International Workshop on Description Logics : Bonn, May 28/29, 1994

This collection of papers forms the permanent record of the 1994 Description Logic Workshop, that was held at the Gustav Stresemann Institut in Bonn, Germany on 28 and 29 May 1994, immediately after the Fourth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The workshop was set up to be as informal as possible, so this collection cannot hope to capture the discussions associated with the workshop. However, we hope that it will serve to remind participants of their discussion at the workshop, and provide non-participants with indications of the topics that were discussed at the workshop. The workshop consisted of seven regular sessions and one panel session. Each regular session had about four short presentations on a single theme, but also had considerable time reserved for discussion. The themes of the sessions were Foundations of Description Logics, Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems, Language Extensions, Expanding Description Logics, General Applications of Description Logics, Natural Language Applications of Description Logics, Connections between Description Logics and Databases, and the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems. The session on Foundations of Description Logics concentrated on computational properties of description logics, correspondences between description logics and other formalisms, and on semantics of description logics, Similarly, there is discussion on how to develop tractable desription logics, for some notion of tractable, and whether it is useful to worry about achieving tractability at all. Several of the participants argued in favour of a very expressive description logic. This obviously precludes tractability or even decidability of complete reasoning. Klaus Schild proposed that for some purposes one could employ "model checking" (i .e., a closed world assumption) instead of "theorem proving," and has shown that this is still tractable for very large languages. Maurizio Lenzerini's opinion was that it is important to have decidable languages. Tractability cannot be achieved in several application areas because there one needs very expressive constructs: e.g., axioms, complex role constructors, and cycles with fixed-point semantics. For Bob MacGregor, not even decidability is an issue since he claims that Loom's incomplete reasoner is sufficient for his applications. The discussion addressed the question of whether there is still need for foundations, and whether the work on foundation done until now really solved the problems that the designers of early DL systems had. Both questions were mostly answered in the affirmative, with the caveat that new research on foundations should make sure that it is concerned with "real" problems, and not just generates new problems. In the session on Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems the participants considered different ways of putting together description logics and description logic systems. One way of doing this is to have a different kind of inference strategy for description logics, such as one based on intuitionistic logics or one based directly on rules of inference-thus allowing variant systems. Another way of modifying description logic systems is to divide them up in different ways, such as making a terminology consist of a schema portion and a view portion. Some discussion in this session concerned whether architectures should be influenced by application areas, or even by particular applications. There was considerable discussion at the workshop on how Description Logics should be extended or expanded to make them more useful. There are several methods to do this. The first is to extend the language of descriptions, e.g ., to represent n-ary relations, temporal information, or whole-part relationships, all of which were discussed at the workshop. The second is to add in another kind of reasoning, such as default reasoning, while still keeping the general framework of description logic reasoning. The third is to incorporate descriptions or description-like constructs in a larger reasoner, such as a first order reasoner. This was the approach taken in OMEGA and is the approach being taken in the Loom project. There have been many extensions of the first two kinds proposed for description logics, including several presented at the workshop. One quest ion discussed at the workshop was whether these extensions fit in well with the philosophy of description logic. Another question was whether the presence of many proposals for extensions means that description logics are easy to expand, or that description logics are inadequate representation formalisms? The general consensus was that description logics adequately capture a certain kind of core reasoning and that they lend themselves to incorporation with other kinds of reasoning. Care must be taken, however, to keep the extended versions true to the goals of description logics. The sessions on Applications of Description Logics had presentations on applications of description logics in various areas, including configuration, tutoring, natural language processing, and domain modeling. Most of these applications are research applications, funded by government research programs. There was discussion of what is needed to have more fielded applications of description logics. The session on Connections between Description Logics and Databases considered three kinds of connections between Description Logics and Databases: 1. using Description Logics for expressing database schemas, including local schemas, integrated schemas, and views, integrity constraints, and queries; 2. using Description Logic reasoning for various database-related reasoning, including schema integration and validation, and query optimization, and query validation and organization; and 3. making Description Logic reasoners more like Database Mangagement Systems via optimization. All three of these connections are being actively investigated by the description logic community. The panel session on the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems discussed where the future of description logics will lie. There seems to be a consensus that description logics must forge tighter connections with other formalisms, such as databases or object-oriented systems. In this way, perhaps, description logics will find more real applications

International Workshop on Description Logics : Bonn, May 28/29, 1994

This collection of papers forms the permanent record of the 1994 Description Logic Workshop, that was held at the Gustav Stresemann Institut in Bonn, Germany on 28 and 29 May 1994, immediately after the Fourth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The workshop was set up to be as informal as possible, so this collection cannot hope to capture the discussions associated with the workshop. However, we hope that it will serve to remind participants of their discussion at the workshop, and provide non-participants with indications of the topics that were discussed at the workshop. The workshop consisted of seven regular sessions and one panel session. Each regular session had about four short presentations on a single theme, but also had considerable time reserved for discussion. The themes of the sessions were Foundations of Description Logics, Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems, Language Extensions, Expanding Description Logics, General Applications of Description Logics, Natural Language Applications of Description Logics, Connections between Description Logics and Databases, and the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems. The session on Foundations of Description Logics concentrated on computational properties of description logics, correspondences between description logics and other formalisms, and on semantics of description logics, Similarly, there is discussion on how to develop tractable desription logics, for some notion of tractable, and whether it is useful to worry about achieving tractability at all. Several of the participants argued in favour of a very expressive description logic. This obviously precludes tractability or even decidability of complete reasoning. Klaus Schild proposed that for some purposes one could employ "model checking" (i .e., a closed world assumption) instead of "theorem proving," and has shown that this is still tractable for very large languages. Maurizio Lenzerini\u27s opinion was that it is important to have decidable languages. Tractability cannot be achieved in several application areas because there one needs very expressive constructs: e.g., axioms, complex role constructors, and cycles with fixed-point semantics. For Bob MacGregor, not even decidability is an issue since he claims that Loom\u27s incomplete reasoner is sufficient for his applications. The discussion addressed the question of whether there is still need for foundations, and whether the work on foundation done until now really solved the problems that the designers of early DL systems had. Both questions were mostly answered in the affirmative, with the caveat that new research on foundations should make sure that it is concerned with "real" problems, and not just generates new problems. In the session on Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems the participants considered different ways of putting together description logics and description logic systems. One way of doing this is to have a different kind of inference strategy for description logics, such as one based on intuitionistic logics or one based directly on rules of inference-thus allowing variant systems. Another way of modifying description logic systems is to divide them up in different ways, such as making a terminology consist of a schema portion and a view portion. Some discussion in this session concerned whether architectures should be influenced by application areas, or even by particular applications. There was considerable discussion at the workshop on how Description Logics should be extended or expanded to make them more useful. There are several methods to do this. The first is to extend the language of descriptions, e.g ., to represent n-ary relations, temporal information, or whole-part relationships, all of which were discussed at the workshop. The second is to add in another kind of reasoning, such as default reasoning, while still keeping the general framework of description logic reasoning. The third is to incorporate descriptions or description-like constructs in a larger reasoner, such as a first order reasoner. This was the approach taken in OMEGA and is the approach being taken in the Loom project. There have been many extensions of the first two kinds proposed for description logics, including several presented at the workshop. One quest ion discussed at the workshop was whether these extensions fit in well with the philosophy of description logic. Another question was whether the presence of many proposals for extensions means that description logics are easy to expand, or that description logics are inadequate representation formalisms? The general consensus was that description logics adequately capture a certain kind of core reasoning and that they lend themselves to incorporation with other kinds of reasoning. Care must be taken, however, to keep the extended versions true to the goals of description logics. The sessions on Applications of Description Logics had presentations on applications of description logics in various areas, including configuration, tutoring, natural language processing, and domain modeling. Most of these applications are research applications, funded by government research programs. There was discussion of what is needed to have more fielded applications of description logics. The session on Connections between Description Logics and Databases considered three kinds of connections between Description Logics and Databases: 1. using Description Logics for expressing database schemas, including local schemas, integrated schemas, and views, integrity constraints, and queries; 2. using Description Logic reasoning for various database-related reasoning, including schema integration and validation, and query optimization, and query validation and organization; and 3. making Description Logic reasoners more like Database Mangagement Systems via optimization. All three of these connections are being actively investigated by the description logic community. The panel session on the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems discussed where the future of description logics will lie. There seems to be a consensus that description logics must forge tighter connections with other formalisms, such as databases or object-oriented systems. In this way, perhaps, description logics will find more real applications

International Workshop on Description Logics : Bonn, May 28/29, 1994

This collection of papers forms the permanent record of the 1994 Description Logic Workshop, that was held at the Gustav Stresemann Institut in Bonn, Germany on 28 and 29 May 1994, immediately after the Fourth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The workshop was set up to be as informal as possible, so this collection cannot hope to capture the discussions associated with the workshop. However, we hope that it will serve to remind participants of their discussion at the workshop, and provide non-participants with indications of the topics that were discussed at the workshop. The workshop consisted of seven regular sessions and one panel session. Each regular session had about four short presentations on a single theme, but also had considerable time reserved for discussion. The themes of the sessions were Foundations of Description Logics, Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems, Language Extensions, Expanding Description Logics, General Applications of Description Logics, Natural Language Applications of Description Logics, Connections between Description Logics and Databases, and the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems. The session on Foundations of Description Logics concentrated on computational properties of description logics, correspondences between description logics and other formalisms, and on semantics of description logics, Similarly, there is discussion on how to develop tractable desription logics, for some notion of tractable, and whether it is useful to worry about achieving tractability at all. Several of the participants argued in favour of a very expressive description logic. This obviously precludes tractability or even decidability of complete reasoning. Klaus Schild proposed that for some purposes one could employ "model checking" (i .e., a closed world assumption) instead of "theorem proving," and has shown that this is still tractable for very large languages. Maurizio Lenzerini's opinion was that it is important to have decidable languages. Tractability cannot be achieved in several application areas because there one needs very expressive constructs: e.g., axioms, complex role constructors, and cycles with fixed-point semantics. For Bob MacGregor, not even decidability is an issue since he claims that Loom's incomplete reasoner is sufficient for his applications. The discussion addressed the question of whether there is still need for foundations, and whether the work on foundation done until now really solved the problems that the designers of early DL systems had. Both questions were mostly answered in the affirmative, with the caveat that new research on foundations should make sure that it is concerned with "real" problems, and not just generates new problems. In the session on Architecture of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems the participants considered different ways of putting together description logics and description logic systems. One way of doing this is to have a different kind of inference strategy for description logics, such as one based on intuitionistic logics or one based directly on rules of inference-thus allowing variant systems. Another way of modifying description logic systems is to divide them up in different ways, such as making a terminology consist of a schema portion and a view portion. Some discussion in this session concerned whether architectures should be influenced by application areas, or even by particular applications. There was considerable discussion at the workshop on how Description Logics should be extended or expanded to make them more useful. There are several methods to do this. The first is to extend the language of descriptions, e.g ., to represent n-ary relations, temporal information, or whole-part relationships, all of which were discussed at the workshop. The second is to add in another kind of reasoning, such as default reasoning, while still keeping the general framework of description logic reasoning. The third is to incorporate descriptions or description-like constructs in a larger reasoner, such as a first order reasoner. This was the approach taken in OMEGA and is the approach being taken in the Loom project. There have been many extensions of the first two kinds proposed for description logics, including several presented at the workshop. One quest ion discussed at the workshop was whether these extensions fit in well with the philosophy of description logic. Another question was whether the presence of many proposals for extensions means that description logics are easy to expand, or that description logics are inadequate representation formalisms? The general consensus was that description logics adequately capture a certain kind of core reasoning and that they lend themselves to incorporation with other kinds of reasoning. Care must be taken, however, to keep the extended versions true to the goals of description logics. The sessions on Applications of Description Logics had presentations on applications of description logics in various areas, including configuration, tutoring, natural language processing, and domain modeling. Most of these applications are research applications, funded by government research programs. There was discussion of what is needed to have more fielded applications of description logics. The session on Connections between Description Logics and Databases considered three kinds of connections between Description Logics and Databases: 1. using Description Logics for expressing database schemas, including local schemas, integrated schemas, and views, integrity constraints, and queries; 2. using Description Logic reasoning for various database-related reasoning, including schema integration and validation, and query optimization, and query validation and organization; and 3. making Description Logic reasoners more like Database Mangagement Systems via optimization. All three of these connections are being actively investigated by the description logic community. The panel session on the Future of Description Logics and Description Logic Systems discussed where the future of description logics will lie. There seems to be a consensus that description logics must forge tighter connections with other formalisms, such as databases or object-oriented systems. In this way, perhaps, description logics will find more real applications

Developing techniques for enhancing comprehensibility of controlled medical terminologies

A controlled medical terminology (CMT) is a collection of concepts (or terms) that are used in the medical domain. Typically, a CMT also contains attributes of those concepts and/or relationships between those concepts. Electronic CMTs are extremely useful and important for communication between and integration of independent information systems in healthcare, because data in this area is highly fragmented. A single query in this area might involve several databases, e.g., a clinical database, a pharmacy database, a radiology database, and a lab test database. Unfortunately, the extensive sizes of CMTs, often containing tens of thousands of concepts and hundreds of thousands of relationships between pairs of those concepts, impose steep learning curves for new users of such CMTs. In this dissertation, we address the problem of helping a user to orient himself in an existing large CMT. In order to help a user comprehend a large, complex CMT, we need to provide abstract views of the CMT. However, at this time, no tools exist for providing a user with such abstract views. One reason for the lack of tools is the absence of a good theory on how to partition an overwhelming CMT into manageable pieces. In this dissertation, we try to overcome the described problem by using a threepronged approach. (1) We use the power of Object-Oriented Databases to design a schema extraction process for large, complex CMTs. The schema resulting from this process provides an excellent, compact representation of the CMT. (2) We develop a theory and a methodology for partitioning a large OODI3 schema, modeled as a graph, into small meaningful units. The methodology relies on the interaction between a human and a computer, making optimal use of the human\u27s semantic knowledge and the computer\u27s speed. Furthermore, the theory and methodology developed for the scbemalevel partitioning are also adapted to the object-level of a CMT. (3) We use purely structural similarities for partitioning CMTs, eliminating the need for a human expert in the partitioning methodology mentioned above. Two large medical terminologies are used as our test beds, the Medical Entities Dictionary (MED) and the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), which itself contains a number of terminologies

Representing and Reasoning on Conceptual Queries Over Image Databases

The problem of content management of multimedia data types (e.g., image, video, graphics) is becoming increasingly important with the development of advanced multimedia applications. Traditional database management systems are inadequate for the handling of such data types. They require new techniques for query formulation, retrieval, evaluation, and navigation. In this paper we develop a knowledge-based framework for modeling and retrieving image data by content. To represent the various aspects of an image object's characteristics, we propose a model which consists of three layers: (1) Feature and Content Layer, intended to contain image visual features such as contours, shapes,etc.; (2) Object Layer, which provides the (conceptual) content dimension of images; and (3) Schema Layer, which contains the structured abstractions of images, i.e., a general schema about the classes of objects represented in the object layer. We propose two abstract languages on the basis of description logics: one for describing knowledge of the object and schema layers, and the other, more expressive, for making queries. Queries can refer to the form dimension (i.e., information of the Feature and Content Layer) or to the content dimension (i.e., information of the Object Layer). These languages employ a variable free notation, and they are well suited for the design, verification and complexity analysis of algorithms. As the amount of information contained in the previous layers may be huge and operations performed at the Feature and Content Layer are time-consuming, resorting to the use of materialized views to process and optimize queries may be extremely useful. For that, we propose a formal framework for testing containment of a query in a view expressed in our query language. The algorithm we propose is sound and complete and relatively efficient.This is an extended version of the article in: Eleventh International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems, Warsaw, Poland, 1999

Incorporating generalized quantifiers into description logic for representing data source contents

Title from cover. "January 1998."Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-21).Steven Yi-cheng Tu and Stuart E. Madnick