Abstract
Concept languages have been studied in order to give a formal account of the basic features of frame-based languages. The focus of research in concept languages was initially on the semantical reconstruction of frame-based systems and the computational complexity of reasoning. More recently, attention has been paid to the formalization of other aspects of frame-based languages, such as non-monotonic reasoning and procedural rules, which are necessary in order to bring concept languages closer to implemented systems. In this paper we discuss the above issues in the framework of concept languages enriched with an epistemic operator. In particular, we show that the epistemic operator both introduces novel features in the language, such as sophisticated query formulation and closed world reasoning, and makes it possible to provide a formal account for some aspects of the existing systems, such as rules and definitions, that cannot be characterized in a standard first-order framework.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baader, F. and Hollunder, B. Embedding defaults into terminological knowledge representation formalisms. In Proc. of the 3nd Int. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning KR-92, pages 306–317. Morgan Kaufmann, 1992.
Brachman, R. J., Borgida, A., McGuinness, D. L., and Alperin Resnick, L. The CLASSIC knowledge representation system, or, KL-ONE: the next generation. Preprints of the Workshop on Formal Aspects of Semantic Networks, Two Harbors, Cal., 1989.
Brachman, R. J. and Levesque, H. J. The tractability of subsumption in frame-based description languages. In Proc. of the 4th Nat. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence AAAI-84, pages 34–37, 1984.
Buchheit, M., Donini, F. M., and Schaerf, A. Decidable reasoning in terminological knowledge representation systems. In Proc. of the 13th Int. Joint Conf. on Artificial Intelligence IJCAI-93, 1993. In press.
Donini, F. M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., and Nutt, W. The complexity of concept languages. In Allen, J., Fikes, R., and Sandewall, E., editors, Proc. of the 2nd Int. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning KR-91, pages 151–162. Morgan Kaufmann, 1991.
Donini, F. M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., and Nutt, W. Tractable concept languages. In Proc. of the 12th Int. Joint Conf. on Artificial Intelligence IJCAI-91, pages 458–463, Sidney, 1991.
Donini, F. M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., Nutt, W., and Schaerf, A. Adding epistemic operators to concept languages. In Proc. of the 3nd Int. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning KR-92, pages 342–353, 1992.
Donini, F. M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., Nutt, W., and Schaerf, A. Adding epistemic operators to concept languages. Technical report, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1993. Forthcoming.
Donini, F. M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., and Schaerf, A. A hybrid system integrating datalog and concept languages. In Proc. of the 2nd Italian Conf. on Artificial Intelligence, number 549 in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, 1991. An extended version appeared also in the Working Notes of the AAAI Fall Symposium “Principles of Hybrid Reasoning”, 1991.
Donini, F. M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., and Schaerf, A. From subsumption to instance checking. Technical Report 15.92, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1992.
Doyle, J. and Patil, R. S. Two thesis of knowledge representation: Language restrictions, taxonomic classification, and the utility of representation services. Artificial Intelligence, 48:261–297, 1991.
Fikes, R. and Kehler, T. The role of frame-based representation in reasoning. Communications of the ACM, 28(9):904–920, 1985.
Gelfond, M. and Przymusinska, H. Negation as failure: Careful closure procedure. Artificial Intelligence, 30:273–287, 1986.
Levesque, H. J. Foundations of a functional approach to knowledge representation. Artificial Intelligence, 23:155–212, 1984.
Lifschitz, V. Nonmonotonic databases and epistemic queries. In Proc. of the 12th Int. Joint Conf. on Artificial Intelligence IJCAI-91, Sidney, 1991.
MacGregor, R. A deductive pattern matcher. In Proc. of the 6th Nat. Conf. on Artificial Intelligence AAAI-88, pages 403–408, 1988.
MacGregor, R. and Bates, R. The Loom knowledge representation language. Technical Report ISI/RS-87-188, University of Southern California, Information Science Institute, Marina del Rey, Cal., 1987.
Minker, J. On indefinite data bases and the closed world assumption. In Conf. on Automated Deduction, LNCS 138, 1982.
Nebel, B. Reasoning and Revision in Hybrid Representation Systems. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Springer-Verlag, 1990.
Nebel, B. Terminological reasoning is inherently intractable. Artificial Intelligence, 43:235–249, 1990.
Nebel, B. Terminological cycles: Semantics and computational properties. In Sowa, J. F., editor, Principles of Semantic Networks, pages 331–361. Morgan Kaufmann, 1991.
Quantz, J. and Kindermann, C. Implementation of the BACK system version 4. Technical Report KIT-Report 78, FB Informatik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 1990.
Quantz, J. and Royer, V. A preference semantics for defaults in terminological logics. In Proc. of the 3nd Int. Conf. on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning KR-92, pages 294–305, 1992.
Reiter, R. On closed world data bases. In Gallaire, H. and Minker, J., editors, Logic and Databases, pages 119–140. Plenum, 1978.
Reiter, R. On asking what a database knows. In Lloyd, J. W., editor, Symposium on computational logics, pages 96–113. Springer-Verlag, ESPRIT Basic Research Action Series, 1990.
Schaerf, A. On the complexity of the instance checking problem in concept languages with existential quantification. In Proc. of the 8th Int. Symp. on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems ISMIS-93, 1993. In press. Extended version to appear in Journal of Intelligent Information Systems.
Schild, K. Towards a theory of frames and rules. Technical report, FB Informatik, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 1989.
Schmidt-Schauß, M. and Smolka, G. Attributive concept descriptions with complements. Artificial Intelligence, 48(1):1–26, 1991.
Woods, W. A. Understanding subsumption and taxomony: A framework for progress. In Sowa, J., editor, Principles of Semantic Networks, pages 45–94. Morgan Kaufmann, 1991.
Yen, J., Neches, R., and MacGregor, R. CLASP: Integrating term subsumption sstems and production systems. IEEE trans. on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 3(1):25–31, 1991.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Donini, F.M., Lenzerini, M., Nardi, D., Nutt, W., Schaerf, A. (1994). Queries, rules and definitions as epistemic sentences in concept languages. In: Lakemeyer, G., Nebel, B. (eds) Foundations of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 810. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58107-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58107-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-58107-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48453-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive