[OEP] Inference Patterns

Here is a simple inference that I wish to get my OWL ontology to do for
me, and I don't know whether it is possible. 
There might be a nice trick, but I don't know.  This is one of many
commonly arising examples of wanting certain kinds of inferences to go
throug, and could be the subject of a note. 

Here is my example:

I have an ontology which is mainly about tracking reports of people's
activities in an organization (e.g. publications, attending conferences,
workshops, making customer contacts, etc).

Key classes include Report, Conference, Publication, Subject etc.

The key relation is: isAbout which says what the Report is about.
e.g.  isAbout(Report1, ISWC-05) and/or isAbout(Report1, Publication23).
One report could be about more than one thing.

We also have a relation indicating the subject of
1) the things that Reports are about (a conference), and
2) the Reports themselves.

I WANT TO INFER THE SUBJECT OF THE REPORT FROM THE SUBJECT OF THE THINGS
THAT THE REPORT IS ABOUT.  

For example:

isAbout(?Report, ?Conference) & 
hasSubject(?Conference, ?Subject)  ==> hasSubject(?Report,?Subject)


This message has two purposes:
1. how can I achieve this particular task, if at all
2. there are LOTS of such examples where one wishes to get an inference
to go through, and it is not always easy to know how or whether it can
be done. Should we have a note to address this kind of thing?

============================================
Mike Uschold
Mathematics and Computing Technology -- Phantom Works;
Tel: 425 865-3605              Fax: 425 865-2965
Building: 3307 Cube: 33D3      
============================================

Received on Friday, 21 October 2005 22:07:34 UTC