Reasoning and change management in modular ontologies

ct 9 The benefits of modular representations are well known from many areas of computer science. While in software engi10 neering modularization is mainly a vehicle for supporting distributed development and re-use, in knowledge representa11 tion, the main goal of modularization is efficiency of reasoning. In this paper, we concentrate on the benefits of 12 modularization in the context of ontologies, explicit representations of the terminology used in a domain. We define a for13 mal representation for modular ontologies based on the notion of Distributed Description Logics and introduce an archi14 tecture that supports local reasoning by compiling implied axioms. We further address the problem of guaranteeing the 15 correctness and completeness of compiled knowledge in the presence of changes in different modules. We propose a heu16 ristic for analyzing changes and their impact on compiled knowledge and guiding the process of updating compiled infor17 mation that can often reduce ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: DKE
• Authors: Heiner Stuckenschmidt, Michel C. A. Klein
• Keywords: DKE 2007, Explicit Representations, Main Goal, Modular Representations