Tightly Coupled Probabilistic Description Logic Programs for the Semantic Web

Abstract

We present a novel approach to probabilistic description logic programs for the Semantic Web in which disjunctive logic programs under the answer set semantics are tightly coupled with description logics and Bayesian probabilities. The approach has several nice features. In particular, it is a logic-based representation formalism that naturally fits into the landscape of Semantic Web languages. Tightly coupled probabilistic description logic programs can especially be used for representing mappings between ontologies, which are a common way of approaching the semantic heterogeneity problem on the Semantic Web. In this application, they allow in particular for resolving inconsistencies and for merging mappings from different matchers based on the level of confidence assigned to different rules. Furthermore, tightly coupled probabilistic description logic programs also provide a natural integration of ontologies, action languages, and Bayesian probabilities towards Web Services. We explore the computational aspects of consistency checking and query processing in tightly coupled probabilistic description logic programs. We show that these problems are decidable and computable, respectively, and that they can be reduced to consistency checking and cautious/brave reasoning, respectively, in tightly coupled disjunctive description logic programs. Using these results, we also provide an anytime algorithm for tight query processing. Furthermore, we analyze the complexity of consistency checking and query processing in the new probabilistic description logic programs, and we present a special case of these problems with polynomial data complexity.