An approach for semantic web query approximation based on domain knowledge and user preferences

Abstract

One of the most important services in the Semantic Web is the Reasoning Service. According to the Semantic Web requirements, reasoning under time pressure or other restrictions is needed; and, reasoning which is not 'perfect' but instead 'good enough' for given tasks is acceptable. One of the approaches for the improvement of reasoning performance is approximation; of course, there is an effort for raising more precise approximations. One of the fields in which approximation seems to be useful is query. So far, all of the approximation strategies introduced for conjunctive queries just consider the query's structure. In this paper, a semantic approach for conjunctive query approximation utilizing domain knowledge and user preferences is proposed. Like other applications, it is expected that the usage of the suggested approach, either singular or in combination with other syntactic methods, results in a substantial improvement in the final approximation. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.