text: Efficiently querying Description Logic (DL) ontologies is becoming a vital task in various data-intensive DL applications. Considered as a basic service for answering object queries over DL ontologies, instance checking can be realized by using the most specific concept (MSC) method, which converts instance checking into subsumption problems. This method, however, loses its simplicity and efficiency when applied to large and complex ontologies, as it tends to generate very large MSCs that could lead to intractable reasoning. In this paper, we propose a revision to this MSC method for DL SHI , allowing it to generate much simpler and smaller concepts that are specific enough to answer a given query. With independence between computed MSCs, scalability for query answering can also be achieved by distributing and parallelizing the computations. An empirical evaluation shows the efficacy of our revised MSC method and the significant efficiency achieved when using it for answering object queries.
  @cite_44: The extraction of logically-independent fragments out of an ontology ABox can be useful for solving the tractability problem of querying ontologies with large ABoxes. In this paper, we propose a formal definition of an ABox module, such that it guarantees complete preservation of facts about a given set of individuals, and thus can be reasoned independently w.r.t. the ontology TBox. With ABox modules of this type, isolated or distributed (parallel) ABox reasoning becomes feasible, and more efficient data retrieval from ontology ABoxes can be attained. To compute such an ABox module, we present a theoretical approach and also an approximation for @math ontologies. Evaluation of the module approximation on different types of ontologies shows that, on average, extracted ABox modules are significantly smaller than the entire ABox, and the time for ontology reasoning based on ABox modules can be improved significantly.
  @cite_23: In the last years, the vision of the Semantic Web fostered the interest in reasoning over large and very large sets of assertional statements in knowledge bases. Traditional tableau-based reasoning systems perform bad answering queries over large data sets, because these reasoning systems are based on efficient use of main memory data structures. Increasing expressivity and worst-case complexity further tighten the memory burden. The purpose of our work is to investigate how to release the main memory burden from tableau-based reasoning systems and perform efficient instance checking over SHI-knowledge bases. The key idea is to reduce instance checking for an individual in a knowledge base to smaller subsets of relevant axioms. Modularization techniques are introduced and further refined in order to increase the granularity of modules. For evaluation purposes, experiments on benchmark and real world knowledge bases are carried out. The principal conclusion is that the main memory burden for instance checking can be released from tableau-based reasoning systems for semi-expressive Description Logics, by using modularization techniques.
summary: Recently, techniques for partitioning or modularizing ABoxes into logically-independent fragments have been developed @cite_23 @cite_44 . These techniques partition ABoxes into logically-independent modules, such that each will preserve complete information of a given set of individuals, and thus can be reasoned independently w.r.t. the TBox and be able to take advantage of existing parallel-processing techniques.