Knowledge Base Satisfiability Research Articles

How to Tell Easy from Hard: Complexities of Conjunctive Query Entailment in Extensions of ALC

It is commonly known that the conjunctive query entailment problem for certain extensions of (the well-known ontology language) ALC is computationally harder than their knowledge base satisfiability problem while for others the complexities coincide, both under the standard and the finite-model semantics. We expose a uniform principle behind this divide by identifying a wide class of (finitely) locally-forward description logics, for which we prove that (finite) query entailment problem can be solved by a reduction to exponentially many calls of the (finite) knowledge base satisfiability problem. Consequently, our algorithm yields tight ExpTime upper bounds for locally-forward logics with ExpTime-complete knowledge base satisfiability problem, including logics between ALC and µALCHbregQ (and more), as well as ALCSCC with global cardinality constraints, for which the complexity of querying remained open. Moreover, to make our technique applicable in future research, we provide easy-to-check sufficient conditions for a logic to be locally-forward based several versions of the on model-theoretic notion of unravellings. Together with existing results, this provides a nearly complete classification of the “benign” vs. “malign” primitive modelling features extending ALC, missing out only the Self operator. We then show a rather counter-intuitive result, namely that the conjunctive entailment problem for ALCSelf is exponentially harder than for ALC. This places the seemingly innocuous Self operator among the “malign” modelling features, like inverses, transitivity or nominals.

Finite Entailment of Local Queries in the Z Family of Description Logics

In the last few years the field of logic-based knowledge representation took a lot of inspiration from database theory. A vital example is that the finite model semantics in description logics (DLs) is reconsidered as a desirable alternative to the classical one and that query entailment has replaced knowledge-base satisfiability (KBSat) checking as the key inference problem. However, despite the considerable effort, the overall picture concerning finite query answering in DLs is still incomplete. In this work we study the complexity of finite entailment of local queries (conjunctive queries and positive boolean combinations thereof) in the Z family of DLs, one of the most powerful KR formalisms, lying on the verge of decidability. Our main result is that the DLs ZOQ and ZOI are finitely controllable, i.e. that their finite and unrestricted entailment problems for local queries coincide. This allows us to reuse recently established upper bounds on querying these logics under the classical semantics. While we will not solve finite query entailment for the third main logic in the Z family, ZIQ, we provide a generic reduction from the finite entail- ment problem to the finite KBSat problem, working for ZIQ and some of its sublogics. Our proofs unify and solidify previously established results on finite satisfiability and finite query entailment for many known DLs.

Answering regular path queries in expressive Description Logics via alternating tree-automata

Expressive Description Logics (DLs) have been advocated as formalisms for modeling the domain of interest in various application areas, including the Semantic Web, data and information integration, peer-to-peer data management, and ontology-based data access. An important requirement there is the ability to answer complex queries beyond instance retrieval, taking into account constraints expressed in a knowledge base. We consider this task for positive 2-way regular path queries (P2RPQs) over knowledge bases in the expressive DL ZIQ. P2RPQs are more general than conjunctive queries, union of conjunctive queries, and regular path queries from the literature. They allow regular expressions over roles and data joins that require inverse paths. The DL ZIQ extends the core DL ALC with qualified number restrictions, inverse roles, safe Boolean role expressions, regular expressions over roles, and concepts of the form ∃S.Self in the style of the DL SRIQ. Using techniques based on two-way tree-automata, we first provide as a stepping stone an elegant characterization of TBox and ABox satisfiability testing which gives us a tight ExpTime bound for this problem (under unary number encoding). We then establish a double exponential upper bound for answering P2RPQs over ZIQ knowledge bases; this bound is tight. Our result significantly pushes the frontier of 2ExpTime decidability of query answering in expressive DLs, both with respect to the query language and the considered DL. Furthermore, by reducing the well known DL SRIQ to ZIQ (with an exponential blow-up in the size of the knowledge base), we also provide a tight 2ExpTime upper bound for knowledge base satisfiability in SRIQ and establish the decidability of query answering for this significant fragment of the new OWL 2 standard.

On the (un)decidability of fuzzy description logics under Łukasiewicz t-norm

Recently there have been some unexpected results concerning Fuzzy Description Logics (FDLs) with General Concept Inclusions (GCIs). They show that, unlike the classical case, the DL ALC with GCIs does not have the finite model property under Łukasiewicz Logic or Product Logic, the proposed reasoning algorithms are neither correct nor complete and, specifically, knowledge base satisfiability is an undecidable problem for Product Logic.In this work, we show that knowledge base satisfiability is also an undecidable problem for Łukasiewicz Logic. We additionally provide a decision algorithm for acyclic ALC knowledge bases under Łukasiewicz Logic via a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) based procedure (note, however, that the decidability of this problem is already known). While similar MILP based algorithms have been proposed in the literature for acyclic ALC knowledge bases under Łukasiewicz Logic, none of them exhibit formal proofs of their correctness and completeness, which is the additional contribution here.

An Architecture Dynamic Modeling Language for Self-Healing Systems

As modern software-based systems increase in complexity, recovery from malicious attacks and rectification of system faults become more difficult, labor-intensive, and error-prone. These factors have actuated research dealing with the concept of self-healing systems, which employ architectural models to monitor system behavior and use inputs obtaining therefore to adapt themselves to the run-time environment. Numerous architectural description languages (ADLs) have been developed, each providing complementary capabilities for architectural development and analysis. Unfortunately, few ADLs embrace dynamic change as a fundamental consideration and support a broad class of adaptive changes at the architectural level. The Architecture Dynamic Modeling Language (ADML) is being developed as a new formal language and/or conceptual model for representing dynamic software architectures. TheADML couple the static information provided by the system requirements and the dynamic knowledge provided by tactics, and offer a uniform way to represent and reason about both static and dynamic aspects of self-healing systems. Because the ADML is based on the Dynamic Description Logic DDL, architectural ontology entailment for the ADML languages can be reduced to knowledge base satisfiability in DDL.

Reasoning with Very Expressive Fuzzy Description Logics

It is widely recognized today that the management of imprecision and vagueness will yield more intelligent and realistic knowledge-based applications. Description Logics (DLs) are a family of knowledge representation languages that have gained considerable attention the last decade, mainly due to their decidability and the existence of empirically high performance of reasoning algorithms. In this paper, we extend the well known fuzzy ALC DL to the fuzzy SHIN DL, which extends the fuzzy ALC DL with transitive role axioms (S), inverse roles (I), role hierarchies (H) and number restrictions (N). We illustrate why transitive role axioms are difficult to handle in the presence of fuzzy interpretations and how to handle them properly. Then we extend these results by adding role hierarchies and finally number restrictions. The main contributions of the paper are the decidability proof of the fuzzy DL languages fuzzy-SI and fuzzy-SHIN, as well as decision procedures for the knowledge base satisfiability problem of the fuzzy-SI and fuzzy-SHIN.

Reducing OWL entailment to description logic satisfiability

We show how to reduce ontology entailment for the OWL DL and OWL Lite ontology languages to knowledge base satisfiability in (respectively) the S H O I N ( D ) and S H I F ( D ) description logics. This is done by first establishing a correspondence between OWL ontologies and description logic knowledge bases and then by showing how knowledge base entailment can be reduced to knowledge base satisfiability.

Reducing OWL Entailment to Description Logic Satisfiability

We show how to reduce ontology entailment for the OWL DL and OWL Lite ontology languages to knowledge base satisfiability in (respectively) the SHOIN(D) and SHIF(D) description logics. This is done by first establishing a correspondence between OWL ontologies and description logic knowledge bases and then by showing how knowledge base entailment can be reduced to knowledge base satisfiability.