Reasoning over Conceptual Schemas and Queries in Temporal Databases

This paper introduces a new logical formalism, intended for temporal conceptual modelling, as a natural combination of the well-known description logic DLR and point-based linear temporal logic with Since and Until. The expressive power of the resulting DLRUS logic is illustrated by providing a systematic formalisation of the most important temporal entity-relationship data models appeared in the literature. We define a query language (where queries are non-recursive Datalog programs and atoms are complex DLRUS expressions) and investigate the problem of checking query containment under the constraints defined by DLRUS conceptual schemas, as well as the problems of schema satisfiability and logical implication. Although it is shown that reasoning in full DLRUS is undecidable, we identify the decidable (in a sense, maximal) fragment DLR US by allowing applications of temporal operators to formulas and entities only (but not to relation expressions). We obtain the following hierarchy of...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: SEBD
• Authors: Alessandro Artale, Enrico Franconi, Milenko Mosurovic, Frank Wolter, Michael Zakharyaschev
• Keywords: Logical Implication, Non-recursive Datalog, Query Containment, SEBD 2001, SEBD 2007