Description Logic for Configuration

Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Stanford University

Abstract: Description Logic for Configuration

Description logics are used to solve a wide variety of problems with configuration applications being some of the largest and longest-lived. There is concrete, commercial evidence that shows that description logic-based configurators have been successfully fielded for over a decade. Additionally, it appears that configuration applications have a number of characteristics that make them well-suited to description logic-based solutions. This chapter will introduce the problem of configuration, describe some requirements of configuration applications that make them candidates for description logic-based solutions, show examples of these requirements in a configuration example, and introduce the largest and longest lived family of description logic-based configurators.

Deborah L. McGuinness ``Description Logic for Configuration ''. Franz Baader, Deborah McGuinness, Daniele Nardi, and Peter Patel-Schneider, editors The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation, and Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2002.

This pre-print version of the paper to be published is available in postscript and pdf format. The associated contents, index, bibliography, appendix and introduction are also available in preprint pdf form.

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