Towards a generation-based semantic web authoring tool

Widespread use of Semantic Web technologies requires interfaces through which knowledge can be viewed and edited without deep understanding of Description Logic and formalisms like OWL and RDF. Several groups are pursuing approaches based on Controlled Natural Languages (CNLs), so that editing can be performed by typing in sentences which are automatically interpreted as statements in OWL. We suggest here a variant of this approach which relies entirely on Natural Language Generation (NLG), and propose requirements for a system that can reliably generate transparent realisations of statements in Description Logic

Planning accessible explanations for entailments in OWL ontologies

A useful enhancement of an NLG system for verbalising ontologies would be a module capable of explaining undesired entailments of the axioms encoded by the developer. This task raises interesting issues of content planning. One approach, useful as a baseline, is simply to list the subset of axioms relevant to inferring the entailment; however, in many cases it will still not be obvious, even to OWL experts, why the entailment follows. We suggest an approach in which further statements are added in order to construct a proof tree, with every step based on a relatively simple deduction rule of known difficulty; we also describe an empirical study through which the difficulty of these simple deduction patterns has been measured

Generating Natural Language Explanations For Entailments In Ontologies

Building an error-free and high-quality ontology in OWL (Web Ontology Language)---the latest standard ontology language endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium---is not an easy task for domain experts, who usually have limited knowledge of OWL and logic. One sign of an erroneous ontology is the occurrence of undesired inferences (or entailments), often caused by interactions among (apparently innocuous) axioms within the ontology. This suggests the need for a tool that allows developers to inspect why such an entailment follows from the ontology in order to debug and repair it. This thesis aims to address the above problem by advancing knowledge and techniques in generating explanations for entailments in OWL ontologies. We build on earlier work on identifying minimal subsets of the ontology from which an entailment can be drawn---known technically as justifications. Our main focus is on planning (at a logical level) an explanation that links a justification (premises) to its entailment (conclusion); we also consider how best to express the explanation in English. Among other innovations, we propose a method for assessing the understandability of explanations, so that the easiest can be selected from a set of alternatives. Our findings make a theoretical contribution to Natural Language Generation and Knowledge Representation. They could also play a practical role in improving the explanation facilities in ontology development tools, considering especially the requirements of users who are not expert in OWL

Automated Reasoning

This volume, LNAI 13385, constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning, IJCAR 2022, held in Haifa, Israel, in August 2022. The 32 full research papers and 9 short papers presented together with two invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 85 submissions. The papers focus on the following topics: Satisfiability, SMT Solving,Arithmetic; Calculi and Orderings; Knowledge Representation and Jutsification; Choices, Invariance, Substitutions and Formalization; Modal Logics; Proofs System and Proofs Search; Evolution, Termination and Decision Prolems. This is an open access book

Hierarchical contextual reasoning

Computer supported development of proofs requires user interaction even for theorems that are simple by human standards. In this thesis we define a communication infrastructure as a mediator between the user and the automatic reasoning procedures. It is based on a new uniform meta proof theory for contextual reasoning and encompasses most aspects of communication from the presentation of the proof state, via the supply of relevant contextual information about possible proof continuations, to the support for a hierarchical proof development. The proof theory is uniform for a variety of logics. It exploits proof theoretic annotations in formulas for a contextual reasoning style that is as far as possible intuitive for the user while at the same time still adequate for automatic reasoning procedures. Furthermore, concepts are defined to accomodate both the use and the explicit representation of hierarchies that are inherent in problem solving in general.Das computergestuetzte Beweisen von Theoremen erfordert den Eingriff des menschlichen Benutzers selbst fuer nach menschlichen Maßstaeben einfache Theoreme. Diese Arbeit definiert eine Kommunikationsplattform, die eine synergetische Kooperationsform des Benutzers mit dem Beweisverfahren ermöglicht