A description logic approach for representing and reasoning on fuzzy object-oriented database models

With the wide utilization of description logics (DLs), researches on applications of DLs have become the important research lines in the Semantic Web. In particular, DLs have been deeply studied in database modeling. This paper proposes a description logic approach to represent and reason on fuzzy object-oriented database (FOOD) models. After recalling some basic notions of FOOD models and a fuzzy DL called f-ALCIQ(D), we propose a kind of formal definition and semantics of FOOD models. On this basis, representation and reasoning of FOOD models with f-ALCIQ(D) is studied. We first translate a FOOD model and its corresponding database instance into an f-ALCIQ(D) knowledge base (i.e., TBox and ABox), and further implement a prototype translation tool called FOOD2DL. Then, based on the translated f-ALCIQ(D) knowledge bases, we investigate how to reason on FOOD models (e.g., consistency, subsumption, and redundancy) through the reasoning mechanism of f-ALCIQ(D). The formalization in f-ALCIQ(D) of FOOD models makes it possible to improve the ability of reasoning on database models by means of the inference services offered by fuzzy DLs. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.