Efficiently querying Description Logic (DL) ontologies is becoming a vitaltask in various data-intensive DL applications. Considered as a basic servicefor answering object queries over DL ontologies, instance checking can berealized by using the most specific concept (MSC) method, which convertsinstance checking into subsumption problems. This method, however, loses itssimplicity and efficiency when applied to large and complex ontologies, as ittends to generate very large MSC's that could lead to intractable reasoning. Inthis paper, we propose a revision to this MSC method for DL SHI, allowing it togenerate much simpler and smaller concepts that are specific-enough to answer agiven query. With independence between computed MSC's, scalability for queryanswering can also be achieved by distributing and parallelizing thecomputations. An empirical evaluation shows the efficacy of our revised MSCmethod and the significant efficiency achieved when using it for answeringobject queries.
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