ABSTRACT
Allen’s interval algebra is the foundation of interval-based qualitative temporal reasoning. In this paper we have exposed two orthogonal sub-algebras of the former. Existence of these two sub-algebras lets us derive clusters of consistent components of a temporal constraint network. This allows (1) efficient query answering for some types of queries, (2) isolating regions of inconsistency in a temporal constraint network, and (3) deriving possible causal and containment information between temporal entities in the database.
