Scalable ontology reasoning

• US 20070233627A1
• Filed: 02/21/2007
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ma, Li, Srinivas, Kavitha, Schonberg, Edith, Dolby, Julian, Kalyanpur, Aditya, Fokoue-Nkoutche, Achille, Jay Kershenbaum, Aaron
• Granted Patent: US 7,904,401 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/022 Knowledge engineering; Knowledge acquisition

Abstract

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for scalable ontology reasoning. A method of generating a summarized ontology includes loading an ontology from a store, eliminating relationships in the ontology, the eliminating relationships including an insertion of new relationships that simplify the ontology, eliminating individuals in the ontology, the eliminating individuals including insertion of new individuals to simplify the ontology, eliminating concepts in the ontology including insertion of new concepts to simplify the ontology, and generating the summarized ontology from the eliminating relationships, eliminating individuals and eliminating concepts.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an import module;

a scope definition module;

a query processing component;

a storage manager;

a reasoning engine; and

a data store.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the import module enables an import of ontology documents into a persistent store that the reasoning engine relies on for data.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scope definition module enables a user to specify a sub-part of an ontology.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the query processing component enables a parsing of queries expressed in SPARQL, a standardized query language for resource description framework data.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage manager enables create, read, update, delete plus passing through reasoning functions.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the reasoning engine comprises:

a taxonomy builder that infers implicit subclass and equivalence relationships between concepts;

an inconsistency detection component that discovers any inconsistencies in an ontology;

a relationship query component that answers questions about a relationship between ABox instances; and

a membership query component that answers queries about types of various individuals.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the data store is a resource description framework store.

8. A computer-implemented method of generating a simplified ontology, the computer-implemented method comprising steps of:

loading an ontology from a store;

eliminating relationships in the ontology, comprising a step of inserting new relationships that simplify the ontology;

eliminating individuals in the ontology, comprising a step of inserting new individuals to simplify the ontology;

eliminating concepts in the ontology comprising a step of inserting new concepts to simplify the ontology, and

generating the simplified ontology from the steps of;

eliminating relationships, eliminating individuals and eliminating concepts.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 further comprising reasoning over the simplified ontology instead of the original ontology.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 further comprising generating an explanation to a user of how a specific inference was made by an ontology reasoning engine.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 further comprising compressing the ontology with the simplified ontology.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 wherein the simplified ontology tracks changes in the ontology, such that updates to the ontology do not require re-generation of the simplified ontology.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 wherein the ontology comprises OWL Web Ontology Language documents, and any derivatives thereof which are used to express ontologies.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 further comprising:

receiving a query; and

determining a response to the query in conjunction with the simplified ontology.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

receive a query; and

determine a response to the query in conjunction with the simplified ontology.

15. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in an information carrier, for generating a simplified ontology, the computer program product being operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

load an ontology from a store;

eliminate relationships in the ontology, comprising a step of inserting new relationships that simplify the ontology;

eliminate individuals in the ontology, comprising a step of inserting new individuals to simplify the ontology;

eliminate concepts in the ontology comprising a step of inserting new concepts to summarize the ontology; and

generate the simplified ontology from the steps of;

eliminating relationships, eliminating individuals and eliminating concepts.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 further operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

reason over the simplified ontology instead of the original ontology.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 further operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

generate an explanation to a user of how a specific inference was made by an ontology reasoning engine.

18. The computer program product of claim 15 further operable to cause a data processing apparatus to:

compress the ontology with the simplified ontology.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 wherein the compressed ontology tracks changes in the ontology, such that updates to the ontology do not require re-generation of the simplified ontology.

20. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the ontology comprises OWL Web Ontology Language documents, and any derivatives thereof, which are used to express ontologies.

22. An apparatus for generating a simplified ontology the apparatus comprising:

a component for accessing the original ontology; and

an ontology processing engine for creating an abstraction of the original ontology as a simplified ontology.

23. The apparatus of claim 22 further comprising a filtering component for applying filtering to the simplified ontology for generating a filtered simplified ontology.

24. The apparatus of claim 23 wherein the filtering component comprises an iterative refinement component for iteratively refining the filtered simplified ontology to identify inconsistencies between the original ontology and the filtered simplified ontology.

25. The apparatus of claim 22 further comprising a query processing engine for executing a query against the simplified ontology.

26. The apparatus of claim 22 further comprising a storage location for storing the simplified ontology.

27. A computer-implemented method for generating a simplified ontology, the method comprising steps of:

accessing an original ontology; and

generating a simplified ontology by creating an abstraction of the original ontology, the abstraction created by applying at least one transformation to the original ontology.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 27 wherein applying at least one transformation comprises performing at least one of the steps of:

simplifying relationships in the original ontology, comprising a step of inserting at least one new relationship;

collapsing individuals in the original ontology, comprising a step of adding at least one new individual to encompass more than one individual from the original ontology; and

eliminating concepts in the original ontology, comprising a step of inserting at least one new concept.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 27 further comprising storing the simplified ontology.

30. The computer-implemented method of claim 27 further comprising filtering the simplified ontology to identify inconsistencies.

31. The computer-implemented method of claim 30 further comprising steps of iterative refining at least one of individuals, roles and concepts in the simplified ontology.

32. The computer-implemented method of claim 27 further comprising generating an explanation of results of a reasoning task to a user.

33. The computer-implemented method of claim 27 further comprising generating an interactive visualization of knowledge encapsulated in the ontology to enable user understanding of the knowledge at a high level.

34. The computer-implemented method of claim 27 further comprising executing at least one query against the simplified ontology.

35. The computer-implemented method of claim 34 wherein executing at least one query further comprises identifying a sub-portion of the simplified ontology responsible for an inconsistency, and using it to find answers to the query in the original ABox.

36. A computer-implemented method for processing a query against an ontology the method comprising steps of:

accessing the original ontology;

generating a simplified ontology by creating an abstraction of the original ontology by applying at least one transformation to the original ontology; and

applying the query to the simplified ontology to identify at least one instance of the query in the simplified ontology.

37. The computer-implemented method of claim 36 further comprising

generating a refined simplified ontology and

wherein applying the query comprises applying the query to the refined simplified ontology to identify an instance of the query in said refined simplified ontology.

38. The computer-implemented method of claim 36 further comprising identifying additional instances of the query in the original ontology based on the at least one transformation.

39. The computer-implemented method of claim 36 wherein applying at least one transformation comprises performing at least one of the steps of:

simplifying relationships in the original ontology, comprising inserting at least one new relationship;

collapsing individuals in the original ontology, comprises adding at least one new individual to encompass more than one individual from the original ontology; and

eliminating concepts in the original ontology, comprising inserting at least one new concept.

40. A program storage device readable by machine tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for generating a simplified ontology, said method comprising steps of:

accessing an original ontology; and

generating a simplified ontology by creating an abstraction of the original ontology by applying at least one transformation to the original ontology.

41. A program storage device readable by a machine tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for processing a query against an ontology, said method comprising steps of:

accessing the original ontology;

generating a simplified ontology by creating an abstraction of the original ontology by applying at least one transformation to the original ontology; and

applying the query to the simplified ontology to identify at least one instance of the query in the simplified ontology.