Dually structured concepts in the Semantic Web: Answer set programming approach

Abstract

There is an ongoing discussion whether reasoning in the Semantic Web should be monotonic or not. However, it seems that the problem concerns not only reasoning over knowledge but knowledge itself, where apart from nondefeasible knowledge the defeasible knowledge can be distinguished. In the current paper we rely on the Dual Theory of Concepts, according to which concepts are dually structured into defeasible and nondefeasible parts. We develop a metaontology for representing both types of a concept's structure and apply it for annotating OWL axioms. The translation of annotated OWL axioms into a logic program under answer set semantics is provided. Hence the answer set solver Smodels may be used as reasoner for annotated ontologies, handling properly the distinction between monotonic and nonmonotonic reasoning. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.