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Conceptual Modeling: Foundations and Applications pp 436–465Cite as

“Reducing” CLASSIC to Practice: Knowledge Representation Theory Meets Reality

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 5600))

Abstract

Most recent key developments in research on knowledge representation (KR) have been of the more theoretical sort, involving worst-case complexity results, solutions to technical challenge problems, etc. While some of this work has influenced practice in Artificial Intelligence, it is rarely—if ever—made clear what is compromised when the transition is made from relatively abstract theory to the real world. classic is a description logic with an ancestry of extensive theoretical work (tracing back over twenty years to kl-one), and several novel contributions to KR theory. Basic research on classic paved the way for an implementation that has been used significantly in practice, including by users not versed in KR theory. In moving from a pure logic to a practical tool, many compromises and changes of perspective were necessary. We report on this transition and articulate some of the profound influences practice can have on relatively idealistic theoretical work. We have found that classic has been quite useful in practice, yet still strongly retains most of its original spirit, but much of our thinking and many details had to change along the way.

A slightly different version published in Artificial Intelligence, 114, October 1999, pages 203–237.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Yahoo! Research, USA

    Ronald J. Brachman

  2. Rutgers University, USA

    Alex Borgida

  3. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA

    Deborah L. McGuinness

  4. Bell Labs Research, USA

    Peter F. Patel-Schneider

Authors
  1. Ronald J. Brachman
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  2. Alex Borgida
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  3. Deborah L. McGuinness
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  4. Peter F. Patel-Schneider
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, 08855, Piscataway, NJ, USA

    Alexander T. Borgida

  2. SRI International, Artificial Intelligence Center, 333 Ravenswood Ave, 94025, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Vinay K. Chaudhri

  3. Dipartimento Ingegneria e Scienza dell’Informazione, University of Trento, Via Sommarive, 14, 38100, Trento, Italy

    Paolo Giorgini

  4. Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, 140 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 3G6, Ontario, Canada

    Eric S. Yu

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Brachman, R.J., Borgida, A., McGuinness, D.L., Patel-Schneider, P.F. (2009). “Reducing” CLASSIC to Practice: Knowledge Representation Theory Meets Reality. In: Borgida, A.T., Chaudhri, V.K., Giorgini, P., Yu, E.S. (eds) Conceptual Modeling: Foundations and Applications. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5600. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02463-4_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02463-4_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

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