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Does it Scale?
It May Be a Problem, But…


  • Yes, reasoning over huge ontologies may be a problem
    • combination of ontologies may lead to this
    • DL systems shown to work for ≈100k concepts already
      • albeit with a simple structure
    • there are already applications with large ontologies (see later)
    • lots of R&D is happening here…
    • but it is indeed still a challenge
  • But: “a little semantics can take you far” (Jim Hendler)
    • i.e., small OWL ontologies may lead to useful applications
    • applications may use ontology “islands”, and loosely bind them
      • OWL gives you tools for that

Ivan Herman, W3C 25 (56)