Semantic Indexing Based on Description Logics

A method for constructing and maintaining a `semantic index' using a system based on description logics is described. A persistent index into a large number of objects is built by classifying the objects with respect to a set of indexing concepts and storing the resulting relation between object-ids and most speciic indexing concepts on a le. These les can be incre-mentally updated. The index can be used for eeciently accessing the set of objects matching a query concept. The query is classiied, and, based on subsumption and disjointness reasoning with respect to indexing concepts, instances are immediately categorized as hits, misses or candidates with respect to the query. Based on the index only, delayless feedback concerning the cardinality of the query (upper and lower bounds) can be provided during query editing.