Description logics for databases

  • Authors:

  • Alex Borgida;Maurizio Lenzerini;Riccardo Rosati

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ;Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy;Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy

  • Venue:
  • The description logic handbook
  • Year:
  • 2003

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Abstract

In contrast to the relatively complex information that can be expressed in DL ABoxes (which we might call knowledge or information), databases and other sources such as files, semistructured data, and the World Wide Web provide rather simpler data, which must however be managed effectively. This chapter surveys the major classes of application of Description Logics and their reasoning facilities to the issues of data management, including: (i) expressing the conceptual domain model/ontology of the data source, (ii) integrating multiple data sources, and (iii) expressing and evaluating queries. In each case we utilize the standard properties of Description Logics such as the ability to express ontologies at a level closer to that of human conceptualization (e.g., representing conceptual schemas), determining consistency of descriptions (e.g., determining if a query or the integration of some schemas is consistent), and automatically classifying descriptions that are definitions (e.g., queries are really definitions, so we can classify them and determine subsumption between them).