This document describes a workflow for acquiring and modeling temporal knowledge from natural language expressions about access periods. The workflow includes: 1. Extracting temporal properties from natural language expressions using natural language processing techniques. 2. Representing the temporal properties as a controlled text constrained by a grammar that can be interpreted by machines. 3. Modeling the temporal knowledge intensionally as expressions in a linguistic model and extensionally as concrete dates in a temporal model using model-driven engineering techniques. 4. Exporting the temporal data for visualization and control tasks such as automatically creating iCalendar entries.

1. 1
Temporal Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling
This work is granted by the French Research Agency (ANR-
Contint, RelaxMultiMedias 2 project)
Cyril Faucher1, Charles Teissèdre2,3, Jean-Yves Lafaye1, Frédéric Bertrand1
1 L3i, Université de La Rochelle, France
cyril.faucher@univ-lr.fr
2 MoDyCo - Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense – CNRS
3 Mondeca, France
EKAW 2010 - Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge
Management by the Masses
11th October-15th October 2010 - Lisbon, Portugal

2. Introduction
 Context: Leisure and cultural event programming (festival, theater,
etc.) & opening dates and hours (restaurant, exhibition, museums)
 Contrib: Temporal Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling Chain
 From natural language expressions to controlled text
2
 Facilitating the work of human operators for acquisition of
temporal properties/knowledge about “Access Periods”
 NLP & MDE techniques
 Natural Language Processing
 Model Driven Engineering
Natural
Language
Expressions
Temporal
properties
Controlled text
As model
Extraction /
Generation
NLP
MDE
Faucher et al 2

3. From Natural Language Expressions
to Controlled text
 Natural language expressions
 (1) The museum is open every
day except Tuesday and the
following French holidays:
December 25, January 1, May 1,
and August 15. Opening hours:
Monday, Thursday, Saturday,
Sunday: from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Wednesday, Friday: from 9 a.m.
to 10 p.m.
 (2) Opening times: Monday to
Friday: Lunch (12 noon to 2 p.m.)
Dinner (6.30 p.m. to 11 p.m.).
Saturday: Dinner (6.30 p.m. to 11
p.m.)
 (3) Opened every day from 10:00
to 18:00, except Tuesdays.
 Controlled text (close to natural language)
 is constrained by a grammar
 can be interpreted by a machine
Faucher et al 3

4. Temporal knowledge
 Temporal knowledge is expressed as a set of
intensional expression
 Opening times: Monday to Friday: Lunch (12 noon to 2 p.m.) Dinner
(6.30 p.m. to 11 p.m.). Saturday: Dinner (6.30 p.m. to 11 p.m.)
 Translation into extension for visualization/control
tasks
 extension / concrete dates: closed on Sunday = closed Sunday
2010-09-19, closed Sunday 2010-09-26, closed Sunday 2010-10-03
Faucher et al 4

5. Detailed workflow
Text input frame
Faucher et al 5

6. Detailed workflow
Text input frame
Annotations
Faucher et al 6
Automatic annotation
(Unitex patterns)
+
post-treatment to lift
ambiguities

7. Detailed workflow
Text input frame
Annotations
Serialization in
XMI/XML
Faucher et al 7

8. Detailed workflow
8
Text input frame
Annotations
Serialization in
XMI/XML
Calendar
editing
Text / Calendar Synchronization

9. Detailed workflow
Serialization in
XMI/XML
Linguistic Model
Access Period
domain
populates
Faucher et al 9

10. Detailed workflow
Linguistic
Model
(specific to the
domain of
Access Period)
Temporal Model (as a pivot) that
extends ISO 19108
(generic to define temporal
expressions)
model transformation
Textual representation conforms to
the grammar defined in Xtext
iCalendar
export
Temporal data in extension
over a time span
Faucher et al 10

11. Conclusions
 Workflow synthesis
 Future work
 Query engine (upon intensional expressions)
Natural
Language
expressions
Extraction/
Generation
NLP
Linguistic
Model
Controlled text
Temporal
Model
MDE MDE
iCalendar
MDE
Calendar entry
auto creation,
Visualization
and editing
Faucher et al 11