A systematic survey of temporal requirements of bio-health ontologies

The Description Logic SROIQ(D), as the logical core of the W3C standard Web Ontology Language (OWL 2), is a widely used formalism for ontologies in the life sciences. Bio-health applications including health-care and life science domains commonly have a need to represent temporal information such as medication frequency or stage-based development. Different classes of temporal phenomena may generate different sorts of requirements on SROIQ(D) or extensions of SROIQ(D). In this paper, we deliver the first precise investigation into identifying exactly what kinds of temporal requirements are most important for bio-health ontologies. We conduct an empirical investigation of the OBO Foundry using a bespoke methodological approach by searching each of its ontologies for specific temporal features and go on to calculate the importance of these features using a sophisticated set of measures. By doing so, we derive a formal set of Temporal Requirements that act as a set of guidelines which a language or logical extension to OWL 2 would need to satisfy in order to meet the temporal requirements of bio-health ontologies.