GMEOW Lifecycle Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/lifecycle
• Tier: core
• Group: core

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 8 terms and contributes 8 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/coreference
• gmeow:slices/events
• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/temporal

Consumers

• Birth/death and existence events for persons and places across the corpus.

Local Map

Examples

Dissolved Org

• Source: slices/core/lifecycle/examples/dissolved-org.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:Event, gmeow:Instant, gmeow:Organization, gmeow:TimeInterval, gmeow:displayable, gmeow:eventTemporalFrame, gmeow:eventTime, gmeow:eventType, gmeow:eventTypeCreation, gmeow:eventTypeDestruction
• External prefixes: xsd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: existence over time, where deletion does not exist. A
# company is founded, then dissolved — but it STAYS in the graph, marked no
# longer extant, because the past is data (Principle 10: destruction is an ontic
# fact, suppression is a display contract, deletion does not exist). The creation
# and destruction events are ordinary gmeow:Events carrying value-typed
# eventTypes (a single occurrence can be both eventTypeDissolution AND
# eventTypeDestruction — co-equal values, never a subclass tower, P9). The
# existence interval bounds the lifespan, and supersededBy points at the
# successor that carried on the work.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/lifecycle/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

# --- The dissolved company: still here, with its full lifecycle attached.
#     Superseded AND no longer extant, so gmeow:displayable false suppresses it
#     from default display — the record is retained, never deleted (P10).
ex:meridian a gmeow:Organization ;
    gmeow:name "Meridian Systems Ltd."@en ;
    gmeow:hasCreationEvent ex:founding ;
    gmeow:hasDestructionEvent ex:dissolution ;
    gmeow:existenceInterval ex:meridianLife ;
    gmeow:supersededBy ex:apex ;
    gmeow:displayable false .

# --- Creation: a founding event, value-typed both Founding-as-Creation.
ex:founding a gmeow:Event ;
    rdfs:label "incorporation of Meridian Systems"@en ;
    gmeow:eventType gmeow:eventTypeCreation ;
    gmeow:eventTime "2010-04-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:eventTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

# --- Destruction: ONE occurrence carrying two co-equal eventType values.
ex:dissolution a gmeow:Event ;
    rdfs:label "dissolution of Meridian Systems"@en ;
    gmeow:eventType gmeow:eventTypeDissolution , gmeow:eventTypeDestruction ;
    gmeow:eventTime "2024-11-30T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:eventTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

# --- The existence interval (the lifespan), bounded by framed instants.
ex:meridianLife a gmeow:TimeInterval ;
    gmeow:hasStartInstant ex:lifeBegin ;
    gmeow:hasEndInstant ex:lifeEnd ;
    gmeow:hasTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

ex:lifeBegin a gmeow:Instant ;
    gmeow:instantValue "2010-04-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:inTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

ex:lifeEnd a gmeow:Instant ;
    gmeow:instantValue "2024-11-30T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:inTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

# --- The successor, still extant, that superseded Meridian.
ex:apex a gmeow:Organization ;
    gmeow:name "Apex Systems Inc."@en ;
    gmeow:hasCreationEvent ex:apexFounding .

ex:apexFounding a gmeow:Event ;
    rdfs:label "incorporation of Apex Systems"@en ;
    gmeow:eventType gmeow:eventTypeCreation ;
    gmeow:eventTime "2024-12-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:eventTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Linkages

• Rows: 8
• Projection profiles: dcterms, oai_dc, schema-org
• External vocabularies: dc, dcterms, prov, schema, wdt

Guide

Lifecycle — existence over time, for anything

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/lifecycle · tier: core Birth, founding, minting, death, dissolution, retirement — one facility for the existence of every entity.

Universal time-bounded existence facility: ontic existence-over-time for any gmeow:Entity, distinct from suppression (a display contract). Every entity may carry creation and destruction events, an existence interval, and supersession links. Revised forward, never deleted (Principle 10). Reuses the events module (gmeow:Event + EventType value vocabulary), the temporal module (TimeInterval / TimeScopedRelation / validFrom / validUntil), and the standpoint module (accordingTo / contested claims). Flat-first, reify on demand.

The slice draws one line hard: destruction is an ontic fact; suppression is a display contract; deletion does not exist. A dissolved organization, a demolished place, a retired reference frame — all remain in the graph, marked as no longer extant, because the past is data (Principle 10). And because the model is event-typed by value (Principle 9), no per-kind machinery is minted: a person's birth event is the same gmeow:Event carrying both gmeow:eventTypeBirth and gmeow:eventTypeCreation — co-equal values on one occurrence, never a subclass tower.

Flat-first governs the shape: the three direct hooks below cover the 80 % case; the reified gmeow:EntityExistence is the promotion target when the existence claim itself needs identity — contested bounds, attached evidence, standpoint indexing.

The flat hooks (the 80 % case)

gmeow:hasCreationEvent

Links any entity to the event that brought it into existence — the general form of birth (person), founding (organization), minting (currency), or realization (reference frame). Non-functional: competing standpoint-indexed creation claims coexist, none privileged. The event side carries gmeow:eventTypeCreation (events slice), alongside any more specific value such as gmeow:eventTypeBirth.

gmeow:hasDestructionEvent

The mirror: the event that ended the entity's existence — death, dissolution, destruction, retirement. Non-functional for the same standpoint reasons. Destruction is ontic; it never implies gmeow:displayable false, and gmeow:displayable false never implies destruction.

gmeow:existenceInterval

The entity's span of existence as a gmeow:TimeInterval (temporal slice) — open-ended (no end instant) while the entity is extant. Non-functional: in a multi-source merge, different sources give different bounds, and those claims coexist as standpoint-indexed statements. The interval carries its frame per Principle 11.

gmeow:supersededBy

Links an entity to the entity that replaced it — Constantinople supersededBy Istanbul, a deprecated release supersededBy its successor. The declared inverse of the coreference slice's gmeow:supersedes; directional, never symmetric. The superseded entity is retained (Principle 10) and may carry gmeow:displayable false; the replacement itself may be recorded as an event typed gmeow:eventTypeSupersession when it needs a date or participants.

The reified form (promote on demand)

gmeow:EntityExistence

The time-scoped fact that an entity existed over an interval — a gufo:Situation specializing gmeow:TimeScopedRelation, carrying its period via gmeow:duringInterval. Promote here when the existence claim is contested (two sources disagree on when a place ceased), when evidence must attach to the claim itself, or when standpoint indexing is needed. Open-world EL axioms require some gmeow:existenceEntity; the closed-world "exactly one" is SHACL's (EntityExistenceHasEntityShape).

gmeow:existenceEntity

The functional post: exactly one entity per existence record — constitutive of the situation's identity.

gmeow:existenceCreationEvent · gmeow:existenceDestructionEvent

Optional event hooks on the reified record: an EntityExistence may record only an interval when the creation event is unknown, and a still-extant entity's record simply has no destruction event. Absence of an end is a statement about the world, not a gap in the data.

Solver layer & alignment

Existence consistency — creation precedes destruction, the interval brackets both, participation does not outlive the participant — is gate and solver work (Principle 12): the slice asserts the claims; verification queries and the temporal solver check their coherence on the reasoned graph. No external lifecycle vocabulary is imported; the facility is expressed entirely through the events, temporal, and standpoint machinery it reuses, with bridges riding those slices' alignments (Principle 5).

Dependencies

Depends on kernel, coreference (supersedes), events (Event + the creation/destruction/supersession type values), and temporal (TimeInterval, TimeScopedRelation, the statement clocks). Consumed by birth/death and existence claims for persons, places, organizations, and artifacts across the corpus.