Reasoning Using Knots

Thomas Eiter, Magdalena Ortiz, Mantas Simkus

Abstract: The deployment of Description Logics (DLs) and Answer Set Programming (ASP), which are well-known knowledge representation and reasoning formalisms, to a growing range of applications has created the need for novel reasoning algorithms and methods. Recently, knots have been introduced as a tool to facilitate reasoning tasks in extensions of ASP with functions symbols. They were then also fruitfully applied for query answering in Description Logics, hinging on the forest-shaped model property of knowledge bases. This paper briefly reviews the knot idea at a generic level and recalls some of the results obtained with them. It also discusses features of knots and relations to other reasoning techniques, and presents issues for further research.