Using Description Logics for RDF Constraint Checking and Closed-World Recognition

TL;DR

This paper explores how Description Logics can be adapted from their usual open-world interpretation to a closed-world setting for effective RDF constraint checking and recognition, enabling practical implementation via SPARQL queries.

Contribution

It demonstrates a method to interpret Description Logic axioms in a closed-world context for RDF data, facilitating constraint validation and recognition with practical querying techniques.

Findings

Closed-world interpretation of Description Logics is feasible for RDF data.

Constraint checking can be implemented as SPARQL queries.

Effective closed-world recognition is achievable in RDF/RDFS environments.

Abstract

RDF and Description Logics work in an open-world setting where absence of information is not information about absence. Nevertheless, Description Logic axioms can be interpreted in a closed-world setting and in this setting they can be used for both constraint checking and closed-world recognition against information sources. When the information sources are expressed in well-behaved RDF or RDFS (i.e., RDF graphs interpreted in the RDF or RDFS semantics) this constraint checking and closed-world recognition is simple to describe. Further this constraint checking can be implemented as SPARQL querying and thus effectively performed.