Get ebook downloads in full at ebookname.

com

The Description Logic Handbook Theory

Implementation and Applications 1st Edition Franz
Baader

https://ebookname.com/product/the-description-logic-
handbook-theory-implementation-and-applications-1st-edition-
franz-baader/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookname.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

The Description Logic Handbook Theory Implementation

and Applications 2nd Edition Franz Baader

https://ebookname.com/product/the-description-logic-handbook-
theory-implementation-and-applications-2nd-edition-franz-baader/

Computer arithmetic and validity Theory implementation

and applications 2ed. Edition Ulrich Kulisch

https://ebookname.com/product/computer-arithmetic-and-validity-
theory-implementation-and-applications-2ed-edition-ulrich-
kulisch/

Handbook of virtual environments design implementation

and applications 1st Edition Kay M. Stanney

https://ebookname.com/product/handbook-of-virtual-environments-
design-implementation-and-applications-1st-edition-kay-m-stanney/

Princeton Review AP Physics 1 Scanned Version The

Princeton Review

https://ebookname.com/product/princeton-review-ap-
physics-1-scanned-version-the-princeton-review/
Intellectual Property 8 Pap/Psc Edition David
Bainbridge

https://ebookname.com/product/intellectual-property-8-pap-psc-
edition-david-bainbridge/

Modeling Solvent Environments Applications to

Simulations of Biomolecules 1st Edition Michael Feig

https://ebookname.com/product/modeling-solvent-environments-
applications-to-simulations-of-biomolecules-1st-edition-michael-
feig/

Perspectives on Labour Law Law in Context 2nd Edition

A. C. L. Davies

https://ebookname.com/product/perspectives-on-labour-law-law-in-
context-2nd-edition-a-c-l-davies/

American Mythmaker Walter Noble Burns and the Legends

of Billy the Kid Wyatt Earp and Joaquín Murrieta 1st
Edition Mark J. Dworkin

https://ebookname.com/product/american-mythmaker-walter-noble-
burns-and-the-legends-of-billy-the-kid-wyatt-earp-and-joaquin-
murrieta-1st-edition-mark-j-dworkin/

Lean Six Sigma for the Office 1st Edition James William
Martin

https://ebookname.com/product/lean-six-sigma-for-the-office-1st-
edition-james-william-martin/
The neuroscience of tinnitus 1st Edition Eggermont

https://ebookname.com/product/the-neuroscience-of-tinnitus-1st-
edition-eggermont/
THE DESCRIPTION LOGIC HANDBOOK
Theory, implementation, and applications

Edited by

FRANZ BAADER
DIEGO CALVANESE
DEBORAH L. McGUINNESS
DANIELE NARDI
PETER F. PATEL-SCHNEIDER
  
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge  , United Kingdom
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521781763

© Cambridge University Press 2003

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published in print format 2003

-
isbn-13 978-0-511-06694-8 eBook (NetLibrary)
-
isbn-10 0-511-06694-5 eBook (NetLibrary)

-
isbn-13 978-0-521-78176-3 hardback
-
isbn-10 0-521-78176-0 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

List of contributors page ix

Preface xiii
1 An Introduction to Description Logics D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 From networks to Description Logics 4
1.3 Knowledge representation in Description Logics 12
1.4 From theory to practice: Description Logic systems 16
1.5 Applications developed with Description Logic systems 20
1.6 Extensions of Description Logics 30
1.7 Relationship to other fields of Computer Science 36
1.8 Conclusion 39
Part I: Theory 41
2 Basic Description Logics F. Baader and W. Nutt 43
2.1 Introduction 43
2.2 Definition of the basic formalism 46
2.3 Reasoning algorithms 74
2.4 Language extensions 90
3 Complexity of Reasoning F. M. Donini 96
3.1 Introduction 96
3.2 OR-branching: finding a model 100
3.3 AND-branching: finding a clash 107
3.4 Combining sources of complexity 114
3.5 Reasoning in the presence of axioms 116
3.6 Undecidability 122
3.7 Reasoning about individuals in ABoxes 128
3.8 Discussion 132
3.9 A list of complexity results for subsumption and satisfiability 133

v
vi Contents

4 Relationships with other Formalisms U. Sattler, D. Calvanese,

and R. Molitor 137
4.1 AI knowledge representation formalisms 137
4.2 Logical formalisms 149
4.3 Database models 161
5 Expressive Description Logics D. Calvanese and G. De Giacomo 178
5.1 Introduction 178
5.2 Correspondence between Description Logics and
Propositional Dynamic Logics 179
5.3 Functional restrictions 186
5.4 Qualified number restrictions 193
5.5 Objects 197
5.6 Fixpoint constructs 201
5.7 Relations of arbitrary arity 204
5.8 Finite model reasoning 209
5.9 Undecidability results 215
6 Extensions to Description Logics F. Baader, R. Küsters, and
F. Wolter 219
6.1 Introduction 219
6.2 Language extensions 220
6.3 Non-standard inference problems 250
Part II: Implementation 263
7 From Description Logic Provers to Knowledge Representation
Systems D. L. McGuinness and P. F. Patel-Schneider 265
7.1 Introduction 265
7.2 Basic access 267
7.3 Advanced application access 270
7.4 Advanced human access 274
7.5 Other technical concerns 280
7.6 Public relations concerns 280
7.7 Summary 281
8 Description Logic Systems R. Möller and V. Haarslev 282
8.1 New light through old windows? 282
8.2 The first generation 283
8.3 Second generation Description Logic systems 291
8.4 The next generation: Fact, Dlp and Racer 301
8.5 Lessons learned 303
9 Implementation and Optimization Techniques I. Horrocks 306
9.1 Introduction 306
9.2 Preliminaries 308
 Contents vii

9.3 Subsumption-testing algorithms 313

9.4 Theory versus practice 317
9.5 Optimization techniques 322
9.6 Discussion 345
Part III: Applications 347
10 Conceptual Modeling with Description Logics A. Borgida and
R. J. Brachman 349
10.1 Background 349
10.2 Elementary Description Logic modeling 351
10.3 Individuals in the world 353
10.4 Concepts 355
10.5 Subconcepts 358
10.6 Modeling relationships 361
10.7 Modeling ontological aspects of relationships 363
10.8 A conceptual modeling methodology 369
10.9 The ABox: modeling specific states of the world 370
10.10 Conclusions 371
11 Software Engineering C. A. Welty 373
11.1 Introduction 373
11.2 Background 373
11.3 Lassie 374
11.4 CodeBase 379
11.5 CSIS and CBMS 380
12 Configuration D. L. McGuinness 388
12.1 Introduction 388
12.2 Configuration description and requirements 390
12.3 The Prose and Questar family of configurators 403
12.4 Summary 404
13 Medical Informatics A. Rector 406
13.1 Background and history 407
13.2 Example applications 410
13.3 Technical issues in medical ontologies 416
13.4 Ontological issues in medical ontologies 422
13.5 Architectures: terminology servers, views, and change
management 424
13.6 Discussion: key lessons from medical ontologies 426
14 Digital Libraries and Web-Based Information Systems
I. Horrocks, D. L. McGuinness, and A. C. Welty 427
14.1 Background and history 427
14.2 Enabling the semantic web: DAML 432
viii Contents

14.3 OIL and DAML+OIL 434

14.4 Summary 448
15 Natural Language Processing E. Franconi 450
15.1 Introduction 450
15.2 Semantic interpretation 451
15.3 Reasoning with the logical form 454
15.4 Knowledge-based natural language generation 460
16 Description Logics for Databases A. Borgida, M. Lenzerini, and
R. Rosati 462
16.1 Introduction 462
16.2 Data models and Description Logics 465
16.3 Description Logics and database querying 474
16.4 Data integration 478
16.5 Conclusions 483
Appendix Description Logic Terminology F. Baader 485
A.1 Notational conventions 485
A.2 Syntax and semantics of common Description Logics 485
A.3 Additional constructors 491
A.4 A note on the naming scheme for Description Logics 494
Bibliography 496
Index 547
 Contributors

Franz Baader
Institut für Theoretische Informatik
Fakultät Informatik
TU Dresden
01062 Dresden, Germany
baader@tcs.inf.tu-dresden.de
http://wwwtcs.inf.tu-dresden.de/~baader/
Alex Borgida
Department of Computer Science
Rutgers University
Piscataway, NJ 08855, U.S.A.
borgida@cs.rutgers.edu
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~borgida/
Ronald J. Brachman
Corporation for National Research Initiatives, U.S.A.
rjb@brachman.org
http://www.brachman.org/
Diego Calvanese
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy
calvanese@dis.uniroma1.it
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~calvanese/
Giuseppe De Giacomo
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy
degiacomo@dis.uniroma1.it
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~degiacomo/

ix
x List of contributors

Francesco M. Donini
Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica ed Elettronica
Politecnico di Bari
Via Re David 200, 70125 Bari, Italy
donini@poliba.it
http://dee.poliba.it/dee-web/doniniweb/donini.html
Enrico Franconi
Faculty of Computer Science
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Dominikanerplatz 3, I-39100 Bozen, Italy
franconi@inf.unibz.it
http://www.inf.unibz.it/~franconi/
Volker Haarslev
Computer Science Department
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., Montreal, Quebec H3G IM8, Canada
haarslev@cs.concordia.ca
http://www.cs.concordia.ca/~faculty/haarslev/
Ian Horrocks
Information Management Group
Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.
horrocks@cs.man.ac.uk
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~horrocks/
Ralf Küsters
Institut für Informatik und Praktische Mathematik
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Olshausenstraße 40, 24098 Kiel, Germany
kuesters@ti.informatik.uni-kiel.de
http://www.ti.informatik.uni-kiel.de/~kuesters/
Maurizio Lenzerini
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy
lenzerini@dis.uniroma1.it
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~lenzerini/
Deborah L. McGuinness
Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Gates Building 2A, Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-9020, U.S.A.
dlm@ksl.stanford.edu
http://ksl.stanford.edu/people/dlm/
 List of contributors xi

Ralf Molitor
Swiss Life
IT Research and Development Group
General Guisan Quai 40, CH-8002 Zürich, Switzerland
ralf.molitor@swisslife.ch
http://research.swisslife.ch/~molitor/
Ralf Möller
Computer Science Department
University of Hamburg
Vogt-Kölln-Straße 30, 22527 Hamburg, Germany
moeller@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~moeller/
Daniele Nardi
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy
nardi@dis.uniroma1.it
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~nardi/
Werner Nutt
Department of Computing and Electrical Engineering
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, U.K.
nutt@cee.hw.ac.uk
http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~nutt/
Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research
600 Mountain Avenue
Murray Hill, NJ 07974, U.S.A.
pfps@research.bell-labs.com
http://www.bell-labs.com/user/pfps/
Alan Rector
Medical Informatics Group
Department of Computer Science
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.
rector@cs.man.ac.uk
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/mig/
Riccardo Rosati
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
Via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy
rosati@dis.uniroma1.it
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~rosati/
xii List of contributors

Ulrike Sattler
Institut für Theoretische Informatik
Fakultät Informatik
TU Dresden
01062 Dresden, Germany
sattler@tcs.inf.tu-dresden.de
http://wwwtcs.inf.tu-dresden.de/~uli/
Christopher A. Welty
Knowledge Structures Group
IBM Watson Research Center
19 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY 10532, U.S.A.
weltyc@us.ibm.com
Frank Wolter
Institut für Informatik
Universität Leipzig
Augustus-Platz 10–11, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
wolter@informatik.uni-leipzig.de
http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~wolter/
 Preface

Knowledge Representation is the field of Artificial Intelligence that focuses on

the design of formalisms that are both epistemologically and computationally ad-
equate for expressing knowledge about a particular domain. One of the main lines
of investigation has been concerned with the principle that knowledge should be
represented by characterizing classes of objects and the relationships between them
The organization of the classes used to describe a domain of interest is based on a
hierarchical structure, which not only provides an effective and compact represen-
tation of information, but also allows the relevant reasoning tasks to be performed
in a computationally effective way.
The above principle drove the development of the first frame-based systems and
semantic networks in the 1970s. However, these systems were in general not for-
mally defined and the associated reasoning tools were strongly dependent on the
implementation strategies. A fundamental step towards a logic-based characteriza-
tion of required formalisms was accomplished through the work on the Kl-One
system, which collected many of the ideas stemming from earlier semantic net-
works and frame-based systems, and provided a logical basis for interpreting ob-
jects, classes (or concepts), and relationships (or links, roles) between them. The
first goal of such a logical reconstruction was the precise characterization of the
set of constructs used to build class and link expressions. The second goal was to
provide reasoning procedures that are sound and complete with respect to the se-
mantics. The article ‘The tractability of subsumption in Frame-Based Description
Languages’ by Ron Brachman and Hector Levesque, presented at AAAI 1984,
addressing the tradeoff between the expressiveness of Kl-One like languages and
the computational complexity of reasoning, is usually regarded as the origin of
research on Description Logics.
Subsequent research came under the label terminological systems to emphasize
the fact that classes and relationships were used to establish the basic terminology
adopted in the modeled domain. Still later, the emphasis was on the set of concept

xiii
xiv Preface

forming constructs admitted in the language, giving rise to the name concept lan-
guages. Recently, attention has moved closer to the properties of the underlying
logical systems, and the term Description Logics has become popular.
Research on Description Logics has covered theoretical aspects, implementation
of knowledge representation systems (modern frame-based systems) and the use of
such systems to realize applications in several areas. This pattern of development
is an example of one of the standard research methodologies, as is recognized by
the Artificial Intelligence community. The key element has been the very close
interaction between theory and practice. On the one hand, there are various im-
plemented systems based on Description Logics, offering a palette of description
formalisms with differing expressive power, and which are employed in various
application domains (such as natural language processing, configuration of tech-
nical systems, databases). On the other hand, the formal and computational prop-
erties (like decidability, complexity) of various description formalisms have been
studied in detail. These investigations are usually motivated by the use of certain
constructors in systems or the need for these constructors in specific applications,
and the results of such investigations have strongly influenced the design of new
systems.
The Description Logics research community currently consists of at least 100
active researchers. In addition, other communities are now becoming interested in
Description Logics, most notably the Databases community and, more recently,
the Semantic Web one. After more than a decade of research on Description Log-
ics there is a substantial body of work and well-established technical literature.
However, there is no comprehensive presentation of the major achievements in the
field, although survey papers have been published and workshop proceedings are
available.
Now, since 1989 a workshop dedicated to Description Logics has been held,
initially every two years but annually from 1994. At the 1997 workshop a Working
Group was formed to develop a proposal for a book that would provide a system-
atic introduction to Description Logics, covering all aspects of the research in the
field, namely: theory, implementation, and applications. Following the spirit that
fostered this research, the Description Logic Handbook would provide a thorough
introduction to Description Logics both for the more theoretically oriented reader
interested in the formal study of Description Logics and for the more practically
oriented reader aiming at a principled usage of knowledge representation systems
based on Description Logics. Although some refinements have been made to the
initial proposal to embody recent developments in the field, the final structure of
the Handbook reflects the original intentions.
The Handbook is organized into three parts plus an initial chapter providing a
general introduction to the field.
 Preface xv

Part I addresses the theoretical work in Description Logics and includes five
chapters. Chapter 2 introduces Description Logics as a formal language for repre-
senting knowledge and reasoning about it. Chapter 3 addresses the computational
complexity of reasoning in several Description Logics. Chapter 4 explores the re-
lationship with other representation formalisms, within and outside the field of
Knowledge Representation. Chapter 5 covers extensions of the basic Description
Logics introduced in Chapter 2 by very expressive constructs that require advanced
reasoning techniques.
Chapter 6 considers extensions of Description Logics by representation features
and non-standard inference problems not available in the basic framework.
Part II is concerned with the implementation of knowledge representation sys-
tems based on Description Logics. Chapter 7 describes the features that need to be
provided, in addition to the inference engine for a particular Description Logic, to
build a knowledge representation system. Chapter 8 reviews implemented knowl-
edge representation systems based on Description Logics that have played or play
an important role in the field. Chapter 9 describes the implementation of the reason-
ing services which form the core of Description Logic knowledge representation
systems.
Part III addresses the deployment of Description Logics in the design and im-
plementation of fielded applications. Chapter 10 discusses the issues involved in
the development of an ontology for some universe of discourse, which is to be-
come a conceptual model or knowledge base represented and reasoned with using
Description Logics. Chapter 11 presents applications of Description Logics in the
area of software engineering. Chapter 12 introduces the problem of configura-
tion and the largest and longest lived family of Description Logic-based config-
urators. Chapter 13 is concerned with the use of Description logics in various
kinds of applications in medical informatics—terminology, intelligent user inter-
faces, decision support and semantic indexing, language technology, and systems
integration. Chapter 14 reviews the applications of Description Logics in web-
based information systems, and the more recent developments related to languages
for the Semantic Web. Chapter 15 analyzes the uses of Description Logics for
natural language processing to encode syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic ele-
ments needed to drive semantic interpretation and natural language generation
processes. Chapter 16 surveys the major classes of application of Description
Logics and their reasoning facilities to the issues of data management, includ-
ing the expression of the conceptual domain model/ontology of the data source,
the integration of multiple data sources, and the formulation and evaluation of
queries.
The syntax and semantics for Description Logics is summarized in an Appendix,
which has been used as a reference to unify the notation throughout the book.
xvi Preface

Finally, an extended, integrated bibliography is provided and, within each chapter,

comprehensive guides through the relevant literature are given.
The chapters are written by some of the most prominent researchers in the field,
introducing the basic technical material before taking the reader to the current
state of the subject. The chapters have been reviewed in a two step process, which
involved two or three reviewers for each chapter. We have relied on the work of
several external reviewers, selected both within the Description Logic community,
and outside the field, to increase the readability for non experts. In addition, each
chapter has been read also by authors of other chapters, to improve the overall
coherence.
As such, the book is conceived as a unique reference for the subject. Although
not intended as a textbook, the Handbook can be used as a basis for specialized
courses on Description Logics. In addition, some of the chapters can be used as
teaching material in Knowledge Representation courses. The Handbook is also a
comprehensive reference to the subject in more introductory courses in the field of
Artificial Intelligence.
We want to acknowledge the contribution and help of several people. First of all,
the authors, who have successfully accomplished the hardest task of writing the
chapters, carefully addressing the reviewers’ comments as well as the issues raised
by the effort in making the presentation and notation uniform. Second, we thank
the reviewers for their precious work, which led to significant improvements in the
final outcome. The external reviewers were:
Premkumar T. Devanbu,
Peter L. Elkin,
Jerome Euzenat,
Erich Grädel,
Michael Gruninger,
Frank van Harmelen,
Jana Koehler,
Diane Litman,
Robert M. MacGregor,
Amedeo Napoli,
Hans-Jürgen Ohlbach,
Marie-Christine Rousset,
Nestor Rychtyckyj,
Renate Schmidt,
James G. Schmolze,
Roberto Sebastiani,
Michael Uschold,
 Preface xvii

Moshe Y. Vardi,
Grant Weddell,
Robert A. Weida.
A special thank you goes also to Christopher A. Welty who, besides serving as a
reviewer, also coordinated the reviewing process for some of the chapters. Third,
we express our gratitude to the Description Logics community as a whole (see also
the Description Logics homepage at http://dl.kr.org/) for the outstanding
research achievements and for applying the pressure that enabled us to complete
the Handbook. Finally, we are indebted to Cambridge University Press, and, in
particular, to David Tranah, for giving us the opportunity to put the Handbook
together and for the excellent support in the editing process.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external
websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press.
However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no
guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
 1
An Introduction to Description Logics
DANIELE NARDI
RONALD J. BRACHMAN

Abstract
This introduction presents the main motivations for the development of Description
Logics (DLs) as a formalism for representing knowledge, as well as some important
basic notions underlying all systems that have been created in the DL tradition. In
addition, we provide the reader with an overview of the entire book and some
guidelines for reading it.
We first address the relationship between Description Logics and earlier seman-
tic network and frame systems, which represent the original heritage of the field.
We delve into some of the key problems encountered with the older efforts. Sub-
sequently, we introduce the basic features of DL languages and related reasoning
techniques.
DL languages are then viewed as the core of knowledge representation systems,
considering both the structure of a DL knowledge base and its associated reasoning
services. The development of some implemented knowledge representation systems
based on Description Logics and the first applications built with such systems are
then reviewed.
Finally, we address the relationship of Description Logics to other fields of Com-
puter Science. We also discuss some extensions of the basic representation language
machinery; these include features proposed for incorporation in the formalism that
originally arose in implemented systems, and features proposed to cope with the
needs of certain application domains.

1.1 Introduction
Research in the field of knowledge representation and reasoning is usually focused
on methods for providing high-level descriptions of the world that can be effectively
used to build intelligent applications. In this context, “intelligent” refers to the ability

1
2 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

of a system to find implicit consequences of its explicitly represented knowledge.

Such systems are therefore characterized as knowledge-based systems.
Approaches to knowledge representation developed in the 1970s – when the field
enjoyed great popularity – are sometimes divided roughly into two categories: logic-
based formalisms, which evolved out of the intuition that predicate calculus could be
used unambiguously to capture facts about the world; and other, non-logic-based
representations. The latter were often developed by building on more cognitive
notions – for example, network structures and rule-based representations derived
from experiments on recall from human memory and human execution of tasks like
mathematical puzzle solving. Even though such approaches were often developed
for specific representational chores, the resulting formalisms were usually expected
to serve in general use. In other words, the non-logical systems created from very
specific lines of thinking (e.g., early production systems) evolved to be treated
as general-purpose tools, expected to be applicable in different domains and to
different types of problems.
On the other hand, since first-order logic provides very powerful and general ma-
chinery, logic-based approaches were more general-purpose from the very start. In a
logic-based approach, the representation language is usually a variant of first-order
predicate calculus, and reasoning amounts to verifying logical consequence. In the
non-logical approaches, often based on the use of graphical interfaces, knowledge is
represented by means of some ad hoc data structures, and reasoning is accomplished
by similarly ad hoc procedures that manipulate the structures. Among these spe-
cialized representations we find semantic networks and frames. Semantic networks
were developed after the work of Quillian [1967], with the goal of characterizing by
means of network-shaped cognitive structures the knowledge and the reasoning of
the system. Similar goals were shared by later frame systems [Minsky, 1981], which
rely on the notion of a “frame” as a prototype and on the capability of expressing
relationships between frames. Although there are significant differences between
semantic networks and frames, both in their motivating cognitive intuitions and in
their features, they have a strong common basis. In fact, they can both be regarded
as network structures, where the structure of the network aims at representing sets
of individuals and their relationships. Consequently, we use the term network-based
structures to refer to the representation networks underlying semantic networks and
frames (see [Lehmann, 1992] for a collection of papers concerning various families
of network-based structures).
Owing to their more human-centered origins, the network-based systems were
often considered more appealing and more effective from a practical viewpoint
than the logical systems. Unfortunately, they were not fully satisfactory, because
of their usual lack of precise semantic characterization. The end result of this
was that every system behaved differently from the others, in many cases despite
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 3

virtually identical-looking components and even identical relationship names. The

question then arose as to how to provide semantics to representation structures,
in particular to semantic networks and frames, which carried the intuition that, by
exploiting the notion of hierarchical structure, one could gain both in terms of ease
of representation and in terms of the efficiency of reasoning.
One important step in this direction was the recognition that frames (at least their
core features) could be given a semantics by relying on first-order logic [Hayes,
1979]. The basic elements of the representation are characterized as unary pred-
icates, denoting sets of individuals, and binary predicates, denoting relationships
between individuals. However, such a characterization does not capture the con-
straints of semantic networks and frames with respect to logic. Indeed, although
logic is the natural basis for specifying a meaning for these structures, it turns out
that frames and semantic networks (for the most part) did not require all the ma-
chinery of first-order logic, but could be regarded as fragments of it [Brachman
and Levesque, 1985]. In addition, different features of the representation language
would lead to different fragments of first-order logic. The most important conse-
quence of this fact is the recognition that the typical forms of reasoning used in
structure-based representations could be accomplished by specialized reasoning
techniques, without necessarily requiring first-order logic theorem provers. More-
over, reasoning in different fragments of first-order logic leads to computational
problems of differing complexity.
Subsequent to this realization, research in the area of Description Logics began
under the label terminological systems, to emphasize that the representation lan-
guage was used to establish the basic terminology adopted in the modeled domain.
Later, the emphasis was on the set of concept-forming constructs admitted in the
language, giving rise to the name concept languages. In more recent years, after at-
tention was further moved towards the properties of the underlying logical systems,
the term Description Logics became popular.
In this book we mainly use the term “Description Logics” for the representation
systems, but often use the word “concept” to refer to the expressions of a DL
language, denoting sets of individuals, and the word “terminology” to denote a
(hierarchical) structure built to provide an intensional representation of the domain
of interest.
Research on Description Logics has covered theoretical underpinnings as well as
implementation of knowledge representation systems and the development of ap-
plications in several areas. This kind of development has been quite successful. The
key element has been the methodology of research, based on a very close interaction
between theory and practice. On the one hand, there are various implemented sys-
tems based on Description Logics, which offer a palette of description formalisms
with differing expressive power, and which are employed in various application
4 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

domains (such as natural language processing, configuration of technical products,

or databases). On the other hand, the formal and computational properties of rea-
soning (like decidability and complexity) of various description formalisms have
been investigated in detail. The investigations are usually motivated by the use of
certain constructors in implemented systems or by the need for these construc-
tors in specific applications – and the results have influenced the design of new
systems.
This book is meant to provide a thorough introduction to Description Logics,
covering all the above-mentioned aspects of DL research – namely theory, imple-
mentation, and applications. Consequently, the book is divided into three parts:
r Part I introduces the theoretical foundations of Description Logics, addressing some of
the most recent developments in theoretical research in the area;
r Part II focuses on the implementation of knowledge representation systems based on
Description Logics, describing the basic functionality of a DL system, surveying the
most influential knowledge representation systems based on Description Logics, and
addressing specialized implementation techniques;
r Part III addresses the use of Description Logics and of DL-based systems in the design
of several applications of practical interest.

In the remainder of this introductory chapter, we review the main steps in the
development of Description Logics, and introduce the main issues that are dealt
with later in the book, providing pointers for its reading. In particular, in the next
section we address the origins of Description Logics and then we review knowledge
representation systems based on Description Logics, the main applications devel-
oped with Description Logics, the main extensions to the basic DL framework, and
relationships with other fields of Computer Science.

1.2 From networks to Description Logics

In this section we begin by recalling approaches to representing knowledge that were
developed before research on Description Logics began (i.e., semantic networks
and frames). We then provide a very brief introduction to the basic elements of these
approaches, based on Tarski-style semantics. Finally, we discuss the importance of
computational analyses of the reasoning methods developed for Description Logics,
a major ingredient of research in this field.

1.2.1 Network-based representation structures

In order to provide some intuition about the ideas behind representations of knowl-
edge in network form, we here speak in terms of a generic network, avoiding
references to any particular system. The elements of a network are nodes and links.
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 5

Person v/r
hasChild
(1,NIL)

Female
Parent

Woman

Mother

Fig. 1.1. An example network.

Typically, nodes are used to characterize concepts, i.e., sets or classes of individ-
ual objects, and links are used to characterize relationships among them. In some
cases, more complex relationships are themselves represented as nodes; these are
carefully distinguished from nodes representing concepts. In addition, concepts can
have simple properties, often called attributes, which are typically attached to the
corresponding nodes. Finally, in many of the early networks both individual objects
and concepts were represented by nodes. Here, however, we restrict our attention
to knowledge about concepts and their relationships, deferring for now treatment
of knowledge about specific individuals.
Let us consider a simple example, whose pictorial representation is given in
Figure 1.1, which represents knowledge concerning persons, parents, children, etc.
The structure in the figure is also referred to as a terminology, and it is indeed meant
to represent the generality or specificity of the concepts involved. For example the
link between Mother and Parent says that “mothers are parents”; this is sometimes
called an “IS-A” relationship.
The IS-A relationship defines a hierarchy over the concepts and provides the
basis for the “inheritance of properties”: when a concept is more specific than some
other concept, it inherits the properties of the more general one. For example, if a
person has an age, then a woman has an age, too. This is the typical setting of the
so-called (monotonic) inheritance networks (see [Brachman, 1979]).
A characteristic feature of Description Logics is their ability to represent other
kinds of relationships that can hold between concepts, beyond IS-A relationships.
For example, in Figure 1.1, which follows the notation of [Brachman and Schmolze,
1985], the concept of Parent has a property that is usually called a “role”, expressed
by a link from the concept to a node for the role labeled hasChild. The role has what
is called a “value restriction”, denoted by the label v/r, which expresses a limitation
6 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

on the range of types of objects that can fill that role. In addition, the node has a
number restriction expressed as (1,NIL), where the first number is a lower bound
on the number of children and the second element is the upper bound, and NIL
denotes infinity. Overall, the representation of the concept of Parent here can be
read as “A parent is a person having at least one child, and all of his/her children
are persons.”
Relationships of this kind are inherited from concepts to their subconcepts. For
example, the concept Mother, i.e., a female parent, is a more specific descendant of
both the concepts Female and Parent, and as a result inherits from Parent the link
to Person through the role hasChild; in other words, Mother inherits the restriction
on its hasChild role from Parent.
Observe that there may be implicit relationships between concepts. For example,
if we define Woman as the concept of a female person, it is the case that every
Mother is a Woman. It is the task of the knowledge representation system to
find implicit relationships such as these (many are more complex than this one).
Typically, such inferences have been characterized in terms of properties of the
network. In this case one might observe that both Mother and Woman are connected
to both Female and Person, but the path from Mother to Person includes a node
Parent, which is more specific then Person, thus enabling us to conclude that
Mother is more specific than Person.
However, the more complex the relationships established among concepts, the
more difficult it becomes to give a precise characterization of what kind of rela-
tionships can be computed, and how this can be done without failing to recognize
some of the relationships or without providing wrong answers.

1.2.2 A logical account of network-based representation structures

Building on the above ideas, a number of systems were implemented and used in
many kinds of applications. As a result, the need emerged for a precise characteri-
zation of the meaning of the structures used in the representations and of the set of
inferences that could be drawn from those structures.
A precise characterization of the meaning of a network can be given by defining
a language for the elements of the structure and by providing an interpretation for
the strings of that language. While the syntax may have different flavors in different
settings, the semantics is typically given as a Tarski-style semantics.
For the syntax we introduce a kind of abstract language, which resembles other
logical formalisms. The basic step of the construction is provided by two disjoint
alphabets of symbols that are used to denote atomic concepts, designated by unary
predicate symbols, and atomic roles, designated by binary predicate symbols; the
latter are used to express relationships between concepts.
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 7

Terms are then built from the basic symbols using several kinds of constructors.
For example, intersection of concepts, which is denoted C  D, is used to restrict
the set of individuals under consideration to those that belong to both C and D.
Notice that, in the syntax of Description Logics, concept expressions are variable-
free. In fact, a concept expression denotes the set of all individuals satisfying the
properties specified in the expression. Therefore, C  D can be regarded as the first-
order logic sentence, C(x) ∧ D(x), where the variable ranges over all individuals
in the interpretation domain and C(x) is true for those individuals that belong to
the concept C.
In this book, we will present other syntactic notations that are more closely
related to the concrete syntax adopted by implemented DL systems, and which are
more suitable for the development of applications. One example of concrete syntax
proposed in [Patel-Schneider and Swartout, 1993] is based on a Lisp-like notation,
where the concept of female persons, for example, is denoted by (and Person
Female).
The key characteristic features of Description Logics reside in the constructs for
establishing relationships between concepts. The basic ones are value restrictions.
For example, a value restriction, written ∀R.C, requires that all the individuals that
are in the relationship R with the concept being described belong to the concept
C (technically, it is all individuals that are in the relationship R with an individual
described by the concept in question that are themselves describable as C’s).
As for the semantics, concepts are given a set-theoretic interpretation: a concept
is interpreted as a set of individuals, and roles are interpreted as sets of pairs of
individuals. The domain of interpretation can be chosen arbitrarily, and it can be
infinite. The non-finiteness of the domain and the open-world assumption are dis-
tinguishing features of Description Logics with respect to the modeling languages
developed in the study of databases (see Chapters 4 and 16).
Atomic concepts are thus interpreted as subsets of the intepretation domain,
while the semantics of the other constructs is then specified by defining the set of
individuals denoted by each construct. For example, the concept C  D is the set
of individuals obtained by intersecting the sets of individuals denoted by C and D,
respectively. Similarly, the interpretation of ∀R.C is the set of individuals that are in
the relationship R with individuals belonging to the set denoted by the concept C.
As an example, let us suppose that Female, Person, and Woman are atomic
concepts and that hasChild and hasFemaleRelative are atomic roles. Using the
operators intersection, union and complement of concepts, interpreted as set opera-
tions, we can describe the concept of “persons that are not female” and the concept
of “individuals that are female or male” by the expressions

Person  ¬Female and Female  Male.

8 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

It is worth mentioning that intersection, union, and complement of concepts have

been also referred to as concept conjunction, concept disjunction and concept nega-
tion, respectively, to emphasize the relationship to logic.
Let us now turn our attention to role restrictions by looking first at quantified
role restrictions and, subsequently, at what we call “number restrictions”. Most
languages provide (full) existential quantification and value restriction that allow
one to describe, for example, the concept of “individuals having a female child” as
∃hasChild.Female, and to describe the concept of “individuals all of whose children
are female” by the concept expression ∀hasChild.Female. In order to distinguish the
function of each concept in the relationship, the individual object that corresponds
to the second argument of the role viewed as a binary predicate is called a role filler.
In the above expressions, which describe the properties of parents having female
children, individual objects belonging to the concept Female are the fillers of the
role hasChild.
Existential quantification and value restrictions are thus meant to characterize
relationships between concepts. In fact, the role link between Parent and Person
in Figure 1.1 can be expressed by the concept expression
∃hasChild.Person  ∀hasChild.Person.
Such an expression therefore characterizes the concept of Parent as the set of
individuals having at least one filler of the role hasChild belonging to the concept
Person; moreover, every filler of the role hasChild must be a person.
Finally, notice that in quantified role restrictions the variable being quantified
is not explicitly mentioned. The corresponding sentence in first-order logic is
∀y.R(x, y) ⊃ C(y), where x is again a free variable ranging over the interpretation
domain.
Another important kind of role restriction is given by number restrictions, which
restrict the cardinality of the sets of role fillers. For instance, the concept
(
3 hasChild)  ( 2 hasFemaleRelative)
represents the concept of “individuals having at least three children and at most two
female relatives”. Number restrictions are sometimes viewed as a distinguishing
feature of Description Logics, although one can find some similar constructs in
some database modeling languages (notably Entity–Relationship models).
Beyond the constructs to form concept expressions, Description Logics provide
constructs for roles, which can, for example, establish role hierarchies. However,
the use of role expressions is generally limited to expressing relationships between
concepts.
Intersection of roles is an example of a role-forming construct. Intuitively,
hasChild  hasFemaleRelative yields the role “has-daughter”, so that the concept
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 9

expression
Woman   2 (hasChild  hasFemaleRelative)
denotes the concept of “a woman having at most 2 daughters”.
A more comprehensive view of the basic definitions of DL languages will be
given in Chapter 2.

1.2.3 Reasoning
The basic inference on concept expressions in Description Logics is subsumption,
typically written as C D. Determining subsumption is the problem of checking
whether the concept denoted by D (the subsumer) is considered more general than
the one denoted by C (the subsumee). In other words, subsumption checks whether
the first concept always denotes a subset of the set denoted by the second one.
For example, one might be interested in knowing whether Woman Mother.
In order to verify this kind of relationship one has in general to take into account
the relationships defined in the terminology. As we explain in the next section,
under appropriate restrictions, one can embody such knowledge directly in concept
expressions, thus making subsumption over concept expressions the basic reason-
ing task. Another typical inference on concept expressions is concept satisfiability,
which is the problem of checking whether a concept expression does not neces-
sarily denote the empty concept. In fact, concept satisfiability is a special case of
subsumption, with the subsumer being the empty concept, meaning that a concept
is not satisfiable.
Although the meaning of concepts had already been specified with a logical
semantics, the design of inference procedures in Description Logics was influenced
for a long time by the tradition of semantic networks, where concepts were viewed
as nodes and roles as links in a network. Subsumption between concept expressions
was recognized as the key inference and the basic idea of the earliest subsumption
algorithms was to transform two input concepts into labeled graphs and test whether
one could be embedded into the other; the embedded graph would correspond to
the more general concept (the subsumer) [Lipkis, 1982]. This method is called
structural comparison, and the relation between concepts being computed is called
structural subsumption. However, a careful analysis of the algorithms for structural
subsumption shows that they are sound, but not always complete in terms of the
logical semantics: whenever they return “yes” the answer is correct, but when they
report “no” the answer may be incorrect. In other words, structural subsumption is
in general weaker than logical subsumption.
The need for complete subsumption algorithms is motivated by the fact that
in the usage of knowledge representation systems it is often necessary to have a
10 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

guarantee that the system has not failed in verifying subsumption. Consequently,
new algorithms for computing subsumption have been devised that are no longer
based on a network representation, and these can be proven to be complete. Such
algorithms have been developed by specializing classical settings for deductive
reasoning to the DL subsets of first-order logics, as done for tableau calculi by
Schmidt-Schauß and Smolka [1991], and also by more specialized methods.
In the paper “The tractability of subsumption in frame-based description lan-
guages”, Brachman and Levesque [1984] argued that there is a tradeoff between
the expressiveness of a representation language and the difficulty of reasoning over
the representations built using that language. In other words, the more expres-
sive the language, the harder the reasoning. They also provided a first example of
this tradeoff by analyzing the language FL− (Frame Language), which included
intersection of concepts, value restrictions and a simple form of existential quan-
tification. They showed that for such a language the subsumption problem could
be solved in polynomial time, while adding a construct called role restriction to
the language makes subsumption a conp-hard problem (the extended language was
called FL).
The paper by Brachman and Levesque introduced at least two new ideas:

(i) “efficiency of reasoning” over knowledge structures can be studied using the tools of
computational complexity theory;
(ii) different combinations of constructs can give rise to languages with different compu-
tational properties.

An immediate consequence of the above observations is that one can study formally
and methodically the tradeoff between the computational complexity of reasoning
and the expressiveness of the language, which itself is defined in terms of the
constructs that are admitted in the language. After the initial paper, a number of
results on this tradeoff for concept languages were obtained (see Chapters 2 and 3),
and these results allow us to draw a fairly complete picture of the complexity of
reasoning for a wide class of concept languages. Moreover, the problem of finding
the optimal tradeoff, namely the most expressive extensions of FL− with respect to
a given set of constructs that still keep subsumption polynomial, has been studied
extensively [Donini et al., 1991b; 1999].
One of the assumptions underlying this line of research is to use worst-case
complexity as a measure of the efficiency of reasoning in Description Logics (and
more generally in knowledge representation formalisms). Such an assumption has
sometimes been criticized (see for example [Doyle and Patil, 1991]) as not ad-
equately characterizing system performance or accounting for more average-case
behavior. While this observation suggests that computational complexity alone may
not be sufficient for addressing performance issues, research on the computational
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 11

complexity of reasoning in Description Logics has most definitely led to a much

deeper understanding of the problems arising in implementing reasoning tools. Let
us briefly address some of the contributions of this body of work.
First of all, the study of the computational complexity of reasoning in Description
Logics has led to a clear understanding of the properties of the language constructs
and their interaction. This is not only valuable from a theoretical viewpoint, but
gives insight to the designer of deduction procedures, with clear indications of the
language constructs and their combinations that are difficult to deal with, as well
as general methods to cope with them.
Secondly, the complexity results have been obtained by exploiting a general tech-
nique for satisfiability checking in concept languages, which relies on a form of
tableau calculus [Schmidt-Schauß and Smolka, 1991]. Such a technique has proved
extremely useful for studying both the correctness and the complexity of the algo-
rithms. More specifically, it provides an algorithmic framework that is parametric
with respect to the language constructs. The algorithms for concept satisfiability
and subsumption obtained in this way have also led directly to practical implemen-
tations by application of clever control strategies and optimization techniques. The
most recent knowledge representation systems based on Description Logics adopt
tableau calculi [Horrocks, 1998b].
Thirdly, the analysis of pathological cases in this formal framework has led to the
discovery of incompleteness in the algorithms developed for implemented systems.
This has also consequently proven useful in the definition of suitable test sets for
verifying implementations. For example, the comparison of implemented systems
(see for example [Baader et al., 1992b; Heinsohn et al., 1992]) has greatly benefitted
from the results of the complexity analysis.
The basic reasoning techniques for Description Logics are presented in Chapter
2, while a detailed analysis of the complexity of reasoning problems in several
languages is developed in Chapter 3.
After the tradeoff between expressiveness and tractability of reasoning was thor-
oughly analyzed and the range of applicability of the corresponding inference tech-
niques had been experimented with, there was a shift of focus in the theoretical
research on reasoning in Description Logics. Interest grew in relating Description
Logics to the modeling languages used in database management. In addition, the
discovery of strict relationships with expressive modal logics stimulated the study
of so-called very expressive Description Logics. These languages, besides admit-
ting very general mechanisms for defining concepts (for example cyclic definitions,
addressed in the next section), provide a richer set of concept-forming constructs
and constructs for forming complex role expressions. For these languages, the ex-
pressiveness is great enough that the new challenge became enriching the language
while retaining the decidability of reasoning. It is worth pointing out that this new
12 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

direction of theoretical research was accompanied by a corresponding shift in the

implementation of knowledge representation systems based on very expressive DL
languages. The study of reasoning methods for very expressive Description Logics
is addressed in Chapter 5.

1.3 Knowledge representation in Description Logics

In the previous section a basic representation language for Description Logics was
introduced along with some key associated reasoning techniques. Our goal now is
to illustrate how Description Logics can be useful in the design of knowledge-based
applications, that is to say, how a DL language is used in a knowledge representation
system that provides a language for defining a knowledge base and tools to carry
out inferences over it. The realization of knowledge systems involves two primary
aspects. The first consists in providing a precise characterization of a knowledge
base; this involves precisely characterizing the type of knowledge to be specified
to the system as well as clearly defining the reasoning services the system needs
to provide – the kind of questions that the system should be able to answer. The
second aspect consists in providing a rich development environment where users
can benefit from different services that can make their interaction with the system
more effective. In this section we address the logical structure of the knowledge
base, while the design of systems and tools for the development of applications is
addressed in the next section.
One of the products of some important historical efforts to provide precise char-
acterizations of the behavior of semantic networks and frames was a functional
approach to knowledge representation [Levesque, 1984]. The idea was to give a
precise specification of the functionality to be provided by a knowledge base and,
specifically, of the inferences performed by the knowledge base – independent of
any implementation. In practice, the functional description of a reasoning system
is productively specified through a so-called “Tell&Ask” interface. Such an inter-
face specifies operations that enable knowledge base construction (Tell operations)
and operations that allow one to get information out of the knowledge base (Ask
operations). In the following we shall adopt this view for characterizing both the
definition of a DL knowledge base and the deductive services it provides.
Within a knowledge base one can see a clear distinction between intensional
knowledge, or general knowledge about the problem domain, and extensional
knowledge, which is specific to a particular problem. A typical DL knowledge base
analogously comprises two components – a TBox and an ABox. The TBox con-
tains intensional knowledge in the form of a terminology (hence the term “TBox”,
but “taxonomy” could be used as well) and is built through declarations that de-
scribe general properties of concepts. Because of the nature of the subsumption
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 13

relationships among the concepts that constitute the terminology, TBoxes are usu-
ally thought of as having a lattice-like structure; this mathematical structure is
entailed by the subsumption relationship – it has nothing to do with any imple-
mentation. The ABox contains extensional knowledge – also called assertional
knowledge (hence the term “ABox”) – knowledge that is specific to the individuals
of the domain of discourse. Intensional knowledge is usually thought not to change –
to be “timeless”, in a way – and extensional knowledge is usually thought to be
contingent, or dependent on a single set of circumstances, and therefore subject to
occasional or even constant change.
In the rest of the section we present a basic Tell&Ask interface by analyzing the
TBox and the ABox of a DL knowledge base.

1.3.1 The TBox

One key element of a DL knowledge base is given by the operations used to build
the terminology. Such operations are directly related to the forms and the meaning
of the declarations allowed in the TBox.
The basic form of declaration in a TBox is a concept definition, that is, the
definition of a new concept in terms of other previously defined concepts. For
example, a woman can be defined as a female person by writing this declaration:
Woman ≡ Person  Female.
Such a declaration is usually interpreted as a logical equivalence, which amounts
to providing both sufficient and necessary conditions for classifying an individ-
ual as a woman. This form of definition is much stronger than the ones used in
other kinds of representations of knowledge, which typically impose only nec-
essary conditions; the strength of this kind of declaration is usually considered
a characteristic feature of DL knowledge bases. In DL knowledge bases, there-
fore, a terminology is constituted by a set of concept definitions of the above
form.
However, there are some important common assumptions usually made about
DL terminologies:
r Only one definition for a concept name is allowed.
r Definitions are acyclic in the sense that concepts are neither defined in terms of themselves
nor in terms of other concepts that indirectly refer to them.

This kind of restriction is common to many DL knowledge bases and implies that
every defined concept can be expanded in a unique way into a complex expression
containing only atomic concepts by replacing every defined concept with the right-
hand side of its definition.
14 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

Nebel [1990b] showed that even simple expansion of definitions like this gives
rise to an unavoidable source of complexity; in practice, however, definitions that
inordinately increase the complexity of reasoning do not seem to occur. Under
these assumptions the computational complexity of inferences can be studied by
abstracting from the terminology and by considering all given concepts as fully
expanded expressions. Therefore, much of the study of reasoning methods in
Description Logics has been focused on concept expressions and, more specifically,
as discussed in the previous section, on subsumption, which can be considered the
basic reasoning service for the TBox.
In particular, the basic task in constructing a terminology is classification, which
amounts to placing a new concept expression in the proper place in a taxonomic hier-
archy of concepts. Classification can be accomplished by verifying the subsumption
relation between each defined concept in the hierarchy and the new concept expres-
sion. The placement of the concept will be in between the most specific concepts
that subsume the new concept and the most general concepts that the new concept
subsumes.
More general settings for concept definitions have recently received some atten-
tion, deriving from attempts to establish formal relationships between Description
Logics and other formalisms and from attempts to satisfy a need for increased ex-
pressive power. In particular, the admission of cyclic definitions has led to different
semantic interpretations of the declarations, known as greatest/least fixed-point, and
descriptive semantics. Although it has been argued that different semantics may be
adopted depending on the target application, the more commonly adopted one is
descriptive semantics, which simply requires that all the declarations be satisfied
in the interpretation. Moreover, by dropping the requirement that on the left-hand
side of a definition there can only be an atomic concept name, one can consider
so-called (general) inclusion axioms of the form
C D
where C and D are arbitrary concept expressions. Notice that a concept definition
can be expressed by two general inclusions. As a result of several theoretical stud-
ies concerning both the decidability of and implementation techniques for cyclic
TBoxes, the most recent DL systems admit rather powerful constructs for defining
concepts.
The basic deduction service for such TBoxes can be viewed as logical implication
and it amounts to verifying whether a generic relationship (for example a subsump-
tion relationship between two concept expressions) is a logical consequence of
the declarations in the TBox. The issues arising in the semantic characterization
of cyclic TBoxes are dealt with in Chapter 2, while techniques for reasoning in
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 15

cyclic TBoxes are addressed in Chapter 2 and in Chapter 5, where very expressive
Description Logics are presented.

1.3.2 The ABox

The ABox contains extensional knowledge about the domain of interest, that is,
assertions about individuals, usually called membership assertions. For example,
Female  Person(ANNA)
states that the individual ANNA is a female person. Given the above definition of
woman, one can derive from this assertion that ANNA is an instance of the concept
Woman. Similarly,
hasChild(ANNA, JACOPO)
specifies that ANNA has JACOPO as a child. Assertions of the first kind are also
called concept assertions, while assertions of the second kind are also called role
assertions.
As illustrated by these examples, in the ABox one can typically specify knowl-
edge in the form of concept assertions and role assertions. In concept assertions
general concept expressions are typically allowed, while role assertions, where the
role is not a primitive role but a role expression, are typically not allowed, being
treated in the case of very expressive languages only.
The basic reasoning task in an ABox is instance checking, which verifies whether
a given individual is an instance of (belongs to) a specified concept. Although other
reasoning services are usually considered and employed, they can be defined in
terms of instance checking. Among them we find knowledge base consistency,
which amounts to verifying whether every concept in the knowledge base admits at
least one individual; realization, which finds the most specific concept an individual
object is an instance of; and retrieval, which finds the individuals in the knowledge
base that are instances of a given concept. These can all be accomplished by means
of instance checking.
The presence of individuals in a knowledge base makes reasoning more complex
from a computational viewpoint [Donini et al., 1994b], and may require significant
extensions of some TBox reasoning techniques. Reasoning in the ABox is addressed
in Chapter 3.
It is worth emphasizing that, although we have separated out for convenience
the services for the ABox, when the TBox cannot be dealt with by means of the
simple substitution mechanism used for acyclic TBoxes, the reasoning services may
have to take into account all of the knowledge base including both the TBox and the
16 D. Nardi and R. J. Brachman

ABox, and the corresponding reasoning problems become more complex. A full
setting including general TBox and ABox is addressed in Chapter 5, where very
expressive Description Logics are discussed.
More general languages for defining ABoxes have also been considered. Knowl-
edge representation systems providing a powerful logical language for the ABox and
a DL language for the TBox are often considered hybrid reasoning systems, since
completely different knowledge representation languages may be used to specify
the knowledge in the different components. Hybrid reasoning systems were popular
in the 1980s (see for example [Brachman et al., 1985]); lately, the topic has regained
attention [Levy and Rousset, 1997; Donini et al., 1998b], focusing on knowledge
bases with a DL component for concept definitions and a logic-programming com-
ponent for assertions about individuals. Sound and complete inference methods
for hybrid knowledge bases become difficult to devise whenever there is a strict
interaction between the knowledge components.

1.4 From theory to practice: Description Logic systems

A direct practical result of research on knowledge representation has been the devel-
opment of tools for the construction of knowledge-based applications. As already
noted, research on Description Logics has been characterized by a tight connection
between theoretical results and implementation of systems. This has been achieved
by maintaining a very close relationship between theoreticians, system implemen-
tors and users of knowledge representation systems based on Description Logics
(DL-KRSs). The results of work on reasoning algorithms and their complexity have
influenced the design of systems, and research on reasoning algorithms has itself
been focused by a careful analysis of the capabilities and the limitations of imple-
mented systems. In this section we first sketch the functionality of some knowledge
representation systems and, subsequently, discuss the evolution of DL-KRSs. The
reader can find a deeper treatment of the first topic in Chapter 7, while a survey
of knowledge representation systems based on Description Logics is provided in
Chapter 8. Chapter 9 is devoted to more specialized implementation and optimiza-
tion techniques.

1.4.1 The design of knowledge representation systems

based on Description Logics
In order to appreciate the difficulties of implementing and maintaining a knowledge
representation system, it is necessary to consider that in the usage of a knowledge
representation system, the reasoning service is really only one aspect of a complex
system, one which may even be hidden from the final user. The user, before getting
 1 An Introduction to Description Logics 17

to “push the reasoning button”, has to model the domain of interest, and input
knowledge into the system. Further, in many cases, a simple yes/no answer is
of little use, so a simplistic implementation of the Tell&Ask paradigm may be
inadequate. As a consequence, the path one follows to get from the identification
of a suitable knowledge representation system to the design of applications based
on it is a complex and demanding one (see for example [Brachman, 1992]). In the
case of Description Logics, this is especially true if the goal is to devise a system
to be used by users who are not DL experts and who need to obtain a working
system as quickly as possible. In the 1980s, when frame-based systems (such as,
for example, Kee [Fikes and Kehler, 1985]; see [Karp, 1992] for an overview) had
reached the strength of commercial products, the burden on a user of moving to the
more modern DL-KRSs had to be kept small. Consequently, a stream of research
addressed important aspects of the pragmatic usability of DL systems. This issue
was especially relevant for those systems aiming at limiting the expressiveness of
the language, but providing the user with sound, complete and efficient reasoning
services. The issue of embedding a DL language within an environment suitable
for application development is further addressed in Chapter 7.
In recent years, we might add, useful DL systems have often come as internal
components of larger environments whose interfaces could completely hide the DL
language and its core reasoning services. Systems like Imacs [Brachman et al.,
1993] and Prose [Wright et al., 1993] were quite successful in classifying data and
configuring products, respectively, without the need for any user to understand the
details of the DL representation language (Classic) they were built upon.
Nowadays, applications for gathering information from the World Wide Web,
where the interface can be specifically designed to support the retrieval of such
information, also hide the knowledge representation and reasoning component. In
addition, some data modeling tools, where the system provides a more conventional
interface, can provide additional facilities based on the capability of reasoning about
models with a DL inference engine. The possible settings for taking advantage of
Description Logics as components of larger systems are discussed in Part III; more
specifically, Chapter 14 presents Web applications and Chapter 15 natural language
applications, while the reasoning capabilities of Description Logics in database
applications are addressed in Chapter 16.

1.4.2 Knowledge representation systems based on Description Logics

The history of knowledge representation is covered in the literature in numerous
ways (see for example [Woods and Schmolze, 1992; Rich, 1991; Baader et al.,
1992b]). Here we identify three generations of systems, highlighting their histori-
cal evolution rather than their specific functionality. We shall characterize them as
Other documents randomly have
different content
Fane must have spent most of his first six months on Mercury here
in this vault trying to put what was left to do in order! A lot of these
final touches must be his. He thought he could complete everything
alone."
The evidence was clear. Empty food containers of Earthly origin were
scattered about the floor. There were tools from the same source.
And boxes of parts, made so long ago on Mars, were fairly free of
dust, showing that they had been opened and their contents
fastened into place quite recently in the gigantic assembly. And in
one corner of this chamber a small Terran tent had been set up.
Fane had been working on something here when these three men
had first found him. So now they went to see just what it was. They
found a spread parchment on a work bench. It was blueprint stuff.
Red lines traced the structure of the tube breeches. There were the
fuel ducts in which an air blast fed the dust of uranium, and the
exciter grids needed for firing. And there was the hookup of cables
and bus-bars, needed to bind the whole bank of jets into a unit.
On the work bench there was even a book of advanced engineering
brought from Earth. It lay open to a page on space ship motors.
Rick Mills saw more of the twisted soul of a man in the presence of
that volume. "Poor Fane," he growled with bitter sarcasm. "Always
making cracks about being bookish. Yet he found that he didn't have
quite the knowledge to finish the assembly when he came here with
Martell. He had to go home, study, get books."
"Given time, we can do what he can do," Finden said. "The still
missing parts must be here somewhere."
"The Martians were close to completing the job themselves,"
Lattimer mused. "The Xians might have done it, too. I wonder just
how it happened that Mercury was not reclaimed."
"Failure was also near," Rick said. "You can see that the Xians broke
in through the underground fortifications with their robots.
Meanwhile, on the hills outside, the snow of air was falling after the
cold which followed the last sunset. There was a fight in these
chambers at close quarters. The Xians had wanted to seize the setup
intact, so they must have tried hard not to damage the main
machinery here. But when they won, they lost. Maybe the news
came that X was blown to pieces by Martian atomic science. Panic
took hold, I'll bet. They fled Mercury, perhaps hardly believing that
home was gone."
Rick's voice had become almost a harsh whisper. A savage bitterness
smoldered in him. Around him, in the disorder of this chamber, and
in the mummies of the two kinds of beings who had died, he saw
how violence had blocked a great public work of peaceful
constructiveness, and for fifty million years had robbed Mercury of a
better destiny. For all of those ages it might have been a living,
useful world instead of a half frozen, half sun-blasted tomb.
And was the same misfortune going to be repeated now because
Fane was a childish damn fool?
From far above there came a thudding vibration. Fane was beginning
his attack and Rick was by no means sure that his companions and
he could finish the job in time. Fury in him mounted against the self-
centered Fane and his inferiority.
"I'll raise the power in my helmet radio and try to contact camp!"
Finden said. A moment later he was busy at it:
"CQ—CQ—CQ.... Calling Survey Camp. Finden speaking. Do you hear
me? Fane is responsible for all of our troubles. The attack of the war
machines. It is all because he has found a Martian jet-system to
make Mercury rotate again. He wants to use it for personal glory. Do
you hear me? Fane is guilty."
A sudden realization gripped Rick. He grabbed Finden's shoulders.
"Stop!" he snapped. "Stop sending such a message! Don't you see?
If Fane overheard...."
Both Finden and Lattimer stared at Rick.
"What difference does it make who sets Mercury spinning and makes
it a useful, habitable world again as long as it's done?" Rick growled.
"But if Fane felt that his goose was cooked, he'd wreck the whole
works."
Rick gave his own helmet radio full power, and then spoke:
"Fane! I'm calling to you. This is Mills. We've seen what you found.
We understand your purpose. It's your discovery, all yours. Come on,
make peace. We'll help you put the stuff together."
No one knew how much will it took for Rick to be so unreasonably
reasonable.
There was a minute's pause. Then a choked growl of rage. Fane's
heavy breathing was audible before his hissing words: "You've talked
too much already, smart guys! Tune in on camp and see!"
Rick and the others did so, and heard Nostrand's voice:
"Calling Finden. Your message received. Can you explain further?
Camp still under attack."
They switched back to Fane, heard him snarl: "By now Nostrand will
have relayed Finden's blabbing to Earth. Any investigation will be
much too close. But if I'm finished, so are you. And Nostrand and all
the others. Yeah, like Martell and Jacobs. And these jets. I'm playing
for keeps, smart guys! If I can't use them, nobody's going to. You'll
reach hell before I do."
Young Finden's eyes looked haunted. "Damn me!" he said. "If I'd
only kept still."
"Forget it," Rick snapped. "You probably did as right as anybody
could. Even if we had patched things up with Fane he probably
would have found a way to finish us in the end."
"So let's get to work," Lattimer said briskly.
They examined the parchment plans. They tore through Martian
crates and boxes searching for the proper parts. They used tools
made for tentacles instead of hands. They toiled like demons. A
dream not begun in human minds gripped them. It was only a hope,
now, for they were sure that they did not have enough time. Give
back a world. Give Mercury a day and night. Spread out the terrible
sunlight and darkness. Balance the two to temper each other. Let
the frozen air turn to warm wind, and the snow and frost melt. Let
the fierce sunlight be filtered by clouds and atmosphere. Let
vegetation grow again in tropic lushness. Let the mines be
reopened.
And if it was possible, too, let the attack on the camp be lifted, and
those still alive there, survive. There was even a wish among these
three men that they themselves might not be destroyed.

Again Rick Mills had to shove the thought of Anne Munson almost
angrily from his mind. It was a mere frivolity, useless and aching in
these grim circumstances. A futile wistfulness, worse than the rest.
Time passed. One by one the tasks were finished. Now the men had
a Martian generator going, a queer, flat device to produce electric
power and to free neutrons from beryllium. Exciter neutrons for
those great jet tubes.
Could it be believed that at last they had won nineteen hours of toil
in their race to finish the job here, before Fane managed to kill
them? They had fed huge quantities of familiar powder of uranium
into the fuel blowers. They had set cables and grids into place. And
still they continued to line things up, getting ready. During all this
time there was only ominous, intermittent thudding, as from far
away.
"Fane's gathering his robot forces," Finden said anxiously. "And now
he can at least tear at the vents of the tubes, up above."
"I hope it won't matter," Rick answered.
They couldn't search out and understand everything that was here.
The instruments that might have warned, or the weapons that might
have defended them. But optimism came at last. Though it wavered
some when they heard a faint grinding sound which seemed deep
beyond the walls, but came closer. They hurried to hook up the last
cable.
The thing that exploded must have been a mole-torpedo that drilled
through rock and steel as fast as a man can walk. The walls of this
vault did not break fully even under the Titanic force that hit them
from outside. They bulged inward. A great section of the roof came
down. Two of those huge jets were smashed. The whole chamber
seemed to swing like a pendulum. A cable snapped in a flash of
electric fire that consumed it.
Rick Mills hardly knew where he was now. He was too stunned.
Lattimer was moveless beside him on the floor. Finden crawled on
his elbows. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Rick had closed the main
switch but the great apparatus here was not functioning. Maybe he
dreamed it, but Rick was sure he heard Fane's bitter laugh.
"Just a few minutes more, Mills," he said. "Smart boy! We're all
terribly smart, aren't we? We of the Survey Service. Sleep without
dreams, Mills! Eternal sleep for fools like you and me!"
This was like the last act with the Martians and Xians. Almost a
repetition. These were tortured seconds on which hung the future of
Mercury as a Terran colony. Or was that already and badly decided?
Must frozen silence and blazing heat continue, here? How many
centuries must pass before Terrans would attempt to do for Mercury
what the Martians had attempted? Or would they do so, ever?
Silence. Silence and death would close in. Fane's robots were
certainly aiming more mole-torpedoes.
It must not happen like that. Not again. Out of this thought in Rick's
mind, an idea was squeezed. It challenged fate. It gave him the
muscle power to arise. He staggered forward and grasped in his
metal hands the fire-spitting end of the broken cable. The lining of
the gloves was an insulation. He propped himself up with his steel-
shod boot on the terminal that the cable was meant to reach. Heat
oozed around him as the metal skin of his space suit took the cable's
place as an electrical conductor.
Hell broke loose. Rick Mills and his companions felt a thunderous
vibration, as of a million space ships blasting off, as all but two of
those giant jet-tubes roared into life. Rick had propped himself well.
Even when consciousness left him he maintained the electrical
contact. Other mole-torpedoes, exploding, shook the chamber and
bulged its walls. But the constructive fury that had started there,
went on. It wasn't till half an hour later that those great tubes
burned out.
No one ever saw the terrible blast of incandescence that they threw
into space, like the jet of an old fashioned, Fourth-of-July pinwheel.
Not even Fane, out there somewhere in the cold wilderness. Before
he could glimpse what was happening, the glare charred his
eyeballs. Then it charred him inside his space suit. Then a sea of
slush engulfed him and his robots. A slush of liquid air and snow.
Steam rose high and scattered to blank out the stars with an awful
wind.
Five hours later the sun that had set here fifty million years ago,
rose again. But the melting went on under the veil of fog. And
across the furnace desert of Mercury, darkened now at last, rivers
roared, hissing. Volcanoes blazed, for how can you cause a world to
spin again, without poking up its internal fires with the strain?
But at last the fury of rebirth quieted. And down a murky river days
later, a still dazed Rick Mills and his battered companions, paddled a
crude metal boat to meet another party from the main camp. The air
was thin and steamy, but rich in oxygen, and good to breathe. They
had removed their space suit helmets.
Rick took out the picture of Anne Munson. He read the legend
scrawled under her pert smile:
"Find us a world, Rick!"
"You thought you were pulling my leg, Miss Munson," Rick said
solemnly. "But you'll be on Mercury, helping build things up, before
you know it. Bet we'll even have a house...."
Young Finden's chuckle, and the twinkle in Lattimer's eyes,
constituted another kind of leg-pull.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GIVE BACK A
WORLD ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in
these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it
in the United States without permission and without paying
copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of
Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything
for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given
away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with
eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject
to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund
from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law
in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated
with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this
agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached
full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge
with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the
terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears,
or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning
of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or
expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or
a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must
include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in
paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
 about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for

the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3,
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR
NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR
BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH
1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK
OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL
NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF
YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving
it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or
entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide
a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted
by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation,

the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation,
anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with
the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or
any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission

of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.
It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and
donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a
secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help,
see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can
be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the
widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many
small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to
maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and
keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in
locations where we have not received written confirmation of
compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of
compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where

we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in
such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About

Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how
to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.