TBoxes do not Yield a Compact Representation of Least Common Subsumers

For Description Logics with existential restrictions, the size of the least common subsumer (lcs) of concept descriptions may grow exponentially in the size of the input descriptions. This paper investigates whether the possibly exponentially large concept description representing the lcs can always be represented in a more compact way when using an appropriate (acyclic) TBox for de ning this description. This conjecture was supported by our experience in a chemical process engineering application. Nevertheless, it turns out that, in general, TBoxes cannot always be used to obtain a polynomial size representation of the lcs.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: DLOG
• Authors: Franz Baader, Anni-Yasmin Turhan
• Keywords: Automated Reasoning, Concept Description, DLOG 2001, Grow Exponentially, Large Concept Description