A Chinese time ontology for the Semantic Web

Representation of and reasoning with temporal knowledge are fundamental in information systems that involve changes and actions. To build such systems, a time ontology is demanded. The development of a time ontology is also an indispensable part of effort to realize the Semantic Web. Nevertheless, our practice shows that any practical time ontology is closely related with a specific calendar, culture or history. To this end, this paper presents a Chinese time ontology for knowledge systems and web services which involve temporal entities or temporal properties. First, we define a base time ontology. As a core component, it consists of a time system, a timing system, a Gregorian timing system, and a timing ontology. Upon this base ontology, other parts of the Chinese time ontology are finally constructed, including the traditional Chinese timing system, temporal representation in Chinese idiosyncratic ways, and transformation between temporal entities in the Gregorian timing system and temporal entities in the traditional Chinese timing system. We will argue that the base time ontology is not only a basic and integral part of the Chinese time ontology, but also a base for constructing other time ontologies. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.