GC-SROIQ(C) : Expressive Constraint Modelling and Grounded Circumscription for SROIQ

Abstract: Developments in semantic web technologies have promoted ontological encoding of knowledge from diverse domains. However, modelling many practical domains requires more expressive representations schemes than what the standard description logics(DLs) support. We extend the DL SROIQ with constraint networks and grounded circumscription. Applications of constraint modelling include embedding ontologies with temporal or spatial information, while grounded circumscription allows defeasible inference and closed world reasoning. This paper overcomes restrictions on existing constraint modelling approaches by introducing expressive constructs. Grounded circumscription allows concept and role minimization and is decidable for DL. We provide a general and intuitive algorithm for the framework of grounded circumscription that can be applied to a whole range of logics. We present the resulting logic: GC-SROIQ(C), and describe a tableau decision procedure for it.