Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface
- 1 An Introduction to Description Logics
- Part I Theory
- 2 Basic Description Logics
- 3 Complexity of Reasoning
- 4 Relationships with other Formalisms
- 5 Expressive Description Logics
- 6 Extensions to Description Logics
- Part II Implementation
- Part III Applications
- Appendix: Description Logic Terminology
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Basic Description Logics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface
- 1 An Introduction to Description Logics
- Part I Theory
- 2 Basic Description Logics
- 3 Complexity of Reasoning
- 4 Relationships with other Formalisms
- 5 Expressive Description Logics
- 6 Extensions to Description Logics
- Part II Implementation
- Part III Applications
- Appendix: Description Logic Terminology
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to Description Logics as a formal language for representing knowledge and reasoning about it. It first gives a short overview of the ideas underlying Description Logics. Then it introduces syntax and semantics, covering the basic constructors that are used in systems or have been introduced in the literature, and the way these constructors can be used to build knowledge bases. Finally, it defines the typical inference problems, shows how they are interrelated, and describes different approaches for effectively solving these problems. Some of the topics that are only briefly mentioned in this chapter will be treated in more detail in subsequent chapters.
Introduction
As sketched in the previous chapter, Description Logics is the most recent name for a family of knowledge representation (KR) formalisms that represent the knowledge of an application domain (the “world”) by first defining the relevant concepts of the domain (its terminology), and then using these concepts to specify properties of objects and individuals occurring in the domain (the world description). As the name Description Logics indicates, one of the characteristics of these languages is that, unlike some of their predecessors, they are equipped with a formal, logic-based semantics. Another distinguished feature is the emphasis on reasoning as a central service: reasoning allows one to infer implicitly represented knowledge from the knowledge that is explicitly contained in the knowledge base.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Description Logic HandbookTheory, Implementation and Applications, pp. 47 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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