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<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <front>
    <journal-meta />
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Complexity Sources in Fuzzy Description Logic</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Marco Cerami</string-name>
          <email>marco.cerami@upol.cz</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Umberto Straccia</string-name>
          <email>umberto.straccia@isti.cnr.it</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>ISTI-CNR</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Pisa</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="IT">Italy</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>Palacky University in Olomouc</institution>
          ,
          <country country="CZ">Czech Republic</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <abstract>
        <p>In recent years many Fuzzy Description Logics (FDLs) based on in nite t-norms have been proved to be undecidable. On the other hand, several FDLs based on nite t-norms, not only have been proved to be decidable, but they have been proved to belong to the same complexity classes as the corresponding crisp DLs. In light of such results, a question that naturally arises is whether the nite-valued fuzzy framework is no more complex than the crisp-valued formalism. The aim of this work is to analyze some of the complexity sources that are not present in the crisp framework. To this end, we will consider FDL languages with low expressivity that allow us to observe how the need for more complex deciding strategies, not required in the crisp framework, arises in manyvalued FDLs.</p>
      </abstract>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>Introduction</title>
      <p>In recent years many Fuzzy Description Logics (FDLs) based on in nite t-norms
have been proved to be undecidable. On the other hand, every FDL based on
nite t-norm that has been recently studied, not only has been proved to be
decidable, but it has been proved to belong to the same complexity class of
the corresponding crisp DL. In light of such results, a question that naturally
arises is whether the nite-valued fuzzy framework is no more complex than the
crisp-valued formalism. The suspicion is that everything that can be expressed
in nite-valued FDLs, can be e ciently reduced to the corresponding crisp DLs.</p>
      <p>The aim of this work is to highlight that in the fuzzy framework we have
to consider complexity sources that are not present in the crisp framework. In
order to analyze this problem, we will consider FDLs where axioms and reasoning
tasks use exact values and outline the changes that have to be made in classical
tableau-based algorithms in order to cope with such reasoning tasks. In the
second part of this work we will give an account on how the fact that Lukasiewicz
conjunction is not idempotent impacts on a structural subsumption algorithm
for nite Lukasiewicz logic.
? M. Cerami acknowledges support by the ESF project \Podpora vytvaren
excelentn ch vyzkumnych tymu u intersektoraln mobility na Univerzite Palackeho v
Olomouci II" No. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/30.0041, the project is co- nanced by the
European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic.
x y
x ) y
x ) 0</p>
      <p>Minimum (Godel) Product (of real numbers)</p>
      <p>min(x; y) x y
n 1; if x y n 1; if x y</p>
      <p>y; otherwise y=x; otherwise
n 1; if x = 0 n 1; if x = 0
0; otherwise 0; otherwise</p>
      <p>Table 1. The three main continuous t-norms.</p>
      <p>Lukasiewicz
max(0; x + y</p>
      <p>1)</p>
      <p>The present work does not pretend to be an exhaustive account on the
complexity sources in many-valued FDLs, but just a starting point towards a
systematic study of the complexity issues exclusive to the nite-valued framework.
Even though the results presented in this work maintain the same complexity
bounds as in the classical cases, they are not a proof that every language whose
semantics is based on a nite t-norm is at most as complex as the corresponding
classical language.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>Preliminaries</title>
      <sec id="sec-2-1">
        <title>Algebras of Truth Values</title>
        <p>We will mainly focus our research to the case of nite t-norms.</p>
        <p>
          De nition 1. A t-norm is a binary operation on the real unit interval [0; 1]
that is associative, commutative, non-decreasing in both arguments and having
1 as neutral (unit) element. The residuum of a t-norm is a binary operation
on [0; 1] such that x y z () x y ) z holds for every x; y; z 2 T .
Left continuity of , i.e. the property that for any non-decreasing sequence (xi)i2I
and for any y, (Wi xi) y = Wi(xi y) holds, is a su cient and necessary condition
for the existence of the residuum of the t-norm . A structure h[0; 1]; ; ); 0; 1i,
where is a left-continuous t-norm and ) is its residuum, is called MTL
standard chain (see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref9">9</xref>
          ]). This structure is denoted from now on by [0; 1] . Moreover
the same structure, where is a continuous t-norm and ) is its residuum, is
called BL standard chain (see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11">11</xref>
          ]). The most used representative of the
standard chains (unique up to isomorphisms), are the ones de ned by the so-called
Lukasiewicz, product and minimum t-norms and their residua (collected in Table
1). In the FDL literature, it is natural to restrict to so-called witnessed models
(see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12">12</xref>
          ]) when the semantics is based on an in nite algebra. Indeed, the main
results reported in Section 3 follow such a restriction.
        </p>
        <p>In the case of Lukasiewicz and Godel t-norms , the operations in Table 1
can be de ned on the domain of a nite subalgebra of [0; 1] . In these cases,
we can talk about nite t-norms. So, for every natural number n, Ln and Gn
will denote the restriction of Lukasiewicz and Godel t-norms, respectively, to
the subalgebra of cardinality n over the domain T = f0; n1 1 ; : : : ; nn 21 ; 1g in the
n-valued case. Notice that nite product subalgebras of [0; 1] (of cardinality
&gt; 2) do not exist, so a nite product t-norm can not be de ned.</p>
        <p>
          As it has been proved in [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
          ], every t-norm is de nable as ordinal sums of the
basics continuous t-norms from Table 1. The result in [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref16">16</xref>
          ] is the corresponding
result for t-norms of the one that in [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref17">17</xref>
          ] has been proved for families of abelian
semi-groups. A simple corollary, about the restriction of this result to nite
tnorms is the following Proposition.
        </p>
        <p>Proposition 2. Every nite BL-chain is an ordinal sum of isomorphic copies
of Lukasiewicz and Godel nite chains.</p>
        <p>Relying on the result of Proposition 2, we will restrict our study to the case of
Lukasiewicz and Godel nite chains.
2.2</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-2">
        <title>Syntax</title>
        <p>A description signature is a tuple D = hNI ; NC ; NRi, where NI = fa; b; : : : g
is a countable set of individual names, NC = fA; B; : : : g is a countable set of
atomic concepts or concept names and NR = fR; S; : : : g is a countable set of
atomic roles or role names. Complex concepts in the FDL languages considered
in this work are built inductively from atomic concepts and roles by means of
the corresponding subset of the following concept constructors:</p>
        <p>C; D
!</p>
        <p>A
C u D
8R:C
9R:&gt;</p>
        <p>A</p>
        <p>C
C t D
9R:C
C ! D
atomic concept
strong conjunction
value restriction
restricted existential quantif.
atomic complementation
complementation
strong disjunction
existential quanti cation
implication</p>
        <p>F L0
F L0
F L0
F L</p>
        <p>AL</p>
        <p>
          C
U
E
I
where A 2 NC , and R 2 NR. In the rest of the paper we will refer to the right
column of the above table to denote the constructors explicitly present in each
language considered. The rules for reading it are the usual one in the framework
of DL (see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
          ]).
2.3
        </p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-3">
        <title>Semantics</title>
        <p>Given a nite chain T = hT; ; ); 0; 1i an interpretation is a pair I = ( I ; I )
consisting of a nonempty (crisp) set I (called domain) and of a fuzzy
interpretation function I that assigns a fuzzy set AI : I ! T to each concept name
A 2 NC , a fuzzy relation RI : I I ! T to each role name R 2 NR and
an object aI 2 I to each individual name a 2 NI . The semantics of complex
concepts is a function CI : I ! T inductively de ned as follows:
( C)I (v) :=
(C u D)I (v) :=
(C t D)I (v) :=
(C ! D)I (v) :=
(8R:C)I (v) :=
(9R:C)I (v) :=
1 CI (v)
CI (v) DI (v)
1 ((1 CI (v)) (1
CI (v) ) DI (v)
infw2 I fRI (v; w) ) CI (w)g
supw2 I fRI (v; w) CI (w)g</p>
        <p>DI (v)))
2.4</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-4">
        <title>Axioms and Reasoning Tasks</title>
        <p>
          In the fuzzy framework, axioms are not necessarily asked to take value 1. Rather
they can be explicitly asked to take other values. In the literature (see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
          ]),
there are publications where concept inclusions and assertions are allowed to
take a whole set of truth values. Usually, the sets of truth values considered are
included between a positive value r &gt; 0 and 1, that is, the graded axioms have
the following form:
hC v D
hC(a)
ri;
ri:
hC(a) = ri:
Moreover, assertion axioms can be asked to take single values only, di erent than
1 (see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref10">10</xref>
          ]), then having the following form:
Sometimes exact value inclusions have been addressed in the literature, mainly
as mathematical problems (for example in [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref10">10</xref>
          ]). Indeed, the conditions required
by these kinds of axioms are quite anti-intuitive w.r.t. the expected behavior of
an inclusion axiom. For this reason we are not considering here.
        </p>
        <p>
          Besides graded axioms, also graded notions of reasoning tasks like satis
ability and subsumption can be considered. Again, these reasoning tasks can be
considered either w.r.t. a lower bound (see [21] for an overview), or w.r.t. exact
values (see [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12 ref6">6,12</xref>
          ]). Speaking about satis ability, in the rst case the question is
whether there is a model I of a (possibly empty) KB, which satis es a concept
C to a certain degree r0 between a value r and 1. In the second case the question
is whether there is a model I of a (possibly empty) KB, which satis es a concept
C to a certain degree r. Asking whether concept C is subsumed by concept D
w.r.t a (possibly empty) KB to a certain degree r means asking whether, for
every element x 2 I in every model I of KB, the implication CI (x) ! DI (x)
always takes a value greater or equal than r. Subsumption w.r.t. an exact value
is not considered for the same reason as for exact value inclusions above.
3
        </p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>Lower Bounds vs Exact Values</title>
      <p>Intuitively, the information brought by an axiom with an exact value, like (3),
can be equivalently expressed by means of a lower bound axiom, like (2), plus a
suitable upper bound axiom. For this reason, an exact value axiom is stronger
than a lower bound axiom, since it brings with it more information. This
increment on the strength side is re ected on increased computational costs.</p>
      <p>
        Some consequences of these higher costs have been already studied in the
in nite-valued case. In [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref>
        ] it is proved, among other things, that language [0; 1]
IALE (without atomic complementation) with lower bound axioms is
undecidable when the algebra of truth values [0; 1] is a t-norm whose ordinal sum
begins with a Lukasiewicz chain. But, if exact value axioms are allowed,
language [0; 1] -IALE becomes undecidable with every in nite t-norm [0; 1] but
(1)
(2)
(3)
Godel as algebra of truth values. This result is enhanced by the results in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ] and
[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref>
        ]. In [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ] it is proved that, when just lower bound axioms are allowed, language
-SHOI without complementation is linearly reducible to classical SHOI and,
therefore, its computational complexity is the same as in the classical case. In
[
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2">2</xref>
        ] on the other hand, it is proved that the simpler -ALE becomes undecidable
if assertions with exact value are allowed.
      </p>
      <p>
        Tableau-like algorithms for lower bound reasoning tasks. But even though the
presence of exact value axioms does not lead to undecidability in the case of FDLs
valued on a nite algebra, it indeed leads to an increase of the computational
costs. In order to understand how these computational costs increase, we have to
recall the basic completion rules for fresh constraint trees de ned in [19]. There,
a tableau-based algorithm for concept satis ability in classical ALC has been
de ned. The same algorithm has been subsequently used, expanded for more
expressive languages and reasoning tasks (see [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref14">14</xref>
        ]) and generalized to the fuzzy
framework (see [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
        ]). As we can see in [19], the classical tableau algorithm, while
building the tableau interpretation, adds a new element every time it nds out
an existentially quanti ed subconcept 9R:C and subsequently, it assigns concept
C to the newly added element.
      </p>
      <p>w `
On the other hand, when a value restriction 8R:C is found, no new element is
added to the tableau interpretation under construction, but concept C is assigned
to the already existing elements, if any.</p>
      <p>
        As we can see for example in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
        ], the same procedure can be used for solving
acyclic knowledge base consistency in the context of language Ln-ALC, when
just lower bound axioms are allowed.
The algorithms provided in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref12">12</xref>
        ] is still in the context of in nite-valued FDLs.
But similar procedures are also used in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ] in the context of nite-valued
FDLs. In [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ] an algorithm for solving concept satis ability to an exact value in
T-IALCE w.r.t. empty knowledge bases is provided, where T stands for any
nite t-norm. In [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ] an algorithm for solving knowledge base consistency to an
exact value in language T-SHI w.r.t. local ABoxes is provided, where T stands
for any nite residuated De Morgan lattice. Again, the interesting feature of
the procedures provided in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ] and [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ] is the fact that they add a new element
to the tableaux-like structure both when an existential quanti cation 9R:C or
a value restriction 8R:C are found. As proved in the cited publications, these
di erent algorithms do not increase the computational complexity classes their
languages belong to, w.r.t. the classes of the classical DL equivalent languages or
to the classes of the corresponding FDL languages where just either lower bound
axioms or lower bound reasoning tasks are considered. Nevertheless it translates
into greater computational costs, in the sense that the size of the model to be
built is greater. This means that the algorithm builds a greater propositional
theory in the case of [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ] and a greater constraint set in the case of [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        ].
Finite Lukasiewicz chains. In the case of FDLs based on nite Lukasiewicz
chains, the explanation is quite simple. Due to the properties of nite Lukasiewicz
chains, in fact, we have that, for every interpretation I, v 2 I and r 2 Ln:
CI (v) = r
i
both CI (v)
r and :CI (v)
1
      </p>
      <p>In particular, for the case of a value restriction 8R:C, we have that
8R:CI (v) = r
i
both 8R:CI (v)
r and 9R::CI (v)
1</p>
      <p>That is, for deciding exact value reasoning tasks in Ln would be enough to use the
simpler classical-like algorithm, but behind the satis ability of a value
restriction to an exact value, there is the lower bound satis ability of an existentially
quanti ed concept hidden. And for each existentially quanti ed concept a new
element must be added, according to every kind of tableau algorithm.
Finite Godel chains. In the case of nite Godel chains Gn, value restrictions and
existentially quanti ed concepts are not interde nable by means of the negation.
Nevertheless, here we want to prove, by means of a counter-example, that the
classical-like algorithms can not be used in presence of exact value reasoning
tasks. Indeed, consider r 2 Gn such that 0 &lt; r &lt; 1 and the following concept:
9R:C ! 8R:C:
That concept (4) is satis able at least to a value r means that there exist an
interpretation I and v 2 I , such that (9R:C ! 8R:C)I (v) r. For example,
the Gn-interpretation I1:</p>
      <p>C(w)=1 O</p>
      <p>R(v;w)=1</p>
      <p>v
satis es (4) since (9R:C ! 8R:C)I1 (v) = 1 r. But concept (4) is not satis ed
in any x 2 I1 to an exact value r &lt; 1. Nevertheless, concept (4) is indeed
satis able at point v in the Gn-interpretation I2:</p>
      <p>C(w)=1c</p>
      <p>C(u)=r;
R(v;w)=1</p>
      <p>R(v;u)=1
v
It can indeed be easily proved that concept (4) can not be satis ed to an exact
value 0 &lt; r &lt; 1 in any point v of a Gn-interpretation I with less than two
R-successors.</p>
      <p>Proposition 3. If concept (4) is satis ed to an exact value 0 &lt; r &lt; 1 in a point
v of a Gn-interpretation I, then v has at least two R-successors.
Proof. Suppose, in search of a contradiction, that there exist an
interpretation I and v 2 I such that (9R:C ! 8R:C)I (v) = r, but v has less than
two R-successors. If v has no R-successors, then it is obvious that (9R:C !
8R:C)I (v) = 1 &gt; r, so let us see the case when v has just one R-successor.</p>
      <p>Let w be the unique R-successor of v. Since (9R:C ! 8R:C)I (v) = r &lt; 1,
then s = (9R:C)I (v) &gt; (8R:C)I (v) = r. Therefore both RI (v; w) ^ CI (w) = s
and RI (v; w) )Gn CI (w) = r. Since RI (v; w) )Gn CI (w) = r &lt; 1, then
we have that RI (v; w) &gt; CI (w) = r. Therefore RI (v; w) ^ CI (w) = r &lt; s =
RI (v; w) ^ CI (w), a contradiction. Hence, any point v of a Gn-interpretation I
which satis es concept (4) to an exact value 0 &lt; r &lt; 1 must have at least two
R-successors.
tu
4</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-4">
      <title>Structural Subsumption Algorithms for Many-valued</title>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-5">
      <title>FDLs</title>
      <p>
        We address now the possibility of generalizing the structural subsumption
algorithm for the classical description language F L . This language is interesting for
us because, as it has been proved in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
        ], it has a polynomial time subsumption
problem. Moreover, the problem of generalizing structural subsumption
algorithms to the many-valued framework, as far as we know, until now has been
addressed only in [22] under a semantics di erent from t-norms, but it has not
still been faced with this kind of semantics. In [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
        ] a structural subsumption
algorithm SU BS?[a; b] for deciding concept subsumption in F L is presented.
The fact that SU BS?[a; b] calculates subsumption in O(n2) relies on the fact
that every F L concept C is equivalent to a F L concept C where each value
restriction 8R: appears at most once for each nesting level. That is, for example
concepts 8R:(C u D) and 8R:C u 8R:D are equivalent.
      </p>
      <p>The structural subsumption algorithm SU BS?[a; b] can be indeed
consistently used in order to decide 1-subsumption3 for Gn-F L . This is due to the
fact that the Godel t-norm ^ works well with its residuum )Gn . That is, for
every x; y; z 2 Gn:
(5)
(6)
x )Gn (y ^ z) = (x )Gn y) ^ (x )Gn z) :
Hence, correctness of algorithm SU BS?[a; b] w.r.t. 1-subsumption problem for
Gn-F L is due to the fact that ('&amp; ) ! ' is a theorem of Godel logic, while
completeness can be easily deduced from the fact that, if SU BS?[a; b] returns a
negative answer, then a counter-example to 1-subsumption can be easily found.</p>
      <p>Unfortunately, the same result does not hold between Lukasiewicz t-norm
Ln and its residuum )Ln . That is, there are x; y; z 2 Ln such that
x )Ln (y Ln z) 6= (x )Ln y) Ln (x )Ln z) :
As an example, if we take x = y = z = 0:8, then we have that x )Ln (y Ln z) =
0:8 6= 1 = (x )Ln y) Ln (x )Ln z). Since the residuum plays a fundamental role
in the semantics of value restrictions in FDL, we have as a consequence that in
Ln-F L , concepts 8R:(C uD) and 8R:C u8R:D are not equivalent. Nevertheless,
the overall complexity of the subsumption problem does not increase. In order
to see it, we will consider separately 1-subsumption and ( r)-subsumption
for r 2 (0; 1). As we will see at the end of this section the notion of (=
r)subsumption for r 2 (0; 1) does not make sense in Ln-F L .
1-subsumption in Ln-F L . The possibility of applying structural algorithms to
a given calculus is due to the fact that concept conjunctions can be considered
as sets of concepts. Since Lukasiewicz conjunction is not idempotent, complex
concepts where just u appears as concept constructor can not be seen as sets
of atomic concepts. In this sense, an inclusion like A v A u A which is valid in
classical F L or in Gn-F L , is not a 1-subsumption in Ln-F L . Nevertheless,
complex concepts in Ln-F L can be seen as multisets of simpler concepts, that
is, di erent occurrences of atomic concepts are now seen as di erent elements of
a given complex concept.4 This gives us the possibility of still de ning structural
subsumption algorithms for Ln-F L , as showed in the following proposition.
3 Note that subsumption between two concepts in Gn-F L always takes either value
0 or value 1. Therefore, speaking about ( r)- or (= r)-subsumption in Gn-F L
does not make sense.
4 In what follows, when not otherwise stated, restricted existential quanti cations will
be treated as atomic concepts, with the assumption that two concepts 9R:&gt; and
9S:&gt; are di erent occurrences of the same concept i R = S.</p>
      <p>Proposition 4. Let C; D be complex Ln-F L concepts where just conjunction
u and restricted existential quanti cation 9R:&gt; appear. Then C is subsumed by
D i every occurrence of a conjunct A that appears in D, also appears in C,
where A appears in C strictly less than n 1 times.</p>
      <p>Proof. Let C; D be complex concepts where just conjunction u and existential
quanti cation 9R:&gt; appear. The right to left direction is trivial due to the fact
that ('&amp; ) ! ' is a theorem of Ln and, for every propositional evaluation e,
it holds that e('&amp; n: : :1 &amp;') 2 f0; 1g. The left to right direction can be proved
by contradiction. Suppose that there exists an occurrence of a conjunct A that
appears in D but not in C, where A appears in C strictly less than n 1 times.
We have two cases: either A is an atomic concept or A = 9R:&gt;. In the rst
case an interpretation I where I = fvg, AI (v) = nn 21 and BI (v) = 1 for
B 6= A gives us an example against subsumption of C by D. In the second
case, consider an interpretation I where I = fv; wg, RI (v; w) = nn 12 , and
SI (v; w) = BI (v) = 1 for every atomic concept B and every role name S
di erent from R. Then CI (v) &gt; DI (v) and, therefore, I is a counterexample
against subsumption of C by D.
tu
This is true up to conjunctions out of the scope of any quanti er. To see how
does it work in the case of more complex concepts, recall that the semantics of
value restrictions is de ned by means of the residuum )Ln of the Lukasiewicz
t-norm. This operation is monotonic in the second argument which is again a
complex conjunction. So, from Proposition 4 we easily obtain Corollary 5.
Corollary 5. Let 8R:C; 8R:D be Ln-F L concepts. Then 8R:C is subsumed by
8R:D i every occurrence of an atomic concept A in D, also is in C, where the
number of occurrences of A in C is strictly less than n 1, and every occurrence
of a value restriction 8S:E in C is subsumed by a respectively di erent occurrence
of a value restriction 8S:F in D.</p>
      <p>
        From these results, a polynomial time algorithm for deciding 1-subsumption
in Ln-F L can be obtained. The following Algorithm 1 is an adaption of the
procedure for solving tree inclusion presented in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ] to the FDL case. Soundness
and completeness of Algorithm 1 follow from Proposition 4 and Corollary 5. On
the other hand, the fact that Algorithm 1 is polynomial can be showed as in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ].
Indeed, steps 1 and 5 can be performed in linear time and each matrix EE;F is at
most quadratic on the size of the largest concept between C and D. Please note
that EE;F contains a row for each value restriction 8R:F which is a conjunct of
D and, speci cally, if there are multiple occurrences of the same expression then
there are multiple rows for them. The same observation applies for the columns
in EE;F . Moreover, there are at most jCj jDj di erent matrices EE;F . The
only non-deterministic problem is to decide whether every value restriction 8R:F
which is a conjunct of a given subconcept D0 of D is subsumed by a di erent
value restriction 8R:E which is a conjunct of a given subconcept C0 of C. But, as
in [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref18">18</xref>
        ], instead of checking out this fact for di erent non-deterministic guesses,
a suitable procedure for the bipartite matching problem (see [
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref13">13</xref>
        ] for example)
can give an answer in polynomial time.
      </p>
      <sec id="sec-5-1">
        <title>Algorithm 1 Ln-SU BS(1; D; C)</title>
        <p>
          ( r)-subsumption in Ln-F L . Saying that an Ln-F L concept C is (
r)subsumed by another Ln-F L concept D in degree greater or equal than r
means that in every interpretation I and for every v 2 I we have that
CI (v) ) DI (v) r. In order to design a suitable modi cation of Algorithm
1 that decides ( r)-subsumption in Ln-F L it is worth recalling that under
Lukasiewicz semantics, for every propositional formula ' and every propositional
evaluation e, it holds that:
i
e(('&amp; : i: : &amp;') ! ('&amp; : j: : &amp;')) 2 [minf1; g; 1] \ Ln
j
(7)
That is, the value of formula ' in every propositional model, is constrained by the
relation between the respective occurrences of p in both sides of the implication.
Now, consider a formula of the form of (7) where ' 2 fp; qg, that is
(p&amp; : i: : &amp;p&amp;q&amp; :k: : &amp;q) ! (p&amp; : j: : &amp;p&amp;q&amp; : :l : &amp;q)
(8)
Suppose, without loss of generality, that minf ji ; kl g = ji . Since minf ji ; kl g ij++kl ,
then the minimum assignment for (8) is obtained by a propositional evaluation
j
e that minimizes e((p&amp; : i: : &amp;p) ! (p&amp; : : : &amp;p)) and assigns value 1 to variable
q. For the same reason, this evaluation is minimal with each number of
propositional variables. In this way, we can perform a rst modi cation of Algorithm
1 by assigning a weight in step 5 to the couples in the set E. A further
modi cation of Algorithm 1 consists in substituting, in step 8, a procedure for the
assignment problem (see for example [
          <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref15">15</xref>
          ]) instead of the one for bipartite
matching. Once obtained a maximal weighted matching, there should be checked that
the Lukasiewicz conjunction of the weights is still greater or equal than value r.
All the steps of the modi ed algorithm are still polynomial. Indeed assigning a
weight to a couple E; F of concepts is just a matter of counting the occurrences
of the same quanti ed or atomic concepts in E and F respectively. The
assignment problem is known to be polynomial and Lukasiewicz t-norm operation is
polynomial on xed values. This proves that (
still polynomial.
r)-subsumption in Ln-F L
is
(= r)-subsumption in Ln-F L . Finally we address the (= r)-subsumption
problem in Ln-F L . Indeed, if r 2 (0; 1), then there is no couple C; D of Ln-F L
concepts such that C is (= r)-subsumed by D. In order to see this, for each pair
C; D of Ln-F L concepts, consider the interpretation IC;D de ned by:
{ IC;D = fv1; : : : ; vmaxfdeg(C);deg(D)gg, being deg(C) the maximal nesting
degree of concept C,
{ AIC;D (v) = 1, for every v 2 IC;D and every atomic concept A in C or D,
{ RIC;D (v; w) = 1, for every v; w 2 IC;D and every atomic role R in C or D.
It is clear that such an interpretation exists for each pair C; D of Ln-F L
concepts and that CIC;D (v) = 1 and DIC;D (v) = 1 for every v 2 IC;D . Hence it is
impossible that an Ln-F L concept C is (= r)-subsumed by another Ln-F L
concept D in degree equal to r, as
w2 IC;D fCIC;D (w) ) DIC;D (w)g = 1 &gt; r
inf
(9)
So, IC;D is a counter-example against the existence of (= r)-subsumptions in
Ln-F L .
5
        </p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-6">
      <title>Conclusions</title>
      <p>In this paper we have tried to give an account on some complexity sources that,
additionally to the ones that are inherited from classical Description Logics,
are proper of the many-valued framework. In particular we have analyzed the
additional work that is required from a procedure that is asked to solve reasoning
tasks that are only de nable in presence of multiple truth values and the e ects
of the fact that Lukasiewicz conjunction is not idempotent. In the rst case, in
Section 3 we have summarized the results existing in the literature. Moreover
we have tried to explain by means of examples why algorithms for deciding
reasoning tasks related to an exact value appear to be more complex than those
algorithms for the same reasoning tasks related to a lower bound or to the crisp
case. In the second case, we have described a couple of non trivial modi cations
of the classical structural subsumption algorithm that solve the 1-subsumption
and the lower bound subsumption problems respectively for the language F L
with semantics based on nite Lukasiewicz t-norm. These enhanced procedures
show that subsumption in Ln-F L is still polynomial. As future work we plan
to see whether the same modi cations to the structural subsumption algorithms
that we provide here, can be extended to other languages that, in the classical
case also use these kinds of algorithms. An example of these languages is the
one presented in [20] about ALN . It would be also interesting to study how the
behavior of structural subsumption algorithms generalizes to the case of more
general nite t-norms, from the base cases studied here. Another direction for
future works is a more systematic settlement of the method sketched in the
present work for outlining complexity shifts in the many-valued case.
19. Schmidt-Schauss, M., Smolka, G.: Attributive concept descriptions with
complements. Arti cial Intelligence 48(1), 1{26 (1991)
20. Sebastiani, S., Straccia, U.: a computationally tractable terminological logic. In:
Proceedings of the 3rd Scandinavian Conference on Arti cial Intelligence. pp. 307{
315. IOS Press (1991)
21. Straccia, U.: Foundations of Fuzzy Logic and Semantic Web Languages. Chapman
&amp; Hall (2013)
22. Yen, J.: Generalizing term subsumption languages to fuzzy logic. In: Reiter, R.,
Myopoulos, J. (eds.) Proc. of the 12th Int. Joint Conf. on Arti cial Intelligence
(IJCAI'91). pp. 472{477 (1991)</p>
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