Temporal Reasoning About Uncertain Worlds
This work addresses temporal reasoning for uncertain worlds, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing database and constraint management techniques without introducing major innovations.
The paper tackles the problem of managing a database of temporally scoped beliefs by presenting a program that maintains constraints, applies causal rules, and ensures consistency, with an example of implementing a belief calculus.
We present a program that manages a database of temporally scoped beliefs. The basic functionality of the system includes maintaining a network of constraints among time points, supporting a variety of fetches, mediating the application of causal rules, monitoring intervals of time for the addition of new facts, and managing data dependencies that keep the database consistent. At this level the system operates independent of any measure of belief or belief calculus. We provide an example of how an application program mi9ght use this functionality to implement a belief calculus.