Optimizing Query Answering in Description Logics using Disjunctive Deductive Databases

Motivated by the possibilities of applying deductive database technology for efficient query answering in description logics, we present a translation operator μ that transforms non-recursive ALC ontologies into a disjunctive deductive database. Contrary to our previous work, in this paper we focus on handling negation, disjunction and existential quantifiers, which cannot be handled by deductive databases in a straightforward manner. We present a performance evaluation of our approach, confirming the intuition that techniques for optimizing query answering in disjunctive deductive databases may improve query answering in description logics.