Deriving temporal position of a period based on positional relationships between periods using linked data

Temporal position is essential for various computer processes, such as retrievals, visualizations, and time series analyses, and is generally specified by the absolute position on a temporal axis, such as date and time. The temporal position of a period is often expressed relative to other periods, particularly in humanities data (e.g., historical documents, stratigraphic dating of archaeology, and literal works). Despite the difficulty in using expressions based on positional relationships for computer processing, the mechanisms for associating these expressions with absolute positions, such as dates, are extremely limited. This study implemented a mechanism to derive the temporal position of a period based on the positional relationship between periods expressed according to Allen’s interval algebra. When the implemented mechanism receives Resource Description Framework (RDF) data, including the definition of a target period, it recursively retrieves the data of relevant periods according to the relationships between periods, and returns the derived temporal position of the target period. This mechanism is available through the Web API developed in this study and can be incorporated into various systems.