Later: managing temporal information efficiently

Abstract

The Later (LAyered TEmporal Reasoner) system is a general-purpose manager of temporal information which provides a high-level interface language. Later works as a specialized temporal module loosely coupled with other modules to deal with time in different tasks. The Later knowledge server operates as a cooperative agent for use by various problem solvers (or applications) that need to deal with time. Its clear, easy-to-use interface language lets users easily manipulate and query a temporal knowledge base. Later's predictable behavior means that temporal reasoning is correct and complete, and that reasoning is computationally tractable. Its query processing is efficient; in fact, query processing is the basis of the integration with other reasoning tasks.