Assertional Removed Sets Merging of DL-Lite Knowledge Bases

Abstract

DL-Lite is a tractable family of Description Logics that underlies the OWL-QL profile of the ontology web language, which is specifically tailored for query answering. In this paper, we consider the setting where the queried data are provided by several and potentially conflicting sources. We propose a merging approach, called "Assertional Removed Sets Fusion" (ARSF) for merging DL-Lite assertional bases. This approach stems from the inconsistency minimization principle and consists in determining the minimal subsets of assertions, called assertional removed sets, that need to be dropped from the original assertional bases in order to resolve conflicts between them. We give several merging strategies based on different definitions of minimality criteria, and we characterize the behaviour of these strategies with respect to rational properties. The last part of the paper shows how to use the notion of hitting sets for computing the assertional removed sets, and the merging outcome.

Region-Based Merging of Open-Domain Terminological Knowledge

“…Conflicting information may occur when the statements of several sources are simply gathered together. Ontology merging and alignment / matching has also attracted much attention in the literature (Thiéblin, Haemmerlé, and Trojahn 2018;Chang, wei Chen, and Zhang 2019;Benferhat et al 2019;Zhao and Zhang 2016;Laadhar et al 2017;Thiéblin, Haemmerlé, and Trojahn 2018). The approach generally consists in studying an equivalence matching between a source and target taxonomy.…”

“…The simple example pointed out above clearly shows some pieces of knowledge that should be taken into account during the merging process, but that cannot be captured in the ontology language. The problem of ontology (or DL) merging is close to the problem of belief merging in a propositional setting (Benferhat et al 2019;Benferhat et al 2014;Kumar and Harding 2016;Wang et al 2012;Patricia, Konieczny, and Marquis 2008). For instance, Benferhat et al (2019) studied merging assertional bases in the DL-Lite fragment.…”

“…The problem of ontology (or DL) merging is close to the problem of belief merging in a propositional setting (Benferhat et al 2019;Benferhat et al 2014;Kumar and Harding 2016;Wang et al 2012;Patricia, Konieczny, and Marquis 2008). For instance, Benferhat et al (2019) studied merging assertional bases in the DL-Lite fragment. They have determined the minimal subsets of assertions to resolve conflicts based on the inconsistency minimization principle.…”