=Paper= {{Paper |id=Vol-38/paper-2 |storemode=property |title=Learning Ontologies from RDF annotations |pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-38/delteil_ol.pdf |volume=Vol-38 |dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ijcai/DelteilFD01 }} ==Learning Ontologies from RDF annotations== https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-38/delteil_ol.pdf
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                           $OH[DQGUH'HOWHLO&DWKHULQH)DURQ=XFNHU5RVH'LHQJ

                ACACIA project, INRIA, 2004, route des Lucioles, B.P. 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis, France
                         {Alexandre.Delteil, Catherine.Faron, Rose.Dieng}@sophia.inria.fr



                        $EVWUDFW                                objects, as in [Mineau, 1990; Carpineto and Romano, 1993;
                                                                Bournaud HWDO., 2000].
     In this paper, we present a method for learning            Since all RDF annotations are gathered inside a common
     ontologies from RDF annotations of Web                     RDF graph, the problem which arises is the extraction of a
     resources by systematically generating the most            description for a given resource from the whole RDF graph.
     specific generalization of all the possible sets of        After a brief description of the RDF data model (Section 2)
     resources. The preliminary step of our method              and of RDF Schema (Section 3), Section 4 presents several
     consists in extracting (partial) resource                  criteria for extracting partial resource descriptions. In order
     descriptions from the whole RDF graph gathering            to deal with the intrinsic complexity of the building of a
     all the annotations. In order to deal with
                                                                generalization hierarchy, we propose an incremental
     algorithmic complexity, we incrementally build
                                                                approach by gradually increasing the size of the descriptions
     the ontology by gradually increasing the size of
     the resource descriptions we consider.                     we consider. The principle of the approach is explained in
                                                                Section 5 and more deeply detailed in Section 6.
 ,QWURGXFWLRQ
                                                                 7KH5')GDWDPRGHO
The Semantic Web, expected to be the next step that will
lead the Web to its full potential, will be based on semantic   RDF is the emerging Web standard for annotating resources
metadata describing all kinds of Web resources. Resource        with semantic metadata [RDF, 1999] [Decker HW DO, 2000].
Description Framework [RDF, 1999] seems to be the               An RDF annotation consists of a set of statements, each one
emerging standard allowing to semantically annotate Web         specifying a value of a property of a resource. A statement
resources. These annotations are related to ontologies, for     is thus a triple (resource, property, value), a value being
example declared in RDF Schema [RDFS, 2000], as                 either a resource or a literal. The RDF data model is close to
proposed by W3C, or in RDF-compatible languages like            semantic nets. A set of statements is viewed as a directed
OIL [Fensel HW DO., 2000]. Methods for building hierarchies    labeled graph: a vertex is either a resource or a literal; an arc
of classes from RDF annotations will appear to be useful to     between two vertices is labeled by a property. RDF is
classify resources, organize knowledge and finally learn        provided with an XML syntax. Figure 1 presents an
ontologies.                                                     example of an RDF graph describing the Web page relative
The building of hierarchical structures has been extensively    to the cat Njal and its XML serialization.
studied in machine learning, especially in concept                   Cat                     House
formation. Most approaches of concept formation are
                                                                   type                       type
dedicated to the prediction of unknown features of new                           livesIn              ownedBy
objects [Fischer HW DO, 1987; Gennari HW DO, 1989]. The          Njal                                          Catherine
clusters of VLPLODU objects are then privileged, the learned
conceptual hierarchy does not comprise all the possible sets          
of objects, but only the best ones according to some                      
heuristic criteria.                                                           
For learning ontologies, we adopt a particular approach of                        
concept formation. An ontology is viewed as a concept                                 
hierarchy, where each concept is defined in extension by a                               
                                                                                      
cluster of resources and in intension by the most specific
                                                                                  
common description of these resources. This approach leads            
to the systematic generation of all the possible clusters of
                                                                  )LJXUH   An RDF annotation and its XML serialization
An RDF annotation is a set of RDF triples. It can thus be                             ([WUDFWLQJUHVRXUFHGHVFULSWLRQV
viewed as a graph, which is a subgraph of the complete
                                                                                     Regarding the RDF model, the knowledge base representing
RDF graph representing the whole set of annotations on the
                                                                                     the resource annotations consists of a single graph G. There
Semantic Web.
                                                                                     is no difference between stating a resource description in
                                                                                     one annotation and stating it in several pieces in separate
 5HSUHVHQWDWLRQRI2QWRORJLHVLQ5')
                                                                                     annotations: “there is no distinction between the statements
6FKHPDV
                                                                                     made in a single sentence and the statements made in
RDF Schema (RDFS) is a schema specification language                                 separate sentences” [RDF, 1999]. The RDF model does not
[RDFS, 2000]. It is dedicated to the specification of                                handle the delimitation of the subgraph of G describing a
schemas representing the ontological knowledge used in                               resource. We thus propose different criteria for extracting a
RDF statements: a schema consists of a set of declarations                           description of a resource R from G.
of classes and properties. Multi-inheritance is allowed for
both classes and properties. A property is declared with a                           &RPSOHWH GHVFULSWLRQ: We define the complete description

signature allowing several domains and a single range. The                           of a resource R as follows. A resource is completely
RDFS metamodel is presented in Figure 2 and is itself                                described by the subgraph of G containing all the resources
defined as a set of statements by using the core RDFS                                reachable from R through properties. Formally, the
properties: UGIVVXEFODVV2I and UGIW\SH which denote                                complete description of R is the largest connected subgraph
respectively the subsumption relation between classes and                            of G containing R; it is inductively defined as the join of the
the instantiation relation between an instance and a class.                          complete descriptions of the resources adjacent to R in G.
                                                                                     Such a complete description may be very large; potentially
                                                                                     it may be the graph G representing the whole knowledge
                  Literal            Resource              Property
 RDFS metamodel




                                                                                     base. This is why we define ways of extracting partial
                                                                                     descriptions of a resource R from G.

                            Class               range                         type   3LHFH RI NQRZOHGJH   : We define the piece of knowledge
                                                                                     relative to a resource R as the largest connected subgraph of
                                           subClassOf                      domain
                                                                                     G whose all internal nodes excepted R are anonymous
                              Living being                                           resources. External nodes are either identified resources, or
                                                                                     literals or anonymous resources connected to the only
                                                         color         ownedBy       resources belonging to the piece.
 Ontology




                            Person        Cat
                                                         domain
                                                                                     'HVFULSWLRQ RI OHQJWK Q: We define the description of
                    House                        range           livesIn             length n of a resource R as the largest connected subgraph
                                                                                     of G containing all possible paths of length smaller or equal
                                                                       subclassOf    to n, starting from or ending to R. The description Dn(R) of
 annotation




                                                                       type          length n of a resource R is inductively obtained by joining
   RDF




                               livesIn              ownedBy                          Dn-1(R) with the descriptions D1 of length 1 of the resources
                   Njal                                               Catherine
                                                                                     which are external nodes of Dn-1(R).
   )LJXUH          The RDFS metamodel and an RDFS ontology.                      3DUWLDO GHVFULSWLRQ : We define a partial description of a
                                                                                     resource R as either the piece of knowledge relative to R or
As shown in Figure 2, an ontology embedding domain                                   a description of length n of R.
specific knowledge is represented by a schema defined by
refining the core RDFS. Domain specific classes are                                  Figure 3 presents the extraction of three possible partial
declared as instances of the “Class” resource, and domain                            descriptions of Njal from the whole RDF graph which the
specific properties as instances of the “Property” resource.                         RDF annotation of Figure 1 participates to: the piece of
The “subclassOf” and “subPropertyOf” properties enable to                            knowledge relative to Njal, the description of length 1 of
define class hierarchies and property hierarchies.                                   Njal and the description of length 2 of Njal. D1(Njal) is a
                                                                                     subgraph of D2(Njal) which is made of paths of length 1 and
The resources appearing in an RDF annotation are then                                of length 2 starting from or ending to the resource Njal.
typed by the classes declared in the RDF schema the
annotation is relative to; the properties between the                                Given the whole RDF graph G, by choosing a description
resources are those declared in the RDF schema.                                      extraction criterion, we can now be provided with a set of
                                                                                     partial descriptions for all the resources that are nodes of G.
                                                                                                 Now, given an RDF graph G and a resource description
                                                                                         red
  Piece of knowledge relative to Njal


                                            black                         Cat
                                                                                                 extraction criterion, let us consider the set of the
                                                            type                                 descriptions of all the resources nodes of G. We can now
                                              color                             type     color
                                                                   motherOf                      further describe our approach of ontology learning. It
                                             Njal                               Sandwich         consists in associating to this set of resource descriptions the
                                                                                                 hierarchy of the concepts whose extensions correspond to
                                         livesIn                                    ownedBy
                                                                                                 all the possible resource clusters.
                                                                                Catherine
                                                               ownedBy
                                                                                                                              * type       *∈{Sandwich, Njal,
                                                      type                      type
                                                                                                                                           Catherine, An. Res.}
                                                    House                       Person
                                                                                                                                               type
                                                                                                                                          *            Living Being
                                                                                                           ownedBy
                                            black                         Cat            red         *                   Catherine      *∈{Sandwich, Njal, Catherine}
                                                            type                                         type
                                              color                             type     color
  D1(Njal): description
   of length 1 of Njal




                                                                   motherOf
                                             Njal                               Sandwich                                                           *
                                                                                                    *∈{Sandwich, An. Res.}                                  color
                                         livesIn                                    ownedBy                                                        *                    Cat
                                                                                Catherine                                                                   type
                                                               ownedBy                                                                             *∈{Sandwich, Njal}
                                                      type                      type
                                                    House                       Person
                                                                                                         red           Cat                         black        Cat
                                            black                         Cat            red             color                                     color             type
                                                            type                                          *                                            *
                                              color                             type     color                  type
         D2(Njal): description




                                                                                                         motherOf ownedBy                          livesIn            motherOf
          of length 2 of Njal




                                                                   motherOf
                                             Njal                               Sandwich
                                                                                                         Njal          Catherine                                Sandwich
                                         livesIn                                    ownedBy
                                                                                                           *∈{Sandwich}                                     *∈{Njal}
                                                                                Catherine
                                                               ownedBy
                                                      type                      type                          Person         Sandwich         House         Catherine
                                                    House                       Person                          type         ownedBy           type          ownedBy
                                                                                                                *                              *                      Njal
                                                                                                                       ownedBy                             livesIn
)LJXUH                              Partial RDF descriptions of the resource Njal.
                                                                                                                *∈{Catherine}            *∈{Anonymous Resource}
                                                                                                  )LJXUHThe concept hierarchy associated to descriptions
 2XUDSSURDFKRIRQWRORJ\OHDUQLQJ
                                                                                                    of length 1 extracted from the RDF graph of Figure 3.
Our general aim is to learn from the whole RDF graph G
comprising the resources we are interested by, new domain                                        In this hierarchy, each concept ci is labeled by a pair (exti,
specific concepts to enrich the ontology from which the                                          inti), where exti is the extension of ci and inti is the intension
RDF annotations participating to G have been built.                                              of ci. Inti is the most specific generalization of the
                                                                                                 descriptions of the resources belonging to exti. We thus call
 &RQFHSWIRUPDWLRQ                                                                           this concept hierarchy a generalization hierarchy. The
                                                                                                 generalization of a resource description is based on the
Our approach of ontology learning consists of
                                                                                                 subsumptions relations between classes and properties
systematically considering all the concepts covering a set of
                                                                                                 declared in the RDF schema representing the ontology
resources nodes of G. Each of these concepts may then be
                                                                                                 which the RDF graph G we consider is relative to. Such a
defined in extension as a cluster of resources; its definition
                                                                                                 generalization hierarchy is a lattice: its nodes are partially
in intension must generalize the descriptions of the
                                                                                                 ordered by the subsumption relation on their intensions as
resources belonging to its extension. The definition of
                                                                                                 well as the inclusion relation on their extensions.
criteria to extract resource descriptions from an RDF graph
                                                                                                 Figure 4 presents the generalization hierarchy built from
G was thus a preliminary step to concept.
                                                                                                 descriptions of length 1 of four resources nodes of the RDF
graph depicted in Figure 3: Njal, Sandwich, Catherine and             deleting triples subsuming another one. Such an
the anonymous resource of type ‘House’.                               intension is the most specific description of the node.
If several concepts share the same intension, a single            4.  Building of S1 based on the inclusion relations between
concept is added to the generalization hierarchy: the one             the node extensions. Several nodes may share the same
with the largest extension. Therefore, if the size of the             intension. In this case, the node we preserve
generalization hierarchy may theoretically reach 2N concepts          corresponds to the largest extension.
for N resources in the RDF graph G, in practice it is much        Let us apply this principle on the RDF graph depicted on
lower. For instance, the size of the hierarchy of Figure 4 is 8   Figure 3. The consecutive steps are illustrated in Figure 5.
concepts instead of 16 (24 ).
                                                                            ( *, color, black)               Njal
 ,QFUHPHQWDOSULQFLSOH                                                  ( *, color, red)                 Sandwich
The question which now arises is the choice of a resource                   ( *, type, Person)               Catherine




                                                                   Step 1
description extraction criterion: starting from an RDF graph,               ( *, type, Cat)                  Njal, Sandwich
we must choose from which partial resource descriptions the                 ( *, type, House)                Anonymous Resource
                                                                            (Sandwich, ownedBy,*)            Catherine
concept hierarchy will be built. On the one hand, the larger
                                                                            (*, ownedBy, Catherine)          Sandwich, Anonym. Res.
the extracted resource descriptions will be, the more                       …                                …
domain-significant the concepts will be. On the other hand,
graph matching and lattice building both have a well-known                   ( *, color, ∅)                  Njal, Sandwich
intrinsic exponential complexity. As a result, we adopt an

                                                                   Step 2
                                                                             ( *, type, Living Being)        Njal, Sandwich, Catherine
incremental approach for the construction of the                             ( *, type, ∅)                   Catherine, Sandwich, Njal,
generalization hierarchy.                                                                                    Anonymous Resource
To be precise, we gradually increase the length of the partial              …                                …
resource descriptions we consider. We first build a
generalization hierarchy S1 from resource descriptions of                   Njal, Sandwich                   ( *, type, Cat)
length 1. The concepts of S1 thus have intensions of length                                                  ( *, color, ∅)
                                                                   Step 3




1. Sn is then inductively built from Sn-1 and S1 by                                                          ( *, type, Living Being)
incrementally increasing the maximum length of the                          Njal, Catherine                  ( *, type, Living Being)
resource descriptions we consider. The description Dn(R) of                 …                                …
length n of a resource R is inductively increased by joining                )LJXUH   Building of 6 depicted in Figure 4.
                                                                                                        

Dn-1(R) with the descriptions of length 1 of the resources
which are external nodes of Dn-1(R).                              In the first step, the descriptions of length 1 of all the
                                                                  resources are extracted from the RDF graph of Figure 4. For
 ,QFUHPHQWDO EXLOGLQJ RI D JHQHUDOL]DWLRQ                   each RDF triple (R, P, V), both the triples (*, P,V) and (R,
                                                                  P, *) are generated; the resources R matching * in ( *, P, V)
KLHUDUFK\
                                                                  and the resources V matching * in (R, P, *) are indexed to
                                                                  these triples. For instance, the triples (‘Njal’, type, cat) and
 %XLOGLQJRIDJHQHUDOL]DWLRQKLHUDUFK\EDVHGRQ
                                                                  (‘Sandwich’, type, cat) both match the triple (*, type, cat):
UHVRXUFHGHVFULSWLRQVRIOHQJWK
                                                                  the resources ‘Njal’ and ‘Sandwich’ are thus indexed by the
The principle for building S1 is as follows:                      triple (*, type, Cat). The result of step 1 is thus an inverted
1. Extraction of resource descriptions of length 1 from the       file where resources are indexed by the triples they are the
    whole RDF graph. D1(R) is the set of RDF triples              extensions of. ‘Njal’ and ‘Sandwich’ belong to the extension
    beginning or ending by R.                                     of the intension represented by (*, type, Cat).
2. Iterative generalization of all the possible pairs of          In the second step, the triples are matched two by two; for
    triples. The generalizations of two triples (R1, P1, V1)      each pair of triples, the most specific generalization of both
    and (R2, P2, V2) are the most specific triples (RG, PG,       triples is computed, according to the ontological knowledge
    VG) subsuming them. This is based on the ontological          expressed in the RDF schema the RDF graph is relative to.
    knowledge represented in the RDF Schema relative to           The extension of a generalized triple is the union of the
    the RDF annotations we consider. PG is one of the most        extensions of the two initial triples it generalizes. For
    specific properties generalizing P1 and P2. If V1 and V2      instance, the triples ( *, color, black) and ( *, color, red) are
    are classes, then VG is one of the most specific classes      generalized into the triple ( *, color, ∅), black and red being
    generalizing V1 and V2; else either VG=V1=V2 or VG is         incomparable; ( *, type, Person) and ( *, type, Cat) are
    anonymous. We call L1 the set of all generalized triples.     generalized into the triple ( *, type, Living Being), ‘Living
3. Construction of the intensions of length 1 of the S1           Being’ being the most specific class subsuming ‘Cat’ and
    nodes. The triples sharing a same extension are grouped       ‘Person’. Note that RDFS allows for multi-inheritance on
    together. An intension may include redundant triples,         class and property hierarchies. Therefore two classes or two
    one being more general than another. It is cleaned up by      properties may have several most specific subsumers; in
such cases, the generalization of two triples may lead to              1.    Iterative construction of Ln by join of all the possible
several triples.                                                             pairs of one triple of L1 and one triple path of length n-1
In the third step, each possible set of resources is considered              of Ln-1. Two triples can be joined if the value in the first
as the extension of a concept whose intension is to be found:                triple is equal to the resource described in the second
for each extension, the common triples the resources are                     triple. A triple path of length n is thus the result of n-1
indexed by are grouped together to build the intension of the                joins between n triples. This iterative construction of Ln
concept. For instance, the two resources ‘Njal’ and                          is equivalent to considering resource descriptions Dn(R)
‘Sandwich’ viewed as a concept extension lead to the                         of length n by joining Dn-1(R) and D1(Ri), with i=1..k,
construction of the intension of this concept from the set of                Ri being the external nodes of Dn-1(R).
triples they are both indexed by: {( *, type, Cat), ( *, color,        2.    Construction of the intensions of length n of the Sn
∅), ( *, type, Living Being)}. Since the triple ( *, type,                   nodes (this step is similar to step 3 of S1 building).
Living Being) subsumes the triple ( *, type, Cat), it is               3.    Building of Sn based on the inclusion relations between
discarded from the final intension. Finally, a new concept                   the node extensions (similar to step 4 of S1 building).
will be added to the generalization hierarchy, with {'Njal',                                       *              *∈{Sandwich, Njal,
'Sandwich'} as extension and {( *, type, Cat), ( *, color, ∅),                                          type      Catherine, An. Res.}
( *, type, Living Being)} as intension.
The last step is dedicated to the building of the
                                                                                                                 *              Living Being
generalization hierarchy based on the inclusion relations                                                             type
                                                                                    ownedBy
between the concept extensions. The concepts sharing their                    *                 Catherine      *∈{Sandwich, Njal, Catherine}
intensions with concepts whose extensions include their                           type              type
own ones are discarded: for instance, the concept ({Njal,                                                                   *
                                                                                                  Person
Catherine}, {( *, type, Living Being)}) is discarded since                                                                        color
the concept whose extension is the set {Njal, Sandwich,                                                                           type
                                                                             *∈{Sandwich, An. Res.}                     *                   Cat
Catherine} shares the same intension. The generalization
hierarchy depicted in Figure 4 is the final result S1 obtained                                                          *∈{Sandwich, Njal}
from the index file depicted in Figure 5.

 %XLOGLQJRIDJHQHUDOL]DWLRQKLHUDUFK\EDVHGRQ
                                                                            black        Cat       red                black        Cat          red
UHVRXUFHGHVFULSWLRQVRIOHQJWKQ                                       color    type    type color              color      type  type color
                                                                            Njal motherOf    *                          * motherOf Sandwich
              ( *, type, Person)          Catherine                          livesIn    ownedBy                         livesIn  ownedBy
              ( *, type, House)           Anonymous Resource                                    Catherine                                 Catherine
              (Sandwich, ownedBy,*)       Catherine                                 ownedBy                                     ownedBy
              (*, ownedBy, Catherine)     Sandwich, Anony. Res.                                   type               type
              (*, livesIn, An. Res.)      Njal                                                   Person               House
 S1




              ( *, type, ∅)               Catherine, Sandwich, Njal,
                                          Anonymous Resource                    *∈{Sandwich}                                    *∈{Njal}
              …                           …

              (*, ownedBy, Catherine)     Sandwich, Anony. Res.              black        Cat                                    Cat        red
              (Catherine, type, Person)                                     color   type   type                                   type color
 Step 1




              (*, livesIn, Anony. Res.)   Njal                                Njal motherOf Sandwich                 Njal motherOf Sandwich
              (An. Res., type, House)
              (*, ownedBy, Catherine)     Sandwich, Anony. Res.                livesIn   ownedBy                      livesIn    ownedBy
              (Catherine, type, ∅)                                              *                Catherine                                  *
              …                           …                                          ownedBy                                ownedBy
                                                                            type                       type     type                       type

              Sandwich, Anony. Res.       1. (*, ownedBy, Catherine)          House                Person            House                Person
                                          2. (*, type, ∅)
                                          3. (*, ownedBy, Catherine)         *∈{Anonymous Resource}                         *∈{Catherine}
 Step 2




                                          (Catherine, type, Person)
                                          4. (*, ownedBy, Catherine)
                                                                            )LJXUH    S2 resulting from the index file of Figure 6.
                                          (Catherine, type, ∅)         Figure 6 describes the consecutive steps of the building of
              …                           …                            S2 (shown in Figure 7) from S1 (depicted in Figure 4). In the
          )LJXUH   Building of 6 from 6 depicted in Figure 4.       first step, the triples of S1 are joined one with another (in the
                                            
                                                                       general case, the triples of Sn-1 would be joined with the
The principle for building Sn from Sn-1 and S1 is as follows:          ones of S1). For instance, the triple (*, ownedBy, Catherine)
can be joined with the triple (*, type, Person) since the value    &RQFOXVLRQ
of the former triple is equal to a resource belonging to the
                                                                  We have presented a method to learn ontologies from RDF
extension of the second one. The join results in a triple path
                                                                  annotations by systematically generating the most specific
of length 2 (*, ownedBy, Catherine) (Catherine, type,
                                                                  generalization of all the possible sets of resources. In order
Person), whose extension is equal to the extension of the
former triple.                                                    to deal with the intrinsic exponential complexity of such a
In the second step, each possible set of resources is             task, we incrementally build the hierarchy by increasing at
considered as the extension of a concept whose intension is       each step the maximum size of the resource descriptions we
to be found: the common triples the resources of a concept        extract from the RDF graph gathering all the annotations.
                                                                  Our algorithm is currently under implementation and will be
extension are indexed by are grouped together to build the
                                                                  tested inside of the European IST Comma Project. The so
intension of the concept. It is thus cleaned up in order to
                                                                  learned ontologies will be used to improve the efficiency of
obtain the most specific description. For instance, the triple
                                                                  a query engine over a set of annotations.
path (*, ownedBy, Catherine) (Catherine, type, ∅) is
                                                                  We are currently exploring the possible improvements of
discarded from the intension of the extension {Sandwich,
                                                                  our algorithms for the construction of the first class
Anonymous Resource}, since it subsumes the triple path (*,
                                                                  hierarchy [Baader HWDO, 1999].
ownedBy, Catherine) (Catherine, type, Person).
The last step is dedicated to the building of the
                                                                  5HIHUHQFHV
generalization hierarchy based on the inclusion relations
between the node extensions. Figure 7 presents the                [Baader HW DO, 1999] F. Baader, R. Kusters, R. Molitor.
generalization hierarchy S2 built from the generalization           Computing Least Common Subsumers in Descriptions
hierarchy S1 depicted in Figure 4. S2 has the same number           Logics with Existential Restrictions. In 7th IJCAI, Morgan
of concepts than S1 but five of its concepts have more              Kaufmann, 1999.
complex intensions: the four concepts whose extensions are        [Bournaud HW DO, 2000] I. Bournaud, M. Courtine and J-D
reduced to a single resource and whose intensions                   Zucker. KIDS: An iterative algorithm to organize
correspond to the descriptions of length 2 of these resources,      relational knowledge. In 12th EKAW, LNAI 1937,
                                                                    Springer-Verlag, p. 217-232, Juan-Les-Pins, France, 2000.
and the concept of extension {Sandwich, An. Res.}.
                                                                  [Carpineto and Romano, 1993] C. Carpineto and G.
                                                                    Romano. GALOIS: an Order Theoretic Approach to
 5HODWHG:RUN                                                     Conceptual Clustering. In 10th ICML, Morgan Kaufmann,
Conceptual clustering aims at building hierarchies to cluster       p. 33-40, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1993.
similar objects and classify object descriptions [Fischer HW      [Decker HW DO, 2000] S. Decker, P. Mitra, S. Melnik.
DO, 1987]; a single class hierarchy is built, the best             Framework for the Semantic Web – An RDF Tutorial. In
according to a certain criterion. Our approach of concept           ,(((,QWHUQHW&RPSXWLQJ, December 2000.

formation for ontology learning is slightly different since it    [Fischer HW DO, 1987] D.H. Fisher, M.J. Pazzani, and P.
aims at V\VWHPDWLFDOO\ generating a class for each possible         Langley. Concept Formation: Knowledge and Experience
set of objects. This systematic approach is shared by               in Unsupervised Learning. Morgan Kaufmann, 1991.
researches in formal concept analysis [Wille, 1982], on           [Fensel HW DO., 2000] D. Fensel, I. Horrocks, F. Van
knowledge organization [Mineau HW DO, 1990] and in                Harmelen, S. Decker, M. Erdmann and M. Klein. OIL in a
inductive logic programming [Kietz and Morik, 1994;                 nutshell. In 12th EKAW, Juan-Les-Pins, France, 2000.
                                                                  [Gennari HW DO, 1989] J. H. Gennari, P. Langley and D.H.
Schlobach, 2000]. Another particularity of our method is the
                                                                    Fisher. Models of incremental concept formation.
gradual increase of the size of the resource descriptions to
                                                                    $UWLILFLDO,QWHOOLJHQFH, 40: 11-61, 1989.
deal with the intrinsic complexity of description matching        [Kietz and Morik, 1994] J.U. Kietz and K. Morik. A
and ontology building. A similar approach is adopted in             Polynomial approach to the constructive induction of
[Bournaud HWDO, 2000]; it is based on a gradual increase of       structural knowledge. In 0DFKLQH/HDUQLQJ, 1994.
the VWUXFWXUH RI PDWFKLQJ. Object descriptions are JLYHQ, and     [Maedche and Staab, 2000] A. Maedche and S. Staab.
the concept description language is made more expressive at         Mining ontologies from text. In 12th EKAW, 2000.
each step to gradually take into account the complexity of        [Mineau HW DO, 1990] G. Mineau, J. Gecsei and R. Godin.
the descriptions. Our method differs in that the resource           Structuring knowledge bases using automatic learning. In
descriptions are not given in an RDF graph and its                  6th ICDE, p. 274-280, Los Angeles, CA, February 1990.
incrementallity is based on the gradual increase of the VL]H      [RDF, 1999] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/, 1999.
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