Representing Action and Time in an RMS Based Framework.

A reason maintenance system (RMS) has been in use for representation of actions. This paper presents an architecture that handles both action and time in a framework while preserving the advantages of both RMS and temporal constraint propagation(TCP). This framework captures action as well as temporal knowledge in the network in terms of relations between intervals. Thus it enables integration of temporal reasoning along with causal reasoning among activities. An algorithm for truth propagation in such a network has been applied to a specific domain, and an example illustrating its use in temporal and causal reasoning is provided. Abstraction of activities and states has been done by defining abstract temporal intervals and thus layering the knowledge into various levels. Some relational abstractions which are useful in describing the temporal relationships among activities and facts have also been defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]