Chapter 12 Temporal Representation and Reasoning

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter presents many ways in which temporal phenomena can be modeled, described, reasoned about, and applied. The chapter describes the use of temporal reasoning in artificial intelligence (AI) and presents an alternative logic-based view of temporal logics. . It discusses languages for talking about such temporal representations and their properties; these languages are forms of temporal logic. This chapter discusses the problem of reasoning about descriptions given in these temporal languages and highlights a number of significant techniques. The chapter also outlines the application areas for temporal representation and reasoning. Although quantification in classic first-order logic is typically used to quantify over a particular data domain, the additional aspect of an underlying temporal structure provides a further possibility in temporal logics—that is, the ability to quantify over some aspects of the structure. The term “hybrid logic” is used to refer to logical systems comprising a hybrid of modal/temporal and classic aspects.