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Representation and Reasoning with Multi-Point Events

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Abstract

Allen's Interval Algebra (IA) and Vilain & Kautz's Point Algebra (PA) consider an interval and a point as basic temporal entities (i.e., events) respectively. However, in many situations we need to deal with recurring events that include multiple points, multiple intervals or combinations of points and intervals. In this paper, we present a framework to model recurring events as multi-point events (MPEs) by extending point algebra. The reasoning tasks are formulated as binary constraint satisfaction problems. We propose a polynomial time algorithm (based on van Beek's algorithm) for finding all feasible relations. For the problem of finding a consistent scenario, we propose a backtracking method with a local search heuristic. We also describe an implementation and a detail empirical evaluation of the proposed algorithms. Our empirical results indicate that the MPE-based approach performs better than the existing approaches.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Unit School of Computing and Information Technology, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia

    Rattana Wetprasit & Abdul Sattar

  2. Computer Science Program, Florida Institute of Technology, 150 W. University Blvd., Melbourne, Fl., 32901, USA

    Lina Khatib

Authors
  1. Rattana Wetprasit
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  2. Abdul Sattar
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  3. Lina Khatib
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Wetprasit, R., Sattar, A. & Khatib, L. Representation and Reasoning with Multi-Point Events. Constraints 5, 211–249 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009878632517

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