An Introduction to Description Logic

Description logics (DLs) have a long tradition in computer science and knowledge representation, being designed so that domain knowledge can be described and so that computers can reason about this knowledge. DLs have recently gained increased importance since they form the logical basis of widely used ontology languages, in particular the web ontology language OWL. Written by four renowned experts, this is the first textbook on description logics. It is suitable for self-study by graduates and as the basis for a university course. Starting from a basic DL, the book introduces the reader to their syntax, semantics, reasoning problems and model theory and discusses the computational complexity of these reasoning problems and algorithms to solve them. It then explores a variety of reasoning techniques, knowledge-based applications and tools and it describes the relationship between DLs and OWL.

描述邏輯（DLs）在計算機科學和知識表示方面有著悠久的傳統，旨在描述領域知識，使計算機能夠對這些知識進行推理。由於DLs是廣泛使用的本體語言（特別是網絡本體語言OWL）的邏輯基礎，因此近年來它們變得越來越重要。這本書是由四位知名專家撰寫的，是關於描述邏輯的第一本教科書。它適合研究生自學或作為大學課程的基礎。從基本的DL開始，本書介紹了它們的語法、語義、推理問題和模型理論，並討論了這些推理問題的計算複雜性和解決它們的算法。然後，它探討了各種推理技術、基於知識的應用和工具，並描述了DLs和OWL之間的關係。