Marcel Lippmann

Temporal Query Answering in the Description Logic DL-Lite

Ontology-based data access (OBDA) generalizes query answering in relational databases. It allows to query a database by using the language of an ontology, abstracting from the actual relations of the database. For ontologies formulated in Description Logics of the DL-Lite family, OBDA can be realized by rewriting the query into a classical first-order query, e.g. an SQL query, by compiling the information of the ontology into the query. The query is then answered using classical database techniques.

Temporalizing ontology-based data access

Ontology-based data access (OBDA) generalizes query answering in databases towards deduction since (i) the fact base is not assumed to contain complete knowledge (i.e., there is no closed world assumption), and (ii) the interpretation of the predicates occurring in the queries is constrained by axioms of an ontology. OBDA has been investigated in detail for the case where the ontology is expressed by an appropriate Description Logic (DL) and the queries are conjunctive queries. Motivated by situation awareness applications, we investigate an extension of OBDA to the temporal case. As query language we consider an extension of the well-known propositional temporal logic LTL where conjunctive queries can occur in place of propositional variables, and as ontology language we use the prototypical expressive DL

Runtime verification using a temporal description logic

\mathcal{ALC}

Temporalizing rewritable query languages over knowledge bases

. For the resulting instance of temporalized OBDA, we investigate both data complexity and combined complexity of the query entailment problem.

Using causal relationships to deal with the ramification problem in action formalisms based on description logics

Formulae of linear temporal logic (LTL) can be used to specify (wanted or unwanted) properties of a dynamical system. In model checking, the systems behavior is described by a transition system, and one needs to check whether all possible traces of this transition system satisfy the formula. In runtime verification, one observes the actual system behavior, which at any time point yields a finite prefix of a trace. The task is then to check whether all continuations of this prefix to a trace satisfy (violate) the formula. In this paper, we extend the known approaches to LTL runtime verification in two directions. First, instead of propositional LTL we use ALC-LTL, which can use axioms of the description logic ALC instead of propositional variables to describe properties of single states of the system. Second, instead of assuming that the observed system behavior provides us with complete information about the states of the system, we consider the case where states may be described in an incomplete way by ALC-ABoxes.

Temporal Query Entailment in the Description Logic SHQ

Abstract Ontology-based data access (OBDA) generalizes query answering in relational databases. It allows to query a database by using the language of an ontology, abstracting from the actual relations of the database. OBDA can sometimes be realized by compiling the information of the ontology into the query and the database. The resulting query is then answered using classical database techniques. In this paper, we consider a temporal version of OBDA. We propose a generic temporal query language that combines linear temporal logic with queries over ontologies. This language is well-suited for expressing temporal properties of dynamic systems and is useful in context-aware applications that need to detect specific situations. We show that, if atemporal queries are rewritable in the sense described above, then the corresponding temporal queries are also rewritable such that we can answer them over a temporal database. We present three approaches to answering the resulting queries.

Runtime verification using the temporal description logic ALC-LTL revisited

In the reasoning about actions community, causal relationships have been proposed as a possible approach for solving the ramification problem, i.e., the problem of how to deal with indirect effects of actions. In this paper, we show that causal relationships can be added to action formalisms based on Description Logics (DLs) without destroying the decidability of the consistency and the projection problem. We investigate the complexity of these decision problems based on which DL is used as base logic for the action formalism.

Query Rewriting for DL-Lite with n-ary Concrete Domains

Ontology-based data access (OBDA) generalizes query answering in databases towards deductive entailment since (i) the fact base is not assumed to contain complete knowledge (i.e., there is no closed world assumption), and (ii) the interpretation of the predicates occurring in the queries is constrained by axioms of an ontology. OBDA has been investigated in detail for the case where the ontology is expressed by an appropriate Description Logic (DL) and the queries are conjunctive queries. Motivated by situation awareness applications, we investigate an extension of OBDA to the temporal case. As the query language we consider an extension of the well-known propositional temporal logic LTL where conjunctive queries can occur in place of propositional variables, and as the ontology language we use the expressive DL SHQ. For the resulting instance of temporalized OBDA, we investigate both data complexity and combined complexity of the query entailment problem. In the course of this investigation, we also establish the complexity of consistency of Boolean knowledge bases in SHQ.

Decidable Description Logics of Context with Rigid Roles

Abstract Formulae of linear temporal logic (LTL) can be used to specify (wanted or unwanted) properties of a dynamical system. In model checking, the systems behaviour is described by a transition system, and one needs to check whether all possible traces of this transition system satisfy the formula. In runtime verification, one observes the actual system behaviour, which at any point in time yields a finite prefix of a trace. The task is then to check whether all continuations of this prefix to a trace satisfy (violate) the formula. More precisely, one wants to construct a monitor, i.e., a finite automaton that receives the finite prefix as input and then gives the right answer based on the state currently reached. In this paper, we extend the known approaches to LTL runtime verification in two directions. First, instead of propositional LTL we use the more expressive temporal logic ALC -LTL, which can use axioms of the Description Logic (DL) ALC instead of propositional variables to describe properties of single states of the system. Second, instead of assuming that the observed system behaviour provides us with complete information about the states of the system, we assume that states are described in an incomplete way by ALC -knowledge bases. We show that also in this setting monitors can effectively be constructed. The (double-exponential) size of the constructed monitors is in fact optimal, and not higher than in the propositional case. As an auxiliary result, we show how to construct Buchi automata for ALC -LTL-formulae, which yields alternative proofs for the known upper bounds of deciding satisfiability in ALC -LTL.

Temporal Conjunctive Queries in Expressive Description Logics with Transitive Roles

We investigate ontology-based query answering (OBQA) in a setting where both the ontology and the query can refer to concrete values such as numbers and strings. In contrast to previous work on this topic, the built-in predicates used to compare values are not restricted to being unary. We introduce restrictions on these predicates and on the ontology language that allow us to reduce OBQA to query answering in databases using the so-called combined rewriting approach. Though at first sight our restrictions are different from the ones used in previous work, we show that our results strictly subsume some of the existing first-order rewritability results for unary predicates.