Explaining subsumption in description logics

  • Authors:
  • Deborah L. McGuinness;Alexander T. Borgida

  • Affiliations:
  • AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ and Dept. of Computer Science, Rutgers University;Dept. of Computer Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

  • Venue:
  • IJCAI'95 Proceedings of the 14th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 1995

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Abstract

This paper explores the explanation of subsumption reasoning in Description Logics that are implemented using normalization methods, focusing on the perspective of knowledge engineers. The notion of explanation is specified using a proof-theoretic framework for presenting the inferences supported in these systems. The problem of overly long explanations is addressed by decomposing them into smaller, independent steps, using the notions of "atomic description" and "atomic justification". Implementation aspects are explored by considering the design space and some desiderata for explanation modules. This approach has been implemented for the CLASSIC knowledge representation system.