A logic programming framework for modelling temporal objects

Date
1996-10
Authors
Kesim, N.
Sergot, M.
Advisor
Instructor
Source Title
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
Print ISSN
1041-4347
Electronic ISSN
1558-2191
Publisher
IEEE
Volume
8
Issue
5
Pages
724 - 741
Language
English
Type
Article
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract

We present a general approach for modeling temporal aspects of objects in a logic programming framework. Change is formulated in the context of a database which stores explicitly a record of all changes that have occurred to objects and thus (implicitly) all states of objects in the database. A snapshot of the database at any given time is an object-oriented database, in the sense that it supports an object-based data model. An object is viewed as a collection of simple atomic formulas, with support for an explicit notion of object identity, classes and inheritance. The event calculus is a treatment of time and change in first-order classical logic augmented with negation as failure. The paper develops a variant of the event calculus for representing changes to objects, including change in internal state of objects, creation and deletion of objects, and mutation of objects over time. The concluding sections present two natural and straightforward extensions, to deal with versioning of objects and schema evolution, and a sketch of implementation strategies for practical application to temporal object-oriented databases.

Course
Other identifiers
Book Title
Keywords
Object-oriented Databases, Object Versioning, Deductive Databases, Temporal Databases, Temporal Reasoning, Event Calculus, Logic Programming
Citation
Published Version (Please cite this version)