Hi,
As I already wrote in my earlier emails (attached), we don't need to invent another XML language for temporal representations and spend time on its design, development, and maintenance. Temporal representations have been already addressed by many communities and standards. There are more than enough existing languages and ontologies which we can simply reuse, as, at a closer look, there is nothing special about the representation of time in the legal domain.
It would be a poor organisational decision if we still started to develop
our own non-semantic data definition language in XML, e.g. for defining
granularities, different types of intervals, times etc. instead of using
semantic ontology languages.
(Reaction) RuleML with its generic constructs for Time, Interval and
temporal operators provides the required openness and flexibility to support
this reuse.
Looking at the examples, I do not see why we should spend time on developinga new time data definition language in XML, instead of reusing what is there:
1. "The document entered into force immediately."
Problem: we have to capture the time and the date and this datetime is
relevant for the criminal law and for checking if a such crime enter in to
the "temporal window" of validity of the law.
This is a situation "entered into force" which holds at an interval which
has as a starting point a relative time point "immediately". As explained in my previous emails Reaction RuleML supports continuous time models with
TimeInstants and discrete time models with time points resp. TimeIntervals.It allows supports different types of intervals from empty to all types of open and closed intervals.
The question for this example is what we actually want to represent. Is it
the initiating time point of the "inforce" situation, then we should use a
discrete time point. Since "immediate" is a relative time definition we need to either additionally define the reference time point to which it relates to or we need to transform it into an absolute time point.
<Time type="&ruleml;TimeInterval">< Data
xsi:type="xs:dateTime">2012-10-02T00:00:00-00:00</Data></Time>
If we want to represent the interval of "inforce" we can use an <Interval>
Defined in terms of an interval with absolute start time point and unbounded end time point
<Interval type="&LeftClosed">
<Time>< Data
xsi:type="xs:dateTime">2012-10-02T00:00:00-00:00</Data></Time>
</Interval>
Defined as an interval with a relative time using a duration. Note, we would need to specify an absolute reference time point (e.g. publication of the law) for a relative time which comes after this absolute reference time point (see #2 - temporal operators) otherwise it would change according to the current time.
<Interval type="&ruleml;LeftClosed">
< Time><Data xsi:type="xs:duration">0</Data></Time>
</Interval>
Defined as interval with user-defined temporal function called "immediately" (note, we could also refer to, e.g., a built-in function or a reference to an ontological function definition what "immediately" means etc.). Again, since "immediately" is a relative time function it would need an absolute reference time point as argument.
<Interval type="&ruleml;LeftClosed">
< Time><Expr><Fun>immediately</Fun>... definition of an absolute
reference time point for the function immediately </Expr></ Time>
</Interval>
If we actually want to do reasoning with situations we would need a more
expressive representation which supports logical calculi for reasoning about the effects of events/actions over time, such as in KR layer of Reaction RuleML which supports fluents (changeable situations). Situations such as "efficacy", "inforce" then would be modeled as fluents in Reaction RuleML and can be initiated holding true by "law of intertia" until they are terminated.
2. "This title takes effect 6 months after the date of the publication of
this Act."
This a temporal operation with a relative time point after some absolute
time point. Reaction RuleML therefore has a rich set of temporal operators
such as After, Every, Any, Timer (recurring timer) which compute absolute
and relative time points.
<After key="startEfficacyAct1">
< Time key="#publicationDateAct1">< Data
xsi:type="xs:date">2012-10-02</Data></Time>
<Time><Data xsi:type="xs:duration">6M</Data></Time>
</After>
or defined using Reaction RuleML's key reference to the definition of a
time point:
< Time key="#publicationDateAct1">< Data
xsi:type="xs:date">2012-10-02</Data></Time>
...
<After>
< Time keyref="#publicationDateAct1"/>
<Time><Data xsi:type="xs:duration">6M</Data></Time>
</After>
The temporal operator function would map the relative time "6 months" to an
absolute time point.
3. "On the 1st of April this year, the new Consumer Protection Act comes
into effect."
This is again a situation "comes into effect" like in #1. "this year" is a
relative time where we would need to define an absolute reference time point with the relative time "1st of April this year" after this absolute time point e.g. "2011-1-1" or directly replace it with the absolute date
"2011-4-1".
4."The consumer must present the application form within 31/12/2012".
It means in legal domain, often, that the endPoint is 30/12/201211.59.59.
But in the legal text we have only "31-12-2012" (e.g. captured with NLP
tools).
How to integrate this information with the nature of the interval (open on
the endPOint)?
This is an interpretation what "31-12-2012" in the legal text means in terms of a concrete data value, i.e. 30/12/201211.59.59. My interpretation would be that the time interval of the situation "consumers must present application forms" needs to be "before 30/12/201211.59.59". Reaction RuleML therefore has a rich set of interval operators (based on Allen's interval calculus) such as During, Overlaps, Preceds etc. So we can simply use these if we want to say that this obligation interval needs to be before this end time point. If we just want to say that the time point when the application form is actually presented (i.e. when the event occurs) is before 30/12/201211.59.59, we can simply use the standard arithmetic built-ins.
Moreover, the existing time ontologies and also the ISO standard for calendar datetimes in the XML datatypes (including data type facets) provide the expressiveness e.g. to define quantities such as hours, minutes, seconds, including the definition of time zones. We can simply refer to such semantic definitions in the time definition using the type attribute <Time type="...">, so that the time (data) value gets a precise semantic meaning.
Best,
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: legalruleml@lists.oasis-open.org
[mailto:legalruleml@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of monica.palmirani
Sent: Mittwoch, 24. Oktober 2012 15:03
To: legalruleml@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [legalruleml] Some notes for today
Hi,
I have tried to model some examples using the temporal model.
In my opinion inside to the TimeCharateristics block we have to add new tags
for capturing:
- temporal model (discrete or linear): proposal lrml:TimeMode
- granularity (second, day, etc.): proposal lrml:TimeGranularity
- if the interval is open or close or infinite, [t1, t4] or [t1, t4[
- how to distinguish a date per-se and a date that start an infinite
interval? [t1] or [t1, infinite[?
- duration
Examples:
1. "The document entered into force immediately."
Problem: we have to capture the time and the date and this datetime is
relevant for the criminal law and for checking if a such crime enter in to
the "temporal window" of validity of the law.
How to say that the time is important and not only optional?
2. "This title takes effect 6 months after the date of the publication of
this Act."
Problem: to model the duration using a well-know tag and not simply <Data
xsi:type="xs:duration">P5Y2M10D</Data>
In case we have
<Data xsi:type="xs:dateTime>2012-10-02T10:45:34-00:00</Data>
<Data xsi:type="xs:duration">P5Y2M10D</Data>
I have also xs:duration as only one way to express this information and this
is not mandatory but just leave to the end-user. Better to have a specific
lrml:duration xsi:type="xs:duration"
3. "On the 1st of April this year, the new Consumer Protection Act comes
into effect."
Infinite interval starting from 1-04-2012 "Order to suspend the traffic at 1
April 2012."
How to distinguish these two cases?
4."The consumer must present the application form within 31/12/2012".
It means in legal domain, often, that the endPoint is 30/12/201211.59.59.
But in the legal text we have only "31-12-2012" (e.g. captured with NLP
tools).
How to integrate this information with the nature of the interval (open on
the endPOint)?
I would be apprentice very much if the TC can take in consideration my
requests and provide a concrete proof-of-concept how it is possible to
manage the problem presented respecting the isomorphism principles.
yours,
mp
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