Converting Instance Checking to Subsumption: A Rethink for Object Queries over Practical Ontologies

TL;DR

This paper improves the efficiency of object query answering over complex DL ontologies by revising the MSC method to produce smaller concepts, enabling scalable and parallel reasoning.

Contribution

It introduces a revised MSC method for DL SHI that generates smaller concepts, enhancing scalability and efficiency in query answering.

Findings

Revised MSC method produces smaller, more manageable concepts.

Significant efficiency gains demonstrated in empirical evaluation.

Enables scalable, distributed query answering for large ontologies.

Abstract

Efficiently querying Description Logic (DL) ontologies is becoming a vital task in various data-intensive DL applications. Considered as a basic service for answering object queries over DL ontologies, instance checking can be realized by using the most specific concept (MSC) method, which converts instance checking into subsumption problems. This method, however, loses its simplicity and efficiency when applied to large and complex ontologies, as it tends to generate very large MSC's that could lead to intractable reasoning. In this paper, we propose a revision to this MSC method for DL SHI, allowing it to generate much simpler and smaller concepts that are specific-enough to answer a given query. With independence between computed MSC's, scalability for query answering can also be achieved by distributing and parallelizing the computations. An empirical evaluation shows the efficacy of our revised MSC method and the significant efficiency achieved when using it for answering object queries.