N3.js Reasoner: Implementing reasoning in N3.js

Jesse Wright

Abstract:

RDF reasoning typically does not occur in browser-based applications despite being critical to the next generation of Web technologies. The primary constraint is that client-side reasoners do not meet the performance requirements of modern applications and the technicalities of using reasoners make them inaccessible to front-end developers.

This paper presents our performant implementation of a reasoning engine for N3.js that supports Horn Rules. We demonstrate that it is possible to perform reasoning in the browser in a manner that is performant enough for standard use cases to execute without interrupting the user experience.