International Business Machines Corporation
System and method for approximate reasoning using ontologies and unstructured data

Abstract:

Methods, systems and computer program products for query processing are provided herein. A computer-implemented method includes receiving a first query from a user, determining whether the first query is capable of being answered using symbolic reasoning performed on data of a symbolic knowledge base, and executing the symbolic reasoning to generate a first query answer in response to a determination that the first query is capable of being answered using the symbolic reasoning. Axioms are extracted from a plurality of documents when it is determined that a second query is not capable of being answered using the symbolic reasoning. The method further includes determining whether the axioms are consistent with the symbolic knowledge base, and generating a second query answer based on the axioms in response to a determination that the one or more axioms are consistent with the symbolic knowledge base.