Introduction to
Description Logics
Lecture Outline
Description Logics: an Overview
Reasoning in DL
Different Reasoners
Suggested Reading list
Overview of Description Logics
Description Logics (DLs) is the name given to a
set of knowledge representation formalisms
DLs represent knowledge of an application
domain or world
Define the relevant concepts of the domain
Use these concepts to specify properties of objects
and individuals occurring in the domain
One main characteristic of DLs is their capability
to provide reasoning
Infer implicit knowledge from that explicitly defined in
the knowledge base.
DL Basics
Concepts (formulae)
E.g., Person, Doctor, HappyParent, (Doctor t Lawyer)
Roles (modalities)
E.g., hasChild, loves
Individuals (nominals)
E.g., John, Mary, Italy
Operators (for forming concepts and roles) restricted so that:
Satisfiability is decidable and, if possible, of low complexity
No need for explicit use of variables
Logical Structures
Atomic Concepts (or Concepts): hasChild
unary predicate symbols (1,NIL)
Person(x), Parent(y) value
Person
restriction
Atomic Roles:
binary predicates, express
relationship between concepts
hasChild(x,y), hasBrother(y,z)
Female Parent
Operators (constructors):
Woman
Person( x) Female( x)
Woman( y) Man( y)
Mother IS-a
Individuals
Instances of classes
Mary, John
Knowledge Representation in DL
Intensional knowledge
General knowledge about problem domain.
A woman is a person and a female.
TBox contains intensional knowledge in form of terminology. It is a
concept definition:
Woman Person Female
Extensional knowledge
Specific knowledge related to a particular problem.
Yanika is a female.
ABox contains assertions about individuals, called membership
assertion:
Female Person(Yanika)
A Knowledge Base (KB) is just a TBox and ABox
Architecture of a DL KB
TBox
Description
Reasoning
Language
ABox
Knowledge Base
The Basic Description Language
Negation can only
Syntax Semantic be applied to
>I I (universal concept) atomic concepts
?I ; (bottom concept) Only the top concept is
(: A)I I \ AI (atomic negation) allowed in the scope of an
existential quantification
(C u D)I CI u DI (intersection) over a role
(8 R.C)I {a 2 I | 8 b.(a,b) 2 RI ! b 2 CI} (value restriction)
(9 R.>)I {a 2 I | 9 b.(a,b) 2 RI} (limited exists quantification)
R RI µ I £ I (R is an atomic role)
A AI µ I (A is an atomic concept)
The sublanguage FL is obtained by disallowing atomic negation; and
¡
FL0 is obtained by disallowing limited existential quantification.
DL for the Semantic Web
Web Ontology Language (OWL): W3C
Recommendation on 10 Feb 2004
builds on RDF and RDF Schema and adds more
vocabulary for describing properties and classes
Benefits from many years of DL research
Well defined semantics
Formal properties well understood
Low complexity and decidable
Known reasoning algorithms
Class Constructor
Axioms
Axioms (mostly) reducible to inclusion (v)
e.g. C ´ D iff both C v D and D v C
DL Application Domain
Software engineering
Semantic Web
Medicine
Digital libraries and Web-based information
systems
Suggested Reading
D. Nardi, R. J. Brachman. An Introduction to Description
Logics, Cambridge University Press, 2002,
https://www.inf.unibz.it/~franconi/dl/course/dlhb/dlhb-01.pdf (pgs 1-30)
Thanks
