Description Logic

Lecturer: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Franz Baader
Tutorials: Dipl.-Math. Francesco Kriegel

Course Description

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. Starting from a basic DL, this course introduces the students to their syntax, semantics, reasoning problems and model theory, and discusses the computational complexity of these reasoning problems and algorithms to solve them.

Organisation

The lecture will take place in room APB/E005 twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and is accompanied by weekly tutorials in room APB/E005 on Wednesdays. The exact distribution of lectures and tutorials can be found in the table below. During the semester, there may be changes to this schedule on short notice. Be sure to check this page regularly for updates.

Each exercise sheet will be made available approximately one week in advance. During the tutorials, the students can present and discuss their solutions to the exercises, and ask questions about description logics.

Announcements

• There will be three lectures and no tutorial in the first week of the semester.
• In the second week, there will be tutorials on Tuesday and Thursday and there will be a lecture on Wednesday given by Dr.-Ing. Stefan Borgwardt as substitute lecturer.
• There will be a tutorial instead of a lecture on 30 April.
• The tutorial on 8 May will be given by Dr.-Ing. Stefan Borgwardt.
• There will be a tutorial instead of a lecture on 21 May.
• The lecture on 18 June will take place in room APB/3027.
• There will be no tutorial on 19 June and no lecture on 20 June, since on both days the anniversary "50 Years of Computer Science Education" will be celebrated. A replacement tutorial is then offered on Monday, 17 June, 16:40–18:10, in room APB/3027.
• The lecture on 25 June will be exchanged with the tutorial on 26 June. Furthermore, that tutorial is then held by Dr.-Ing. Stefan Borgwardt. The lecture on 26 June has been rescheduled: it will now take place from 11:10 to 12:40 in room APB/3027.
• Instead of the tutorial, a question-and-answer session is offered on 3 July.

Schedule

	Tuesday 16:40–18:10	Wednesday 14:50–16:20	Thursday 16:40–18:10
2 April — 4 April	Lecture	Lecture	Lecture
9 April — 11 April	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 1	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 2
16 April — 18 April	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 3	Lecture
23 April — 25 April	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 4	Lecture
30 April — 2 May	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 5	1st May	Lecture
7 May — 9 May	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 6	Lecture
14 May — 16 May	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 7	Lecture
21 May — 23 May	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 8	Dies academicus	Lecture
28 May — 30 May	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 9	Ascension Day
4 June — 6 June	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 10	Lecture
11 June — 13 June	Pentecost	Pentecost	Pentecost
18 June — 20 June	Lecture APB/3027	50 Years of Computer Science Education Replacement Tutorial: Monday, 17 June, 16:40–18:10, APB/3027 Exercise Sheet 11
25 June — 27 June	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 12	Lecture 11:10–12:40 APB/3027	Lecture
2 July — 4 July	Lecture	Q&A Session	Lecture
9 July — 11 July	Lecture	Tutorial Exercise Sheet 13	Lecture

SWS/Modules

SWS: 4/2/–
This course can be used in the following modules:

• Bachelor Informatik: INF-B-510 (Vertiefung in der Informatik), INF-B-520 (Spezialisierung in der Informatik)
• Master Informatik, Diplom Informatik: INF-BAS6 (Theoretische Informatik), INF-VERT6 (Vertiefung Theoretische Informatik)
• Master Computational Logic, European Master in Computational Logic: MCL-TCSL / EMCL-A-TCSL (Theoretical Computer Science and Logic), MCL-PI / EMCL-A-PI (Principles of Inference), MCL-AI / EMCL-A-AI (Artificial Intelligence)
• Diplom Informatik (2004): INF-04-FG-TP (Theorie der Programmierung)

Lecture Material

Students are strongly recommended to copy what is written on the blackboard. Slides are used for most of the lectures, except for the proofs.

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: A Basic Description Logic
• Chapter 3: A Little Bit of Model Theory
• Chapter 4: Reasoning in DLs with Tableau Algorithms
• Chapter 5: Complexity
• Chapter 6: The EL Family
• Chapter 7: Query Answering

Literature

• Franz Baader, Carsten Lutz, Ian Horrocks, and Uli Sattler: An Introduction to Description Logic. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  Also available for download at the publisher's web page via SLUB Dresden (only from within the network of TU Dresden).
• Franz Baader, Diego Calvanese, Deborah McGuinness, Daniele Nardi, and Peter F. Patel-Schneider: The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation, and Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 2007.
• Franz Baader, Carsten Lutz: Description Logic. In Patrick Blackburn, Johan van Benthem, and Frank Wolter, editors, Handbook of Modal Logic, pages 757–819. Elsevier, 2006.
  doi:10.1016/S1570-2464(07)80016-4
• Franz Baader. Description Logics. In Reasoning Web: Semantic Technologies for Information Systems, 5th International Summer School 2009, volume 5689 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 1–39. Springer-Verlag, 2009.
  doi:10.1007/978-3-642-03754-2_1