geodan.nl<http://www.geodan.nl> <http://www.geodan.nl>
>>
>>disclaimer <http://www.geodan.nl/disclaimer>
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>>



--
Frans Knibbe
Geodan
President Kennedylaan 1
1079 MB Amsterdam (NL)

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