HANDLING INFINITE TEMPORAL DATA

In this paper, we present a powerful framework for describing, storing , and reasoning about infinite temporal information. This framework is an extension of classical relational databases. It represents infinit e temporal information by generalized tuples defined by linear repeati ng points and constraints on these points. We characterize the express iveness of these generalized relations in terms of predicates definabl e in Presburger arithmetic. Next, we prove that relations formed from generalized tuples are closed under the operations of relational algeb ra and provide complexity results for the evaluation of first-order qu eries. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.