A new matchmaking approach based on abductive conjunctive query answering

Abstract

To perform matchmaking in Web-based scenarios where data are often incomplete, we propose an extended conjunctive query answering (CQA) problem, called abductive CQA problem, in Description Logic ontologies. Given a consistent ontology and a conjunctive query, the abductive CQA problem computes all abductive answers to the query in the ontology. An abductive answer is an answer to the query in some consistent ontology enlarged from the given one by adding a bounded number of individual assertions, where the individual assertions that can be added are confined by user-specified concept or role names. We also propose a new approach to matchmaking based on the abductive CQA semantics, in which offer information is expressed as individual assertions, request information is expressed as conjunctive queries, and matches for a request are defined as abductive answers to a conjunctive query that expresses the request. We propose a sound and complete method for computing all abductive answers to a conjunctive query in an ontology expressed in the Description Logic Program fragment of OWL 2 DL with the Unique Name Assumption. The feasibility of this method is demonstrated by a real-life application, rental matchmaking, which handles requests for renting houses. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.