Consistency of Structured Knowledge: A Formal Framework Based on Description Logics

Abstract In the general framework of the KBS validation, our work deals with the consistency checking of the domain knowledge. We have chosen to cope with the problem in a modular way according to the different aspects (deductive, structuring) of the domain knowledge. In this paper, we study the consistency of the structuring aspect of the domain knowledge, which corresponds with the links of specialization between the concepts of the domain. Our approach consists of getting free of the implementation aspects of any specific object-oriented language. For that, we have chosen to specify this structuring aspect in a terminological formalism issued from Description Logics. Such terminological formalisms have emerged from several recent works on Knowledge Representation issued from the KL-ONE language. They are devoted to formally representing information about individual objects, related by binary relationships (called roles) and grouped into concepts, in a syntax associated with a formal semantics.