situation

http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation

as defined in The Time-indexed Value in Context pattern

version info: 1.1.1
version: http://www.essepuntato.it/2010/06/literalreification/2026-10-05
prior version: http://www.essepuntato.it/2010/06/literalreification/2026-09-18
imports: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/timeindexedsituation.owl
http://www.w3.org/2006/time
changes: https://github.com/SPAROntologies/tvc/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
title: The Time-indexed Value in Context pattern
description: The **_Time-indexed Value in Context pattern (TVC)_** is an Ontology Design Pattern for the description of scenarios that involve entities having some value during a particular time and within a particular context. ![The main architecture of TVC.](tvc.png) Sometimes, we need to describe scenarios in which someone (e.g., a person) has a value (e.g., a particular role) during a particular time and for a particular context. Four different things are involved in these kinds of scenarios: 1. the _entity_ having some value, e.g. a person or a document possessing a role or a status; 2. the _value_ had by someone, e.g. a role or a status; 3. the _time period_ during which the entity has that value, e.g. from April 2008 to September 2008; 4. the particular _context_ that characterises the act of having that value, e.g. being a member of an institution or an editor of a particular journal. Thought as a natural extension of the [_Time-indexed Situation pattern_](http://ontologydesignpatterns.org/wiki/Submissions:TimeIndexedSituation), TVC is able to describe these kinds of scenarios. ## Examples of use In the following subsections, we introduce some examples to showcase how to use TVC. The prefixes that are used in all the examples provided below are defined as follows: @prefix : <http://www.sparontologies.net/example/> . @prefix tvc: <http://www.essepuntato.it/2012/04/tvc/> . @prefix ti: <http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/timeinterval.owl#> . @prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> . @prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> . ### Holding a role within a specific time frame TVC easily allows one to model people's roles within certain contexts (e.g., organisations) and how these change through time, while keeping track of the fact that they all refer to the same entities. The following example shows how to model the fact that a researcher holds the role of editor-in-chief for a scientific journal for a specific time interval. :john-doe a foaf:Person ; tvc:hasValue :editorial-role-situation . :editorial-role-situation a tvc:ValueInTime ; tvc:withValue :editor-in-chief ; tvc:withinContext :journal-of-semantics ; tvc:atTime :tenure-interval . :tenure-interval a ti:TimeInterval ; ti:hasIntervalStartDate "2020-01-01"^^xsd:date ; ti:hasIntervalEndDate "2024-12-31"^^xsd:date . :journal-of-semantics a foaf:Organization . ## Competency Questions TVC can be used for answering several questions related to values that change in time, according to some context. In the following subsections, some of them are introduced together with their respective SPARQL queries. The prefixes that are used in all the SPARQL queries provided below are defined as follows: PREFIX : <http://www.sparontologies.net/example/> PREFIX tvc: <http://www.essepuntato.it/2012/04/tvc/> PREFIX ti: <http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/timeinterval.owl#> ### CQ1 What value did a specific entity hold, within which context, and during what time interval? SELECT ?value ?context ?startDate ?endDate WHERE { :john-doe tvc:hasValue ?sit . ?sit tvc:withValue ?value ; tvc:withinContext ?context ; tvc:atTime ?interval . OPTIONAL { ?interval ti:hasIntervalStartDate ?startDate . } OPTIONAL { ?interval ti:hasIntervalEndDate ?endDate . } } ### CQ2 Which entities held a specific value within a given context? SELECT ?entity ?sit WHERE { ?entity tvc:hasValue ?sit . ?sit tvc:withValue :editor-in-chief ; tvc:withinContext :journal-of-semantics . }
keywords: ontology design patterns
Semantic Publishing and Referencing Ontologies
SPAR Ontologies
time-indexed values in context
creator: Silvio Peroni (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0530-4305)
contributor: David Shotton (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5506-523X)
Fabio Vitali (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7562-5203)
Sebastian Barzaghi (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0799-1527)
publisher: https://ror.org/00wb4mk85
created: 2012-06-08
issued: 2012-06-08
modified: 2026-10-05
date: 2026-09-18
license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
source: https://github.com/SPAROntologies/tvc/blob/master/docs/cq.md
bibliographic citation: Silvio Peroni. The Time-indexed Value in Context pattern. Revision: 1.1.1. http://purl.org/spar/tvc.
code repository: https://github.com/SPAROntologies/tvc
doi: TBA
image: https://github.com/SPAROntologies/tvc/blob/master/docs/current/tvc.png
included in data catalog: https://fairsharing.org/
is backward compatible with: http://www.essepuntato.it/2012/04/tvc/2026-09-18
language: http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/iso639-2/eng
logo: https://github.com/SPAROntologies/sparontologies.github.io/blob/master/static/img/spar/spar-logo.png
preferred namespace prefix: tvc
preferred namespace uri: http://purl.org/spar/tvc
status: http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/status/published
Other visualisation: WebVOWL Source

Export: Turtle RDF/XML JSON-LD N-Triples

situation
^c

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation

comment

A view on a set of entities. It can be seen as a 'relational context', reifying a relation.

^en

is defined by

http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#

is in domain of

is setting for^op

label

situation

^en

@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix sit: <http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#> .

<http://purl.org/spar/tvc> {
    sit:Situation a owl:Class ;
        rdfs:label "situation"@en ;
        rdfs:comment "A view on a set of entities. It can be seen as a 'relational context', reifying a relation."@en ;
        rdfs:isDefinedBy sit: .
}

[
  {
    "@graph": [
      {
        "@id": "http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation",
        "@type": [
          "http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Class"
        ],
        "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#comment": [
          {
            "@language": "en",
            "@value": "A view on a set of entities. It can be seen as a 'relational context', reifying a relation."
          }
        ],
        "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#isDefinedBy": [
          {
            "@id": "http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#"
          }
        ],
        "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#label": [
          {
            "@language": "en",
            "@value": "situation"
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "@id": "http://purl.org/spar/tvc"
  }
]

<http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation> <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#isDefinedBy> <http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#> <http://purl.org/spar/tvc> .
<http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type> <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#Class> <http://purl.org/spar/tvc> .
<http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation> <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#label> "situation"@en <http://purl.org/spar/tvc> .
<http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/cp/owl/situation.owl#Situation> <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#comment> "A view on a set of entities. It can be seen as a 'relational context', reifying a relation."@en <http://purl.org/spar/tvc> .

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situation

situation c

comment

is defined by

is in domain of

label

RDF provenance

situation
^c