Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On the Scalability of Description Logic Instance Retrieval

  • Published:
Journal of Automated Reasoning Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Practical description logic systems play an ever-growing role for knowledge representation and reasoning research even in distributed environments. In particular, the ontology layer of the often-discussed semantic web is based on description logics (DLs) and defines important challenges for current system implementations. The article introduces and evaluates optimization techniques for the instance retrieval problem w.r.t. the description logic \(\mathcal{SHIQ}(\mathcal{D}_{n})^{-}\), which covers large parts of the Web Ontology Language (OWL). We demonstrate that sound and complete query engines for OWL-DL can be built for practically significant query classes. Experience with ontologies derived from database content has shown that it is often necessary to effectively solve instance retrieval problems with respect to huge amounts of data descriptions that make up major parts of ontologies. We present and analyze the main results about how to address this kind of scalability problem.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Acciarri, A., Calvanese, D., De Giacomo, G., Lembo, D., Lenzerini, M., Palmieri, M., Rosati, R.: Quonto: querying ontologies. In: Proceedings of the 20th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2005), pp. 1670–1671 (2005)

  2. Baader, F., Franconi, E., Hollunder, B., Nebel, B., Profitlich, H.J.: An empirical analysis of optimization techniques for terminological representation systems or: making KRIS get a move on. Appl. Artif. Intell. Special Issue on Knowledge Base Management 4, 109–132 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Baader, F., Horrocks, I., Sattler, U.: Description logics as ontology languages for the semantic web. In: Hutter, D., Stephan, W. (eds.) Mechanizing Mathematical Reasoning: Essays in Honor of Jörg H. Siekmann on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 2605, pp. 228–248. Springer-Verlag (2005)

  4. Baader, F., Calvanese, D., McGuinness, D., Nardi, D., Patel-Schneider, P.F. (eds.): The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation, and Applications. Cambridge University Press (2003)

  5. Baker, C., Shaban-Nejad, A., Su, X., Haarslev, V., Butler, G.: Semantic web infrastructure for fungal enzyme biotechnologists. J. Web Semantics 4(3), 168–180 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bechhofer, S., Horrocks, I., Turi, D.: The OWL instance store: system description. In: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE-20). Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pp. 177–181. Springer (2005)

  7. Berners-Lee, T., Hendler, J., Lassila, O.: The semantic web. Sci. Am. (May, 2001)

  8. Borgida, A., Brachman, R.: Loading data into description reasoners. ACM SIGMOD Record 22(2), 217–226 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Borgida, A.: On the relative expressiveness of description logics and predicate logics. Artif. Intell. 82(1–2), 353–367 (1996)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Bresciani, P.: Querying databases from description logics. In: Proceedings of Knowledge Representation Meets Databases (KRDB’95), Saarbrücken, Germany, DFKI-Research-Report D-95-12, pp. 1–4 (1995)

  11. Calvanese, D., De Giacomo, G., Lembo, D., Lenzerini, M., Rosati, R.: Data complexity of query answering in description logics. In: Proceedings of the 2005 Description Logic Workshop (DL 2005), pp. 49–60. CEUR Electronic Workshop Proceedings. http://ceur-ws.org/ (2005)

  12. Calvanese, D., De Giacomo, G., Lenzerini, M.: Decidability of query containment under constraints. In: Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD-SIGART Symposium on Principles of Database Systems, pp. 149–158. ACM Press (1998)

  13. Chandra, A.K., Merlin, P.M.: Optimal implementation of conjunctive queries in relational data bases. In: Proceedings of the Nineth ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pp. 77–90 (1977)

  14. Ding, Y., Haarslev, V.: Towards efficient reasoning for description logics with inverse roles. In: Proceedings of the 2005 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL-2005), July 26–28, pp. 208–215. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (2005)

  15. Ding, Y., Haarslev, V.: Tableau caching for description logics with inverse and transitive roles. In: Proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL-2006), May 30–June 1, pp. 143–149. Lake District, UK (2006)

  16. Dolby, J., Fokoue, A., Kalyanpur, A., Kershenbaum, A., Ma, L., Schonberg, E., Srinivas, K.: Scalable semantic retrieval through summarization and refinement. In: 21st Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), pp. 299–304 (2007)

  17. Donini, F.M., Massaccim, F.: Exptime tableaux for ALC. Artif. Intell. 124(1), 87–138 (2000)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Fellbaum, C. (ed.): WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database. MIT Press (1998)

  19. Fikes, R., Hayes, P., Horrocks, I.: OWL-QL—a language for deductive query answering on the Semantic Web. J. Web Semantics 2(1), 19–29 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Fokoue, A., Kershenbaum, A., Ma, L., Schonberg, E., Srinivas, K.: The summary abox: cutting ontologies down to size. In: Proceedings of International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC), pp. 343–356 (2006)

  21. Garcia-Molina, H., Ullman, J.D., Widom, J.: Database Systems: The Complete Book. Prentice Hall (2002)

  22. Glimm, B., Horrocks, I.: Query answering systems in the semantic web. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings of KI-2004 Workshop on Applications of Description Logics (ADL-04) (2004)

  23. Glimm, B., Horrocks, I., Lutz, C., Sattler, U.: Conjunctive query answering for the description logic \(\mathcal{SHIQ}\). In: Proceedings of the 20th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2007), pp. 399–404 (2007)

  24. Goré, R., Leitsch, A., Nipkow, T. (eds.): Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning, IJCAR’2001, 18–23 June, 2001, Siena, Italy. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, June (2001)

  25. Goré, R.P., Nguyen, L.: Exptime tableaux with global caching for description logics with transitive roles, inverse roles and role hierarchies. In: Proceedings of TABLEAUX’2007, International Conference, Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods, Aix en Provence, France, 3–6 July. LNAI, vol. 4548, pp. 133–148. Springer-Verlag (2007)

  26. Guo, Y., Heflin, J.: A scalable approach for partitioning owl knowledge bases. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Scalable Semantic Web Knowledge Base Systems (SSWS2006), Athens, Georgia, USA, pp. 47–60 (2006)

  27. Guo, Y., Heflin, J., Pan, Z.: Benchmarking DAML+OIL repositories. In: Proceedings of the Second International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2003). LNCS, no. 2870, pp. 613–627. Springer Verlag (2003)

  28. Guo, Y., Pan, Z., Heflin, J.: An evaluation of knowledge base systems for large OWL datasets. In: Proceedings of the Third International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2004). LNCS, vol. 3298, pp. 274–288. Springer Verlag (2004)

  29. Guo, Y., Pan, Z., Heflin, J.: Lubm: a benchmark for owl knowledge base systems. J. Web Semantics 3(2), 158–182 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Haarslev, V., Möller, R.: An empirical evaluation of optimization strategies for ABox reasoning in expressive description logics. In: Lambrix, P., et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the International Workshop on Description Logics (DL’99), 30 July–1 August, 1999, Linköping, Sweden, pp. 115–119 (June, 1999)

  31. Haarslev, V., Möller, R.: RACER system description. In: Goré, R., Leitsch, A., Nipkow, T. (eds.) Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning, IJCAR’2001, 18–23 June 2001, Siena, Italy. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 701–705. Springer-Verlag (2001)

  32. Haarslev, V., Möller, R.: Optimization techniques for retrieving resources described in OWL/RDF documents: first results. In: Ninth International Conference on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, KR 2004, Whistler, BC, Canada, June 2–5, pp. 163–173 (2004)

  33. Haarslev, V., Möller, R., Wessel, M.: The description logic \(\mathcal{ALCNH}_{R^{+}}\) extended with concrete domains: a practically motivated approach. In: Goré, R., Leitsch, A., Nipkow, T. (eds.) Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning, IJCAR’2001, 18–23 June 2001, Siena, Italy. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 29–44. Springer-Verlag (2001)

  34. Haarslev, V., Möller, R.: Consistency testing: the RACE experience. In: Proceedings International Conference Tableaux’2000. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1847, pp. 57–61. Springer-Verlag (2000)

  35. Haarslev, V., Möller, R., Turhan, A.-Y.: Exploiting pseudo models for Tbox and Abox reasoning in expressive description logics. In: Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR 2001). Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 2083, pp. 61–75. Springer-Verlag (2001)

  36. Horrocks, I.: Optimising tableaux decision procedures for description logics. Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester (1997)

  37. Horrocks, I., Sattler, U., Tobies, S.: Reasoning with individuals for the description logic \(\mathcal{SHIQ}\). In: MacAllester, D. (ed.) Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE-17). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 482–496. Springer Verlag, Germany (2000)

  38. Horrocks, I., Tessaris, S.: A conjunctive query language for description logic Aboxes. In: Proceedings of the 17th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2000), pp. 399–404 (2000)

  39. Horrocks, I., Tobies, S.: Reasoning with axioms: theory and practice. In: Cohn, A.G., Giunchiglia, F., Selman, B. (eds.) Proceedings of Seventh International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR’2000), Breckenridge, Colorado, USA, 11–15 April, 2000, pp. 285–296, April (2000)

  40. Horrocks, I., Kutz, O., Sattler, U.: The even more irresistible \(\mathcal{SROIQ}\). In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KR 2006), pp. 57–67. AAAI Press (2006)

  41. Horrocks, I., Tessaris, S.: Querying the semantic web: a formal approach. In: Horrocks, I., Hendler, J. (eds.) Proceedings of the 13th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2002). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, no. 2342, pp. 177–191. Springer-Verlag (2002)

  42. Ma, L., Yang, Y., Qiu, Z., Xie, G., Pan, Y., Liu, S.: Towards a complete OWL ontology benchmark. In: Proceedings of 3rd European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC), pp. 124–139 (2006)

  43. Möller, R., Haarslev, V., Wessel, M.: On the scalability of description logic instance retrieval. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, June 14–19, Bremen, Germany, LNCS, Springer Verlag. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pp. 171–184. Springer Verlag (2006)

  44. Motik, B., Sattler, U.: A comparison of reasoning techniques for querying large description logic aboxes. In: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Logic for Programming Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (LPAR 2006), Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 13–17. LNCS, vol. 4246, pp. 227–241. Springer (2006)

  45. Motik, B., Volz, R., Maedche, A.: Optimizing query answering in description logics using disjunctive deductive databases. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation Meets Databases (KRDB-2003), pp. 39–50 (2003)

  46. Nebel, B.: Reasoning and Revision in Hybrid Representation Systems. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 422. Springer-Verlag (1990)

  47. Rilling, J., Zhang, Y., Haarslev, V., Meng, W., Witte, R.: A unified ontology-based process model for software maintenance and comprehension. In: Kühne, T. (ed.) Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 9th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MoDELS/UML 2006). LNCS 4364, pp. 56–65. Springer-Verlag (2007)

  48. Shaban-Nejad, A., Baker, C., Haarslev, V., Butler, G.: The fungalweb ontology: semantic web challenges in bioinformatics and genomics. In: Semantic Web Challenge—Proceedings of the 4th International Semantic Web Conference, Nov. 6–10, Galway, Ireland. LNCS, vol. 3729, pp. 1063–1066. Springer-Verlag (2005)

  49. Sirin, E., Parsia, B.: Optimizations for answering conjunctive abox queries: first results. In: Proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL-2006), Lake District, UK, May 30–June 1, pp. 215–222 (2006)

  50. van Harmelen, F., Hendler, J., Horrocks, I., McGuinness, D.L., Patel-Schneider, P.F., Stein, L.A.: OWL web ontology language reference. http://www.w3.org/tr/owl-guide/ (2003)

  51. Weithöner, T., Liebig, T., Luther, M., Böhm, S., von Henke, F.W., Noppens, O.: Real-world reasoning with OWL. In: Proceedings of 4th European Semantic Web Conference, ESWC 2007, Innsbruck, Austria, 3–7 June 2007. LNCS 4519, pp. 296–310. Springer-Verlag (2007)

  52. Weithöner, T., Liebig, T., Specht, G.: Storing and querying ontologies in logic databases. In: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Semantic Web and Databases (SWDB’03), pp. 329–348. Berlin, Germay (September, 2003)

  53. Wessel, M., Möller, R.: A high performance semantic web query answering engine. In: Proceedings of the 2005 Description Logic Workshop (DL 2005), pp. 84–95. CEUR Electronic Workshop Proceedings. http://ceur-ws.org/ (2005)

  54. Wessel, M., Möller, R.: Flexible software architectures for ontology-based information systems. Journal of Applied Logic (Special Issue on Empirically Successful Systems) (2008, in press)

  55. Zhang, Y., Rilling, J., Haarslev, V.: An ontology based approach to software comprehension—reasoning about security concerns in source code. In: Proceedings of the 30th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2006), IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 333–342 (2006)

  56. Zhang, Z.: Ontology query languages for the semantic web: a performance evaluation. Master’s thesis, University of Georgia (2005)

  57. Zuo, M., Haarslev, V.: High performance absorption algorithms for terminological reasoning. In: Proceedings of the 2006 International Workshop on Description Logics (DL-2006), Lake District, UK, May 30–June 1, pp. 159–166 (2006)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Volker Haarslev

  2. Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany

    Ralf Möller

Authors
  1. Volker Haarslev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ralf Möller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Volker Haarslev.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Haarslev, V., Möller, R. On the Scalability of Description Logic Instance Retrieval. J Autom Reasoning 41, 99–142 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-008-9104-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10817-008-9104-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation