Storing fuzzy description logic ontology knowledge bases in fuzzy relational databases

Abstract

In the context of the Semantic Web, fuzzy extensions to OWL (the W3C standard ontology language) and Description Logics (DLs, the logical foundation of OWL) have been extensively investigated, and there are many real fuzzy DL ontology knowledge bases. Therefore, how to store fuzzy DL ontology knowledge bases has become an important issue. In this paper, we propose an approach and implement a tool for storing fuzzy DL ontology knowledge bases in fuzzy relational databases. Our chosen formalism is a fuzzy extension of the very expressive DL SHOIN(D), which is the main logical foundation of the standard ontology language OWL, so that our storage approach can store not only fuzzy DL-knowledge bases but also fuzzy ontology knowledge bases. Firstly, we give a formal definition of fuzzy DL-knowledge bases. In the definition, we consider the constructors of both fuzzy SHOIN(D) DL and fuzzy OWL ontology and add some common fuzzy datatypes (e.g., trapezoidal values, interval values, approximate values, and labels) into the knowledge bases. On this basis, we propose an approach which can store fuzzy DL-knowledge bases in fuzzy relational databases, and provide an example to well explain the approach. The correctness and quality of the storage approach are proved and analyzed. Furthermore, following the proposed approach, we implemented a prototype tool, which can automatically store fuzzy DL-knowledge bases. Finally, we make a discussion about the query problem and make a comparison with the existing works.