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Documents authored by Pieris, Andreas

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.21
First-Order Rewritability of Rule-Based Ontology Mediated Queries with Negation

Authors: Georg Gottlob, Marco Manna, Andreas Pieris, and Aldo Ricioppo

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 365, 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026)

Abstract
The idea of using an ontology to enrich user queries with domain knowledge has attracted considerable attention from the database and KR communities during the last fifteen years or so. The ontology and the user query can be conveniently seen as two components of one composite query, called ontology-mediated query (omq), while an omq language (OL,QL) collects all such omqs where the ontology is expressed using the ontology language OL and the user query comes from the query language QL. The evaluation problem for rule-based omq languages of the form (OL,CQ), where OL is a rule-based ontology language, i.e., it collects ontologies modelled using tuple-generating dependencies (a.k.a. existential rules), and CQ is the language of conjunctive queries, has been extensively studied in the literature. In particular, the notion of first-order rewritability of such languages, i.e., the property of being able to rewrite every omq from the language in question to an equivalent first-order query, has been studied in depth. This research effort led an algorithmic characterization of when a rule-based omq language (OL,CQ) is first-order rewritable. More precisely, there is a uniform algorithm Rewrite such that, for every rule-based ontology language OL, the omq language (OL,CQ) is first-order rewritable iff for every omq O from (OL,CQ), the algorithm Rewrite on input O terminates and constructs a first-order rewriting of O. The question that we are interested in is whether the above algorithmic characterization can be extended to rule-based omq languages of the form (OL,nCQ), where nCQ is the language of conjunctive queries with the useful feature of negation. The goal of this work is to initiate effort towards the settlement of the above highly non-trivial question. To this end, we provide a new algorithm, which is a non-trivial extension of the algorithm Rewrite for positive omqs, and show the following: under the Skolem semantics, a well-established approach for defining the answer to a rule-based omq when the user query can use negation, the proposed algorithm is a first-order rewriter for (OL,nCQ), where OL is the language of linear or acyclic tuple-generating dependencies, two central rule-based ontology languages that ensure first-order rewritability for positive omqs. We strongly believe that the new algorithm can serve as a good starting point towards the full settlement of our main question.
Cite as

Georg Gottlob, Marco Manna, Andreas Pieris, and Aldo Ricioppo. First-Order Rewritability of Rule-Based Ontology Mediated Queries with Negation. In 29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 365, pp. 21:1-21:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{gottlob_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.21,
  author =	{Gottlob, Georg and Manna, Marco and Pieris, Andreas and Ricioppo, Aldo},
  title =	{{First-Order Rewritability of Rule-Based Ontology Mediated Queries with Negation}},
  booktitle =	{29th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2026)},
  pages =	{21:1--21:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-413-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{365},
  editor =	{ten Cate, Balder and Funk, Maurice},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.21},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-256353},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2026.21},
  annote =	{Keywords: ontology-mediated queries, tuple-generating dependencies, conjunctive queries with negation, first-order rewritability}
}
Document
Invited Talk
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.3
Rule-Based Ontologies: From Semantics to Syntax (Invited Talk)

Authors: Andreas Pieris

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 290, 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)

Abstract
An ontology specifies an abstract model of a domain of interest via a formal language that is typically based on logic. Tuple-generating dependencies (tgds) and equality-generating dependencies (egds) originally introduced as a unifying framework for database integrity constraints, and later on used in data exchange and integration, are well suited for modeling ontologies that are intended for data-intensive tasks. The reason is that, unlike other popular formalisms such as description logics, tgds and egds can easily handle higher-arity relations that naturally occur in relational databases. In recent years, there has been an extensive study of tgd- and egd-based ontologies and of their applications to several different data-intensive tasks. In those studies, model theory plays a crucial role and it typically proceeds from syntax to semantics. In other words, the syntax of an ontology language is introduced first and then the properties of the mathematical structures that satisfy ontologies of that language are explored. There is, however, a mature and growing body of research in the reverse direction, i.e., from semantics to syntax. Here, the starting point is a collection of model-theoretic properties and the goal is to determine whether or not these properties characterize some ontology language. Such results are welcome as they pinpoint the expressive power of an ontology language in terms of insightful model-theoretic properties. The main aim of this tutorial is to present a comprehensive overview of model-theoretic characterizations of tgd- and egd-based ontology languages that are encountered in database theory and symbolic artificial intelligence.
Cite as

Andreas Pieris. Rule-Based Ontologies: From Semantics to Syntax (Invited Talk). In 27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 290, p. 3:1, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024)

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@InProceedings{pieris:LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.3,
  author =	{Pieris, Andreas},
  title =	{{Rule-Based Ontologies: From Semantics to Syntax}},
  booktitle =	{27th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2024)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:1},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-312-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2024},
  volume =	{290},
  editor =	{Cormode, Graham and Shekelyan, Michael},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-197857},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2024.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: ontologies, tuple-generating dependencies, equality-generating dependencies, model theory, model-theoretic characterizations}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.9
Absolute Expressiveness of Subgraph-Based Centrality Measures

Authors: Andreas Pieris and Jorge Salas

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 255, 26th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2023)

Abstract
In graph-based applications, a common task is to pinpoint the most important or "central" vertex in a (directed or undirected) graph, or rank the vertices of a graph according to their importance. To this end, a plethora of so-called centrality measures have been proposed in the literature. Such measures assess which vertices in a graph are the most important ones by analyzing the structure of the underlying graph. A family of centrality measures that are suited for graph databases has been recently proposed by relying on the following simple principle: the importance of a vertex in a graph is relative to the number of "relevant" connected subgraphs surrounding it; we refer to the members of this family as subgraph-based centrality measures. Although it has been shown that such measures enjoy several favourable properties, their absolute expressiveness remains largely unexplored. The goal of this work is to precisely characterize the absolute expressiveness of the family of subgraph-based centrality measures by considering both directed and undirected graphs. To this end, we characterize when an arbitrary centrality measure is a subgraph-based one, or a subgraph-based measure relative to the induced ranking. These characterizations provide us with technical tools that allow us to determine whether well-established centrality measures are subgraph-based. Such a classification, apart from being interesting in its own right, gives useful insights on the structural similarities and differences among existing centrality measures.
Cite as

Andreas Pieris and Jorge Salas. Absolute Expressiveness of Subgraph-Based Centrality Measures. In 26th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2023). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 255, pp. 9:1-9:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023)

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@InProceedings{pieris_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.9,
  author =	{Pieris, Andreas and Salas, Jorge},
  title =	{{Absolute Expressiveness of Subgraph-Based Centrality Measures}},
  booktitle =	{26th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2023)},
  pages =	{9:1--9:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-270-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2023},
  volume =	{255},
  editor =	{Geerts, Floris and Vandevoort, Brecht},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.9},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-177516},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2023.9},
  annote =	{Keywords: Graph centrality measures, ranking, expressiveness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.17
Oblivious Chase Termination: The Sticky Case

Authors: Marco Calautti and Andreas Pieris

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 127, 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)

Abstract
The chase procedure is one of the most fundamental algorithmic tools in database theory. A key algorithmic task is uniform chase termination, i.e., given a set of tuple-generating dependencies (tgds), is it the case that the chase under this set of tgds terminates, for every input database? In view of the fact that this problem is undecidable, no matter which version of the chase we consider, it is natural to ask whether well-behaved classes of tgds, introduced in different contexts such as ontological reasoning, make our problem decidable. In this work, we consider a prominent decidability paradigm for tgds, called stickiness. We show that for sticky sets of tgds, uniform chase termination is decidable if we focus on the (semi-)oblivious chase, and we pinpoint its exact complexity: PSpace-complete in general, and NLogSpace-complete for predicates of bounded arity. These complexity results are obtained via graph-based syntactic characterizations of chase termination that are of independent interest.
Cite as

Marco Calautti and Andreas Pieris. Oblivious Chase Termination: The Sticky Case. In 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 127, pp. 17:1-17:18, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{calautti_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.17,
  author =	{Calautti, Marco and Pieris, Andreas},
  title =	{{Oblivious Chase Termination: The Sticky Case}},
  booktitle =	{22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)},
  pages =	{17:1--17:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-101-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{127},
  editor =	{Barcelo, Pablo and Calautti, Marco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.17},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-103197},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.17},
  annote =	{Keywords: Chase procedure, tuple-generating dependencies, stickiness, termination, computational complexity}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.19
Additive First-Order Queries

Authors: Gerald Berger, Martin Otto, Andreas Pieris, Dimitri Surinx, and Jan Van den Bussche

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 127, 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)

Abstract
A database query q is called additive if q(A U B) = q(A) U q(B) for domain-disjoint input databases A and B. Additivity allows the computation of the query result to be parallelised over the connected components of the input database. We define the "connected formulas" as a syntactic fragment of first-order logic, and show that a first-order query is additive if and only if it expressible by a connected formula. This characterisation specializes to the guarded fragment of first-order logic. We also show that additivity is decidable for formulas of the guarded fragment, establish the computational complexity, and do the same for positive-existential formulas. Our results hold when restricting attention to finite structures, as is common in database theory, but also hold in the unrestricted setting.
Cite as

Gerald Berger, Martin Otto, Andreas Pieris, Dimitri Surinx, and Jan Van den Bussche. Additive First-Order Queries. In 22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 127, pp. 19:1-19:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)

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@InProceedings{berger_et_al:LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.19,
  author =	{Berger, Gerald and Otto, Martin and Pieris, Andreas and Surinx, Dimitri and Van den Bussche, Jan},
  title =	{{Additive First-Order Queries}},
  booktitle =	{22nd International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT 2019)},
  pages =	{19:1--19:14},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-101-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2019},
  volume =	{127},
  editor =	{Barcelo, Pablo and Calautti, Marco},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.19},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-103217},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICDT.2019.19},
  annote =	{Keywords: Expressive power}
}
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