Table Of ContentTopics in Information Systems
Editors:
Michael L. Brodie
John Mylopoulos
Joachim W. Schmidt
Springer Series
Topics in Information Systems
M.L. Brodie, J. Mylopoulos, J.W. Schmidt (Eds.): On Conceptual Modelling:
Perspectives from Artificial Intelligence, Databases and Programming Lan
guages. XI, 510 pages, 25 figs., 1984
W. Kim, D.S. Reiner, D.S. Batary (Eds.): Query Processing in Database Sys
tems. XIV, 365 pages, 127 figs., 1985
D.C. Tsichritzis (Ed.): Office Automation: Concepts and Tools. XII, 441 pages,
86 figs., 1985
M.L. Brodie, J. Mylopoulos (Eds.): On Knowledge Base Management Sys
tems: Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Database Technologies. XXI, 660
pages, 89 figs., 1986
L. Bole, M. Jarke (Eds.): Cooperative Interfaces to Information Systems.
XIV, 328 pages, 62 figs., 1986
M.P. Atkinson, P. Buneman, R. Morrison (Eds.): Data Types and Persistence.
XVI, 292 pages, 10 figs., 1988
J.W. Schmidt, C. Thanos (Eds.): Foundations of Knowledge Base Manage
ment: Contributions from Logic, Databases, and Artificial Intelligence Ap
plications. XIV, 579 pages, 84 figs., 1989
Joachim W Schmidt Costantino Thanos (Eds.)
Foundations of
Knowledge
Base Management
Contributions from Logic, Databases,
and Artificial Intelligence Applications
With 84 Figures
Springer-Verlag
Berlin Heidelberg New York
London Paris Tokyo Hong Kong
Series Editors
Michael L. Brodie
GTE Laboratories Incorporated
40 Sylvan Road, Waltham, MA 02254, USA
John Mylopoulos
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S lA7, Canada
Joachim W. Schmidt
Fachbereich Informatik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat
Robert-Mayer-Stra!3e 11-15
D-6000 Frankfurt a. M. II, Fed. Rep. of Germany
Volume Editors
Joachim W. Schmidt Costantino Thanos
(see above) Istituto di Elaborazione della Informazione
Consiglia Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
1-56100 Pisa, Italy
ISBN-13: 978-3-642-83399-1 e-ISBN-13: 978-3-642-83397-7
001: 10.1007/978-3-642-83397-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foundations of knowledge base management: contributions from logic, databases, and
artificial intelligence I Joachim W. Schmidt, Costantino Thanos, editors. p. cm. -
(Topics in information systems) "Proceedings of the Workshop on Knowledge Base
Management Systems, Crete, June 1985"-Bibliography: p. Includes index.
l. Database management-Congresses. 2. Expert systems (Computer
science)-Congresses. 3. Artificial intelligence-Congresses.
I. Schmidt, Joachim W., 1941- . II. Thanos, C. (Costantino)
III. Workshop on Knowledge Base Management Systems (1985 : Xania,
Crete) IV. Series. QA76.9.D3F68 1989 005. 74-dcl 9 88-4891
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© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1989
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989
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Topics in Information Systems
Series Description
Computer Science is increasingly challenged to deliver powerful concepts,
techniques, and tools for building high quality, low cost information systems. In
the future, such systems will be expected to acquire, maintain, retrieve, manipu
late, and present many different kinds of information. Requirements such as
user-friendly interfaces, powerful reasoning capabilities, shared access to large
information bases, and cooperative problem solving all with high performance
are becoming ever more popular to potential information system users. More
fundamentally, there is an ever increasing need for powerful environments for
the design and development of such information systems.
Software technology for building these systems is far from meeting these
requirements. Despite major achievements in every area of Computer Science,
the gap between what is expected and what Information System technology can
deliver is widening. This is in marked contrast to dramatic advances in individ
ual research areas such as hardware technology, knowledge-based systems,
distributed processing, graphics, user-interfaces, etc. The critical challenge in
meeting the demand for high quality, low cost information systems cannot be
addressed successfully by individual technologies. Rather, it critically depends
on our ability to integrate technologies. One reason for the urgency of this task
is that dramatic advances in hardware technology have made computers avail
able to an ever-growing community of potential users all of whom have definite
information processing needs.
The Topics in Information Systems (TIS) series of books focuses on the
critical challenges of technology integration for information systems. Volumes
in the series will report recent significant contributions to the conceptual foun
dation, the architectural design, and the software realization of information
systems. The series is based on the premise that these tasks can be solved only
by integrating currently distinct technologies from different areas of Computer
Science such as Artificial Intelligence, Databases and Programming Languages.
The required dramatic improvements in software productivity will come from
advanced application development environments based on powerful new tech
niques and languages. The resulting new technologies should allow us to trans
form our conceptions of an application domain more directly and efficiently into
operational systems utilizing conceptual modelling methodologies, new lan
guages for requirements, design and implementation, novel environments, per
formance analysis tools, and optimization techniques.
VI
The concepts, techniques, and tools necessary for the design, implementa
tion, and use of future information systems is expected to result from the
integration of those being developed and used in currently disjoint areas of
Computer Science. Several areas bring their unique viewpoint and technologies
to existing information processing practice. One key area is Artificial Intelli
gence (AI) which provides knowledge representation and reasoning capabilities
for knowledge bases grounded on semantic theories of information for correct
interpretation. An equally important area is Databases which provides means
for building and maintaining large, shared distributed databases grounded in
computational theories of information for efficient processing. A third impor
tant area is Programming Languages which provides a powerful tool kit for the
construction of large, efficient programs and programming environments to
support software engineering. To meet evolving information systems require
ments, additional research viewpoints and technologies are or will be required
from such areas as Software Engineering, Computer Networks, Machine
Architectures and Office Automation.
Although some technological integration has already been achieved, a quan
tum leap is needed to meet the demand for future information systems. This
integration is one of the major challenges for Computer Science in the 1990s.
The TIS series logo symbolizes the scope of topics to be covered and the
basic theme of integration. The logo will appear on each book to indicate the
topics addressed. The book On Knowledge Base Management Systems: Inte
grating Artificial Intelligence and Database Technologies, edited by Michael L.
Brodie and John Mylopoulos, for example, deals with concepts and techniques
in AI and Databases and has the logo
Artificial Databases Programming
Intelligence Languages
• •
Concepts
• •
Techniques
Tools
All books in the series provide timely accounts of ongoing research efforts to
reshape technologies intended for information system development.
Michael L. Brodie
John Mylopoulos
Joachim W. Schmidt
Preface
In the past, applied artificial intelligence systems were built with particular
emphasis on general reasoning methods intended to function efficiently,
even when only relatively little domain-specific knowledge was available.
In other words, AI technology aimed at the processing of knowledge
stored under comparatively general representation schemes.
Nowadays, the focus has been redirected to the role played by specific
and detailed knowledge, rather than to the reasoning methods themselves.
Many new application systems are centered around knowledge bases, i.e.,
they are based on large collections offacts, rules, and heuristics that cap
ture knowledge about a specific domain of applications. Experience has
shown that when used in combination with rich knowledge bases, even
simple reasoning methods can be extremely effective in a wide variety of
problem domains. Knowledge base construction and management will thus
become the key factor in the development of viable knowledge-based ap
plications. Knowledge Base Management Systems (KBMSs) are being
proposed that provide user-friendly environments for the construction,
retrieval, and manipUlation of large shared knowledge bases. In addition
to deductive reasoning, KBMSs require operational characteristics such
as concurrent access, integrity maintenance, error recovery, security, and
perhaps distribution. For the development ofKBMSs, the need to integrate
concepts and technologies from different areas, such as Artificial Intel
ligence, Databases, and Logic, has been widely recognized.
One of the central issues for KBMSs is the framework used for
knowledge representation-semantic networks, frames, rules, and logics
are proposed by the AI and logic communities. Issues of KBMS architec
ture and of system efficiency can probably be solved by applying results
from database research and development. The way and the extent to
which methodologies and techniques from these areas should be inte
grated to support the architectural requirements, the representational
capabilities, and the operational characteristics of KBMSs are an open
research issue that has been heavily debated in several recent workshops.
VIII Preface
Two workshops were held in Islamorada, Florida and Xania, Crete
to debate in the United States and Europe those experiences that may
become relevant to KBMSs. The Islamorada Workshop emphasized the
domain orientation of artificial intelligence systems and concentrated very
much on issues of specialized systems since only these were considered
capable of "intelligent" behaviour. * In contrast, most of the researchers
represented at the Xania Workshop had a logic and database background
which was almost completely missing at Islamorada. Consequently, more
general methods and tools were considered, leading to a more optimistic
stance concerning the feasibility ofthe KBMS approach. However, those
participants working on applied artificial intelligence systems also ac
knowledged the need for managing large bodies of knowledge from diverse
sources with differing representational requirements.
This book contains the contributions of the invited participants in the
Xania Workshop on Knowledge Base Management Systems. The contri
butions consisted oftechnical papers, position papers, and surveys cover
ing particular research areas. Surveys were considered to be the neces
sary background for the participants (and potential readers) to be able to
follow the subsequent technical presentations and the discussions after
the individual contributions. Although care was taken to achieve a rea
sonable balance between Artificial Intelligence, Databases, and Logic,
invited experts in two areas, i.e., Databases and Logic, were probably
more heavily represented, reflecting to some extent the actual research
situation in Europe.
The book is divided into five parts. Part I discusses the use of logic
in knowledge representation. The first chapter presents a definition of the
model theoretic and proof theoretic views of the relational data model,
and surveys a number of inference techniques within a logic framework.
The other four technical papers discuss how to deal with different aspects
of knowledge, such as events, time, incomplete information, metalevel
information and abstractions, using a logic formalism.
Part II presents extensions of data models to support deductive capa
bilities. Starting points are the relational structures and query languages.
The first chapter presents the problem of how to bridge the gap between
traditional relational databases and deductive databases. The following
three papers deal with specific proposals to extend relational algebra or
calculus and suggest linguistic tools for fact and rule management.
Part III describes database technology and extensions of it, and shows
how this technology can be utilized to manage large knowledge bases.
The first paper briefly surveys database technology both from the mo-
*The results of the Islamorada workshop are published in On Knowledge Base
Management Systems. Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Database Technol
ogies. Michael L. Brodie and John Mylopoulos (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin,
Heidelberg, 1986.
Preface IX
delling and the operational viewpoints. The following three chapters dis
cuss architectural aspects of a knowledge base management system as it
results from the integration of artificial intelligence and database tech
niques. Another chapter describes the features of a compiler for a semantic
data model.
Part IV discusses the use of knowledge-based technology for advanced
applications. The first overview paper stresses the need for the devel
opment of specific domain-dependent knowledge representation systems
so that reasonable performance levels can be achieved. The following pa
pers apply this principle to different application areas, such as software
development, plan generation, management of visual data, use of geometric
descriptions, and natural language systems.
Part V presents a summary of the contributions and the subsequent
discussions. The first chapter discusses the role and limitations of the
logic approach to knowledge representation and management. The second
paper stresses the need for a well-founded knowledge representation for
malism. The third presentation points out the aspects of database tech
nology that could be usefully employed in knowledge base management.
Finally, the last chapter outlines a general framework within which several
theories, techniques, and methodologies, coming from different research
areas, could be integrated to build systems that could manage knowledge
bases.
In conclusion, we would like to thank the Cretan R.esearch Centre
and the Italian National Research Council for their financial support, which
permitted the organization of the Workshop in Crete, and the Computer
Science Institute of Crete and the "Istituto di Elaborazione della Infor
mazione" of Pisa for their valuable support. In particular, it is a pleasure
to acknowledge the contributions of Paolo Mancarella, Carlo Meghini,
and Carol Peters for their work in transcribing the discussions at the
Workshop and in helping us to edit the material. Special thanks are due
to all the participants in the Workshop, both for their written contributions
and for their active participation during the meeting, to Michael Brodie
and John Mylopoulos, promoters of the Workshop held in Islamorada,
USA, for their important contributions to the success of the meeting, and
to Dennis Tsichritzis, Director of the Computer Science Institute at Crete,
who helped and encouraged us constantly during all the stciges of this
project.
Frankfurt, Fed. Rep. of Germany Joachim W. Schmidt
Pisa, Italy Costantino Thanos
Contents
Series Description ........................................................... v
Preface .......................................................................... Vll
Part I. Logic and Knowledge Representation
1. The Role of Logic for Data and Knowledge Bases:
A Brief Survey
Wolfgang Bibel and lean-Marie Nicolas ......................... 3
Discussion ............................................................... 15
2. A Logic-Based Calculus of Events
Robert Kowalski and Marek Sergot 23
Discussion ............................................................... 53
3. Metalanguage and Databases
Enrico Motta, Maria Simi,
and Giuseppe Attardi ................................................. 57
Discussion ............................................................... 71
4. Efficient Representation of Incomplete Information About
Structured Objects
Robert Demolombe and Luis Farinas del Cerro .............. 73
5. Abstraction and Inference Mechanisms for Knowledge
Representation
Amilcar Sernadas and Cristina Sernadas ........ .............. 91
Discussion ............................................................... 113
Description:In the past, applied artificial intelligence systems were built with particular emphasis on general reasoning methods intended to function efficiently, even when only relatively little domain-specific knowledge was available. In other words, AI technology aimed at the processing of knowledge stored
