Answering Fuzzy Conjunctive Queries over Finitely Valued Fuzzy Ontologies

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved method for answering fuzzy conjunctive queries over finitely valued fuzzy ontologies, leveraging classical DL reasoners to enhance efficiency and demonstrate practical feasibility.

Contribution

It extends existing techniques to finitely valued fuzzy DLs, improving complexity and enabling effective query answering using classical reasoners.

Findings

Enhanced reduction techniques improve query answering efficiency.

Proven tight complexity bounds for fuzzy conjunctive queries.

Experimental results confirm practical feasibility.

Abstract

Fuzzy Description Logics (DLs) provide a means for representing vague knowledge about an application domain. In this paper, we study fuzzy extensions of conjunctive queries (CQs) over the DL $\mathcal{SROIQ}$ based on finite chains of degrees of truth. To answer such queries, we extend a well-known technique that reduces the fuzzy ontology to a classical one, and use classical DL reasoners as a black box. We improve the complexity of previous reduction techniques for finitely valued fuzzy DLs, which allows us to prove tight complexity results for answering certain kinds of fuzzy CQs. We conclude with an experimental evaluation of a prototype implementation, showing the feasibility of our approach.