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 Thepchai Supnithi · Takahira Yamaguchi
Jeff Z. Pan · Vilas Wuwongse
Marut Buranarach (Eds.)
LNCS 8943

Semantic Technology
4th Joint International Conference, JIST 2014
Chiang Mai, Thailand, November 9–11, 2014
Revised Selected Papers

123
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8943
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Gerhard Goos, Juris Hartmanis, and Jan van Leeuwen

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Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
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University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
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Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
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ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
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Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
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Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7409
Thepchai Supnithi · Takahira Yamaguchi · Jeff Z. Pan
Vilas Wuwongse · Marut Buranarach (Eds.)

Semantic Technology
4th Joint International Conference, JIST 2014
Chiang Mai, Thailand, November 9–11, 2014
Revised Selected Papers

ABC
Editors
Thepchai Supnithi Vilas Wuwongse
National Electronics and Computer Asian University
Technology Center Chonburi
Pathum Thani Thailand
Thailand
Marut Buranarach
Takahira Yamaguchi National Electronics Computer Tech. Ctr.,
Keio University Fac. of Science & Sci. Park
Technology Pathum Thani
Yokohama Thailand
Japan

Jeff Z. Pan
Department of Computing Science
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen
United Kingdom

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Computer Science
ISBN 978-3-319-15614-9 ISBN 978-3-319-15615-6 (eBook)
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 Preface

This volume contains the papers presented at JIST 2014: The 4th Joint International
Semantic Technology Conference held during November 9–11, 2014 in Chiang Mai,
Thailand. JIST 2014 was co-hosted by National Electronics and Computer Technology
Center (NECTEC), Chiang Mai University, Sirindhorn International Institute of Tech-
nology (SIIT), Thailand, and Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information
(KISTI), Korea. JIST is one of the leading conferences in its field in the Asia region
with high participation from Japan, Korea, and China. It often attracts many partic-
ipants from Europe and USA. The main topics of the conference include Semantic
Technologies such as Semantic Web, Social Web, Linked Data, and so on.
The theme of the JIST 2014 conference was “Open Data and Semantic Technology.”
JIST 2014 conference consisted of main technical tracks including regular paper track
(full and short papers), in-use track and special track, poster and demo session, two
workshops, and four tutorials. There were a total of 71 submissions for the regular paper
track from 19 countries, which included Asian, European, African, North American,
and South American countries.
Most papers were reviewed by three reviewers and the results were rigorously dis-
cussed by the program chairs. Twenty full papers (29%) and 12 short, in-use track and
special track papers (17%) were accepted. The paper topics are divided into eight cate-
gories: Ontology and Reasoning (7 papers), Linked Data (7 papers), Learning and Dis-
covery (3 papers), RDF and SPARQL (3 papers), Ontological Engineering (3 papers),
Semantic Social Web (3 papers), Search and Querying (3 papers), and Applications of
Semantic Technology (3 papers).
We would like to thank the JIST Steering Committee, Organizing Committee, and
Program Committee for their significant contributions. We also would like to specially
thank the co-hosts and sponsors for their support in making JIST 2014 a successful and
memorable event. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to all speakers and
participants of JIST 2014. This book is an outcome of their contributions.

December 2014 Thepchai Supnithi

Takahira Yamaguchi
Jeff Z. Pan
Vilas Wuwongse
Marut Buranarach
 Organization

JIST 2014 was organized by National Electronics and Computer Technology Center
(NECTEC), Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (SIIT), Chiang Mai Uni-
versity, Thailand, and Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI),
Korea.

General Chairs
Jeff Z. Pan University of Aberdeen, UK
Vilas Wuwongse Asian University, Thailand

Program Chairs
Thepchai Supnithi NECTEC, Thailand
Takahira Yamaguchi Keio University, Japan

In-use Track Chairs

Chutiporn Anutariya Asian University, Thailand
Alan Wu Oracle, USA

Special Track Chairs

Pasi Gabriella University of Milan, Italy
Kouji Kozaki Osaka University, Japan

Poster and Demo Chairs

Hanmin Jung KISTI, Korea
Ekawit Nantajeewarawat SIIT, Thailand
Kultida Tuamsuk Khon Kaen University, Thailand

Workshop Chairs
Thatsanee Charoenporn Burapha University, Thailand
Sasiporn Usanavasin SIIT, Thailand

Tutorial Chair
Boontawee Suntisrivaraporn SIIT, Thailand
VIII Organization

Industrial Chairs
Key-Sun Choi KAIST, Korea
Takahiro Kawamura Toshiba, Japan
Virach Sornlertlamvanich TPA, Thailand

Publicity Chairs
Jeerayut Chaijaruwanich Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Krich Intratip Royal Thai Army, Thailand

Local Organizing Chairs

Marut Buranarach NECTEC, Thailand
Rattasit Sukhahuta Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Thanaruk Theeramunkong SIIT, Thailand

Local Organizing Committee

Prachya Boonkwan NECTEC, Thailand
Nopphadol Chalortham Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Varin Chouvatut Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Wattana Jindaluang Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Ubolwan Khamkaew NECTEC, Thailand
Krit Kosawat NECTEC, Thailand
Kanyanut Kriengket NECTEC, Thailand
Nattapol Kritsuthikul NECTEC, Thailand
Wasan Na Chai NECTEC, Thailand
Jeeravan Nuananun NECTEC, Thailand
Taneth Ruangrajitpakorn NECTEC, Thailand
Kanchana Saengthongpattana NECTEC, Thailand
Vipas Sutantayawalee NECTEC, Thailand
Ratsameetip Wita Chiang Mai University, Thailand
 Organization IX

Sponsors

Program Committee
Chutiporn Anutariya Asian University, Thailand
Paolo Bouquet University of Trento, Italy
Marut Buranarach NECTEC, Thailand
Nopphadol Chalortham Chiang Mai University, Thailand
Chantana Chantrapornchai Kasetsart University, Thailand
Huajun Chen Zhejiang University, China
Gong Cheng Nanjing University, China
Paola Di Maio ISTCS.org and IIT Mandi, India
Stefan Dietze L3S Research Center, Germany
Dejing Dou University of Oregon, USA
Jae-Hong Eom Seoul National University, Korea
Zhiqiang Gao Southeast University, China
Volker Haarslev Concordia University, Canada
Masahiro Hamasaki AIST, Japan
Sungkook Han Wonkwang University, Korea
Koiti Hasida University of Tokyo, Japan
Itaru Hosomi NEC Service Platforms Research Laboratories,
Japan
Wei Hu Nanjing University, China
X Organization

Eero Hyvönen Aalto University and University of Helsinki,

Finland
Ryutaro Ichise National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Krich Intratip Royal Thai Army, Thailand
Vahid Jalali Samsung Research America, USA
Hanmin Jung KISTI, Korea
Jason Jung Chung-Ang University, Korea
Takahiro Kawamura Toshiba Corp., Japan
Pyung Kim Jeonju National University of Education, Korea
Yoshinobu Kitamura Osaka University, Japan
Seiji Koide National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Kouji Kozaki Osaka University, Japan
Myungjin Lee LIST, Korea
Seungwoo Lee KISTI, Korea
Tony Lee Saltlux, Inc., Korea
Alain Leger Orange Labs, France
Yuan-Fang Li Monash University, Australia
Mihhail Matskin Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Yutaka Matsuo University of Tokyo, Japan
Riichiro Mizoguchi JAIST, Japan
Takeshi Morita Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
Ralf Möller Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
Shinichi Nagano Toshiba Corp., Japan
Ekawit Nantajeewarawat SIIT, Thailand
Leo Obrst MITRE, USA
Ikki Ohmukai National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Jeff Pan University of Aberdeen, UK
Ratchata Peachavanish Thammasat Univeristy, Thailand
Guilin Qi Southeast University, China
Yuzhong Qu Nanjing University, China
Ulrich Reimer University of Applied Sciences St. Gallen,
Switzerland
Marco Ronchetti University of Trento, Italy
Twittie Senivongse Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Siraya Sitthisarn Thaksin University, Thailand
Giorgos Stoilos National Technical University of Athens, Greece
Umberto Straccia ISTI-CNR, Italy
Boontawee Suntisrivaraporn SIIT, Thailand
Thepchai Supnithi NECTEC, Thailand
Hideaki Takeda National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Kerry Taylor CSIRO and Australian National University,
Australia
Anni-Yasmin Turhan Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Sasiporn Usanavasin SIIT, Thailand
Tomas Vitvar Oracle, Czech Republic
 Organization XI

Holger Wache University of Applied Sciences Northwestern

Switzerland, Switzerland
Haofen Wang East China University of Science and Technology,
China
Krzysztof Wecel Poznan University of Economics, Poland
Gang Wu Northeastern University, China
Honghan Wu University of Aberdeen, UK
Vilas Wuwongse Asian University, Thailand
Bin Xu Tsinghua University, China
Takahira Yamaguchi Keio University, Japan
Jun Zhao Lancaster University, UK
Amal Zouaq Royal Military College of Canada, Canada

Additional Reviewers
Bazzanella, Barbara Morita, Takeshi
Bortoli, Stefano Ratanajaipan, Photchanan
Cheng, Jingwei Ruan, Tong
Dojchinovski, Milan Seon, Choong-Nyoung
Hwang, Myunggwon Vlasenko, Jelena
Kafle, Sabin Xu, Hang
Kim, Taehong Yang, Mengdong
Kuchař, Jaroslav Zhang, Xiaowang
Liu, Haishan Zhou, Zhangquan
 Contents

Ontology and Reasoning

Revisiting Default Description Logics – and Their Role in Aligning

Ontologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Kunal Sengupta, Pascal Hitzler, and Krzysztof Janowicz

On Desirable Properties of the Structural Subsumption-Based Similarity

Measure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Suwan Tongphu and Boontawee Suntisrivaraporn

A Graph-Based Approach to Ontology Debugging in DL-Lite . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Xuefeng Fu, Yong Zhang, and Guilin Qi

Reasoning for ALCQ Extended with a Flexible Meta-Modelling

Hierarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Regina Motz, Edelweis Rohrer, and Paula Severi

Employing DLLiteR -Reasoners for Fuzzy Query Answering . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Theofilos Mailis and Anni-Yasmin Turhan

Ontology Based Inferences Engine for Veterinary Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

H. Andres Melgar S., Diego Salas Guillén, and Jacklin Gonzales Maceda

An Information Literacy Ontology and Its Use for Guidance Plan

Design – An Example on Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Kouji Kozaki, Hiroko Kanoh, Takaaki Hishida, and Motohiro Hasegawa

Linked Data

A Roadmap for Navigating the Life Sciences Linked Open Data Cloud . . . . 97
Ali Hasnain, Syeda Sana e Zainab, Maulik R. Kamdar,
Qaiser Mehmood, Claude N. Warren Jr., Qurratal Ain Fatimah,
Helena F. Deus, Muntazir Mehdi, and Stefan Decker

Link Prediction in Linked Data of Interspecies Interactions

Using Hybrid Recommendation Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Rathachai Chawuthai, Hideaki Takeda, and Tsuyoshi Hosoya

CURIOS Mobile: Linked Data Exploitation for Tourist Mobile

Apps in Rural Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Hai H. Nguyen, David Beel, Gemma Webster, Chris Mellish,
Jeff Z. Pan, and Claire Wallace
XIV Contents

Building of Industrial Parts LOD for EDI - A Case Study -. . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Shusaku Egami, Takahiro Kawamura, Akihiro Fujii, and Akihiko Ohsuga

inteSearch: An Intelligent Linked Data Information Access Framework . . . . 162

Md-Mizanur Rahoman and Ryutaro Ichise

Publishing Danish Agricultural Government Data as Semantic Web Data . . . 178

Alex B. Andersen, Nurefsan Gür, Katja Hose, Kim A. Jakobsen,
and Torben Bach Pedersen

A Lightweight Treatment of Inexact Dates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Hai H. Nguyen, Stuart Taylor, Gemma Webster, Nophadol Jekjantuk,
Chris Mellish, Jeff Z. Pan, Tristan ap Rheinallt, and Kate Byrne

Learning and Discovery

A Multi-strategy Learning Approach to Competitor Identification. . . . . . . . . 197

Tong Ruan, Yeli Lin, Haofen Wang, and Jeff Z. Pan

Mining Type Information from Chinese Online Encyclopedias. . . . . . . . . . . 213

Tianxing Wu, Shaowei Ling, Guilin Qi, and Haofen Wang

G-Diff: A Grouping Algorithm for RDF Change Detection on MapReduce . . . 230

Jinhyun Ahn, Dong-Hyuk Im, Jae-Hong Eom,
Nansu Zong, and Hong-Gee Kim

RDF and SPARQL

Graph Pattern Based RDF Data Compression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Jeff Z. Pan, José Manuel Gómez-Pérez, Yuan Ren, Honghan Wu,
Haofen Wang, and Man Zhu

Optimizing SPARQL Query Processing on Dynamic and Static Data Based

on Query Time/Freshness Requirements Using Materialization. . . . . . . . . . . 257
Soheila Dehghanzadeh, Josiane Xavier Parreira, Marcel Karnstedt,
Juergen Umbrich, Manfred Hauswirth, and Stefan Decker

RDFa Parser for Hybrid Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Akihiro Fujii and Hiroyasu Shimizu

Ontological Engineering

Ontology Construction and Schema Merging Using an Application-Independent

Ontology for Humanitarian Aid in Disaster Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Pasinee Apisakmontri, Ekawit Nantajeewarawat, Marut Buranarach,
and Mitsuru Ikeda
 Contents XV

Development of the Belief Culture Ontology and Its Application: Case Study
of the GreaterMekong Subregion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Wirapong Chansanam, Kulthida Tuamsuk, Kanyarat Kwiecien,
Taneth Ruangrajitpakorn, and Thepchai Supnithi

Representations of Psychological Functions of Peer Support Services

for Diabetic Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Ikue Osawa, Mitsuru Ikeda, Takashi Yoneda, Yoshiyu Takeda,
Masuo Nakai, Mikiya Usukura, and Kiwamu Abe

Semantic Social Web

Personalized Model Combination for News Recommendation in Microblogs . . . 321

Rémi Lam, Lei Hou, and Juanzi Li

A Model for Enriching Multilingual Wikipedias Using Infobox and Wikidata

Property Alignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Thang Hoang Ta and Chutiporn Anutariya

Template-Driven Semantic Parsing for Focused Web Crawler . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Michał Blinkiewicz, Mariusz Galler, and Andrzej Szwabe

Search and Querying

A Keyword Exploration for Retrieval from Biomimetics Databases . . . . . . . 361

Kouji Kozaki and Riichiro Mizoguchi

Choosing Related Concepts for Intelligent Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Kouji Kozaki

A Semantic Keyword Search Based on the Bidirectional Fix Root Query

Graph Construction Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Siraya Sitthisarn

Applications of Semantic Technology

An Ontology-Based Intelligent Speed Adaptation System for Autonomous

Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
Lihua Zhao, Ryutaro Ichise, Seiichi Mita, and Yutaka Sasaki

Ontology Based Suggestion Distribution System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Tong Lee Chung, Bin Xu, Xuanyu Yao, Qi Li, and Bozhi Yuan

Road Traffic Question Answering System Using Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Napong Wanichayapong, Wasan Pattara-Atikom,
and Ratchata Peachavanish

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Ontology and Reasoning
 Revisiting Default Description
Logics – and Their Role in Aligning Ontologies

Kunal Sengupta1 , Pascal Hitzler1(B) , and Krzysztof Janowicz2

1
Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435, USA
pascal.hitzler@wright.edu
2
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Abstract. We present a new approach to extend the Web Ontology

Language (OWL) with the capabilities to reason with defaults. This work
improves upon the previously established results on integrating defaults
with description logics (DLs), which were shown to be decidable only
when the application of defaults is restricted to named individuals in
the knowledge base. We demonstrate that the application of defaults
(integrated with DLs) does not have to be restricted to named individuals
to retain decidability and elaborate on the application of defaults in the
context of ontology alignment and ontology-based systems.

1 Introduction and Motivation

The wide adoption of linked data principles has led to an enormous corpus
of semantically enriched data being shared on the web. Researchers have been
building (semi-)automatic matching systems [1,24] to build links (correspon-
dences) between various conceptual entities as well as instances in the linked
data. These systems are commonly known as ontology matching/alignment sys-
tems. The correspondences generated by these systems are represented using
some standard knowledge representation language such as the web ontology lan-
guage (OWL). However, due to the amount of heterogeneity present in the linked
data and the web, OWL does not seem to be a completely suitable language for
this purpose as we discuss in the following.
One key aspect of the web (or the world) is variety. There are subtle differ-
ences in how a conceptual entity and its relation to other entities is perceived
depending on the geographical location, culture, political influence, etc. [15]. To
give a simple example consider the concept of marriage, in some conservative
parts of the world, marriage stands for a relationship between two individuals of
opposite genders whereas in other more liberal places the individuals involved
may have the same gender. Consider the axioms in Figure 1, let axioms (1) to
(8) represent a part of ontology A (the conservative perspective) and axioms (9)
to (13) represent a part of ontology B (the liberal perspective). It would be safe
to assume that an ontology matching system would output the axioms (14) to
(16) as the correspondences between these two ontologies. This however, leads
to a logical inconsistency under OWL semantics when the two ontologies are

c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
T. Supnithi et al.(Eds.): JIST 2014, LNCS 8943, pp. 3–18, 2015.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-15615-6 1
4 K. Sengupta et al.

a:hasWife  a:hasSpouse (1)

symmetric(a:hasSpouse) (2)
symmetric(b:hasSpouse) (9)
∃a:hasSpouse.a:Female  a:Male (3)
b:hasSpouse(b:mike, b:david) (10)
∃a:hasSpouse.a:Male  a:Female (4)
b:Male(b:david) (11)
a:hasWife(a:john, a:mary) (5)
b:Male(b:mike) (12)
a:Male(a:john) (6)
b:Female(b:anna) (13)
a:Female(a:mary) (7)
a:Male  a:Female  ⊥ (8)

a:hasSpouse ≡ b:hasSpouse (14)

a:Male ≡ b:Male (15)
a:Female ≡ b:Female (16)

Fig. 1. Running example with selected axioms

merged based on the given correspondences: From axioms (10), (11), (14), and
(3), we derive a:Female(b:mike) which together with axioms (12), (15), and (8)
results in an inconsistency as we derive a:Male(b:mike) and a:Female(b:mike)
while axiom (8) states a:Male  a:Female  ⊥.
This drives the need for an alignment language which could handle such
subtle differences in perspectives. We propose an extension of description logics
based on defaults to be used as an ontology alignment language. Using the notion
of defaults we could re-state axiom (14) to an axiom which would semantically
mean: every pair of individuals in b:hasSpouse is also in a:hasSpouse (and vice
versa) unless it leads to a logically inconsistency. And those pairs which lead to
an inconsistency are treated as exceptions to this axiom. In such a setting the
pair (b:mike, b:David) would be treated as an exception to the re-stated axiom
and would not cause an inconsistency any more.
A default is a kind of an inference rule that enables us to model some type of
stereotypical knowledge such as “birds usually fly,” or “humans usually have their
heart on the left side of their chest.” Default logic, which formalizes this intuition,
was introduced by Ray Reiter [21] in the 80s, and it is one of the main approaches
towards non-monotonic reasoning. In fact, it was the starting point for one of the
primary approaches to logic programming and non-monotonic reasoning today,
namely the stable model semantics [8] and answer set programming [20].
Reiter’s approach is so powerful because exceptions to the default rules are
implicitly handled by the logic, so that it is not left to the knowledge modeler to
know all relevant exceptions and to take care of them explicitly, as is required in
OWL-based ontology modeling. In fact, defaults in the general sense of Reiter
still appear to be one of the most intuitive ways of formally modeling this type
of stereotypical reasoning [11].
Alas, a paper by Baader and Hollunder [2], published almost 20 years ago,
seemed to put an early nail into the coffin of default-extended description logics.
 Revisiting Default Description Logics 5

Therein, the authors show that a certain extension of the description logic ALC 1
becomes undecidable if further extended with Reiter defaults. Since decidability
was (and still is) a key design goal for description logics, this result clearly was a
showstopper for further development of default-extended description logics. Of
course, Baader and Hollunder also provided a quick fix: If we impose that the
default rules only apply to known individuals (i.e., those explicitly present in the
knowledge base), then decidability can be retained. However, this semantics for
defaults is rather counter-intuitive, as it implies that default rules never apply to
unknown individuals. In other words: to unknown individuals the defaults do, by
default, not apply. Arguably, this is not a very intuitive semantics for defaults.
In this paper, we show that there is still a path of development for default-
extended description logics, and that they may yet attain a useful standing in
ontology modeling. In fact, we will present a way to extend decidable description
logics with defaults which transcends the approach by Baader and Hollunder
while retaining decidability: in our approach, defaults rules do apply to unknown
individuals. We refer to the type of default semantics which we introduce as free
defaults. Indeed, the contributions of this paper are (1) A new semantics for
defaults (free defaults) in description logics and thereby OWL, such that the
application of defaults are not limited to named individuals in the knowledge
base, (2) We show that reasoning under this new semantics is decidable, which
improves upon the results shown in [2], (3) Adding default role inclusion axioms
also yields a decidable logic, and (4) We introduce the use of free defaults as
a basis for a new language for ontology alignment and show some application
scenarios in where defaults could play a major role and show how our approach
covers these scenarios.
Let us briefly look at some of the related work published in recent years.
There is in fact a plethora of publications on integrating description logics and
non-monotonic formalisms, and it is not feasible to give all relevant proposals
sufficient credit. We thus refer the interested reader to [18] for pointers to some
of the most important approaches to date, including their relationships.
A series of work has recently been published which is related to typicality
reasoning in description logics [9], in which the authors provide a minimal model
semantics to achieve typicality. While our work is also based on preferred mod-
els, our goal is to follow some of the central ideas of default logic and to adapt it
to provide a model-theoretic approach to defaults in DLs. Exact formal relation-
ships between different proposals remain to be investigated. Other approaches
that could be used to simulate defaults include circumscription [4,23], while again
the exact relationship between the approaches remains to be investigated. Also
[3] talks about defeasible inclusions in the tractable fragments of DL, which again
follows a similar intuition. We understand our proposal and results as a contri-
bution to the ongoing discussion about the best ways to capture non-monotonic
reasoning for Semantic Web purposes.
1
ALC is a very basic description logic which, among other things, constitutes the core
of OWL 2 DL [13, 14].
6 K. Sengupta et al.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces

preliminaries which form the basis required for the understanding of our work.
In section 3, we discuss the semantics of free defaults for description logics, in
the case of subclass defaults. In section 4 we give decidability results. In section
5 we show that adding free subrole defaults also retains decidability. In section 6
we discuss examples which illustrate the potential and relevance of free defaults
to ontology modeling. We conclude in section 7.

2 Preliminaries

2.1 Default Logic

Default logic [21] is a form of non-monotonic logic which allows us to add infer-
ence rules called default rules on top of the conceptual knowledge. A default rule
(or simply default) is of the form

α : β1 , . . . , βn
γ ,

where α, βi , γ are first order formulae. α is called the pre-requisite of the rule,
β1 , . . . , βn are its justifications and γ its consequent. A default rule is closed if all
the formulae that occur in the default are closed first order formulae, otherwise
the default rule is called open. A default theory is further defined as a pair
(D, W), where D is a set of defaults and W is a set of closed first order formulae.
A default theory is closed if all the default rules in the set D are closed, otherwise
it is called an open default theory.
The intuitive meaning of a default rule is that if α is true, and if furthermore
assuming β1 , . . . , βn to be true does not result in an inconsistency, then γ is
entailed. The formal semantics of a default theory is defined in terms of a notion
of extension. An extension of a default theory is a completion (i.e., closure under
entailment) of a possibly incomplete theory. The following describes formally the
notion of an extension, directly taken from [21].

Definition 1. Let Δ = (D, W) be a closed default theory, so that every default

of D has the form
α : β1 , . . . , βn
γ ,

where α, β1 , . . . , βn , γ are all closed formulae of L (a first order language). For

any set of closed formulae S ⊆ L, let Γ (S) be the smallest set satisfying the
following three properties:
- W ⊆ Γ (S)
- Γ (S) is closed under entailment.
- If α:β1γ,...βn ∈ D, α ∈ Γ (S), and ¬β1 , . . . , ¬βn ∈/ Γ (S), then γ ∈ Γ (S).
A set of closed formulae E ⊆ L is an extension of Δ if Γ (E) = E, i.e. if E is
a fixed point of the operator Γ .
 Revisiting Default Description Logics 7

The complexity of reasoning with (variants of) default logic is generally very
high [10], and the same holds for most other non-monotonic logics, unless severe
restrictions are put in place.2
In this paper we deal with a special type of defaults called normal defaults,
and give it our own semantics which satisfies the intuition we intend to serve. We
do this, rather than attempt to build on the more general approach by Reiter,
because we strive for a simple but useful approach [23]. Normal defaults are
those in which the justification and consequent are the same. We observe that
these kinds of defaults have a variety of applications as we will see in section 6.

2.2 Description Logics

We briefly introduce the basic description logic (DL) ALC, although our app-
roach also works for more expressive description logics.
Let NC , NR and NI be countably infinite sets of concept names, role names
and individual names, respectively. The set of ALC concepts is the smallest set
that is created using the following grammar where A ∈ NC denotes an atomic
concept, R ∈ NR is a role name and C, D are concepts.
C ::=  | ⊥ | A | ¬C | C  D | C  D | ∃R.C | ∀R.C
An ALC TBox is a finite set of axioms of the form C  D, called general
concept inclusion (GCI) axioms, where C and D are concepts. An ALC ABox is
a finite set of axioms of the form C(a) and R(a, b), which are called concept and
role assertion axioms, where C is a concept, R is a role and a, b are individual
names. An ALC knowledge base is a union of an ALC ABox and an ALC TBox
The semantics is defined in terms of interpretations I = (ΔI , .I ), where ΔI
is a non-empty set called the domain of interpretation and .I is an interpretation
function which maps each individual name to an element of the domain ΔI and
interprets concepts and roles as follows:
I = ΔI , ⊥I = ∅, AI ⊆ ΔI , RI ⊆ ΔI × ΔI ,
(¬C)I = ΔI \ C I , (C1  C2 )I = C1I ∩ C2I , (C1  C2 )I = C1I ∪ C2I ,
I I I I
(∀ r .C) = {x ∈ Δ | (x, y) ∈ r implies y ∈ C },
(∃ r .C)I = {x ∈ ΔI | there is some y with (x, y) ∈ rI and y ∈ C I }
An interpretation I satisfies (is a model of) a GCI C  D if C I ⊆ DI , a
concept assertion C(a) if aI ∈ C I , a role assertion R(a, b) if (aI , bI ) ∈ RI . We
say I satisfies (is a model of) a knowledge base K if it satisfies every axiom in
K. K is satisfiable if such a model I exists.
The negation normal form of a concept C, denoted by NNF(C), is obtained
by pushing the negation symbols inward, as usual, such that negation appears
only in front of atomic concepts, e.g., NNF(¬(C  D)) = ¬C  ¬D.
We will occasionally refer to additional description logic constructs which are
not contained in ALC. Please refer to [14] for further background on description
logics, and how they relate to the Web Ontology Language OWL [13].
2
An exception is [17] for tractable description logics, but the practical usefulness of
that approach for default modeling still needs to be shown.
8 K. Sengupta et al.

3 Semantics of Free Defaults

In this section, we introduce the semantics of free defaults. We restrict our
attention to normal defaults and show that reasoning in this setting is decidable
in general when the underlying DL is also decidable. Normal defaults are very
intuitive and we observe that there are many applications in practice where
normal defaults can be very useful—see section 6. We also provide a DL syntax
to encode default rules in the knowledge bases. For our purposes, a normal
default rule is of the form A : B , where A and B are class names,3 i.e., the
B
justification and conclusion of the default rule are the same. For a description
logic L we are going to represent the same rule in the form of an axiom A d B,
where A and B are L-concepts and d represents (free) default subsumption. We
refer to statements of the form A d B as (free) default rules or default axioms.
Definition 2. Let KB be a description logic knowledge base, and let δ be a set
of default axioms of the form C d D, where C and D are concepts appearing
in KB . Then we call the pair (KB , δ) a default-knowledge-base.
The semantics of the default subsumption can be informally stated as follows:
if C d D, then every named individual in C can also be assumed to be in D,
unless it results in a logical inconsistency. Also, if C d D, then every unnamed
individual in C is also in D, i.e., for unnamed individuals d behaves exactly
the same as . Furthermore, we say a named individual a satisfies a default
axiom C d D if (1) aI ∈ C I , DI or (2) aI ∈ (¬C)I . The intuition behind the
semantics of free defaults is to maximize the sets of the named individuals that
satisfy the default axioms while maintaining the consistency of the knowledge
base.
The following notations will be needed to formalize this intuition for the
semantics of free defaults.
Definition 3. For a default-knowledge-base (KB , δ), we define the following.
- IndKB is the set of all the named individuals occurring in KB .
- P(IndKB ) is the power set of IndKB .
- Pn (IndKB ) is the set of n-tuples obtained from the Cartesian product: P(IndKB )
× . . . n times × P(IndKB ), where n is the cardinality of δ.
The notion of interpretation for the default-knowledge-bases (KB , δ) remains
the same as that of the underlying DL of the knowledge base KB .4 Additionally,
given an interpretation I, we define δ I to be the tuple (X1I , . . . , XnI ), where
each XiI is the set of interpreted named individuals that satisfy the ith default
Ci d Di in the sense that XiI = (CiI ∩ DiI ∩ ΔIInd ) ∪ ((¬Ci )I ∩ ΔIInd ) with
ΔIInd = {aI | a ∈ IndKB } ⊆ ΔI being the set of interpreted individuals occurring
in the knowledge base. We now need to define a preference relation over the
interpretations such that we can compare them on the basis of the sets of named
individuals satisfying each default.
3
We will lift this to roles in section 5.
4
See section 2.
 Revisiting Default Description Logics 9

Definition 4. (Preference relation >KB,δ ) Given a knowledge base KB and a

set of default axioms δ. Let I and J be two interpretations of the pair (KB , δ),
then we say that I is preferred over J or I >KB,δ J if all of the following hold.
1. aI = aJ for all a ∈ NI
2. XiI ⊇ XiJ for all 1 ≤ i ≤ |δ|, where XiI ∈ δ I and XiJ ∈ δ J .
3. XiI ⊃ XiJ for some 1 ≤ i ≤ |δ|, where XiI ∈ δ I and XiJ ∈ δ J .

The concept of a model under the semantics of free defaults would be the
one which is maximal with respect to the above relation.
Definition 5. (d-model) Given (KB , δ), we call I a d-model of KB with respect
to a set of defaults δ, written I |=d (KB , δ), if all of the following hold.
1. I satisfies all axioms in KB .
2. CiI \ ΔIInd ⊆ DiI , for each (Ci d Di ) ∈ δ.
3. There is no interpretation J >KB,δ I satisfying conditions 1 and 2 above.
Furthermore, if (KB , δ) has at least one model, then the default knowledge base
is said to be d-satisfiable.
The following proposition is obvious from the definition of d-model.
Proposition 1. If I is a d-model of the default-knowledge-base (KB , δ), then I
is a classical model of KB .
For default theories two types of entailments are usually considered: credulous
and skeptical [21]. A logical formula is a credulous entailment if it is true in at
least one of the extensions of the default theory. Skeptical entailment requires the
logical formula to be true in all the extensions. We follow the skeptical entailment
approach as it fits better to the description logic semantics.5

Definition 6. (d-entailment) Given a default-knowledge-base (KB , δ) and DL

axiom α, α is d-entailed by (KB , δ) if it holds in all the d-models of (KB , δ).

4 Decidability
In this section we show that the tasks of checking for d-satisfiability and d-
entailment for default-knowledge-bases are decidable in general. Let (KB , δ) be
a default-knowledge-base where KB is encoded in a decidable DL L which sup-
ports nominal concept expressions. We show that finding a d-model for (KB , δ)
is also decidable. For some P = (X1 , . . . , Xn ) ∈ Pn (IndKB ), let KB P be the
knowledge base that is obtained by adding the following axioms to KB , for each
Ci d Di ∈ δ:
1. Xi ≡ (Ci  Di  {a1 , . . . , ak })  (¬Ci  {a1 , . . . , ak }), where Xi is the nominal
expression {x1 , . . . , xm } containing exactly all the named individuals in Xi ,
and {a1 , . . . , ak } = IndKB .
2. Ci  ¬{a1 , . . . , ak }  Di , where {a1 , . . . , ak } = IndKB .
5
Whether credulous entailment is useful in a Semantic Web context is to be deter-
mined.
10 K. Sengupta et al.

The first step in the above construction is useful to identify the sets of default-
satisfying individuals. The extensions of the Xi s represent those sets. The second
step ensures all the unnamed individuals satisfy the default axioms. Notice that
KB P as constructed using the above rewriting steps makes it fall under the
expressivity of the DL L, and construction of KB P requires only a finite number
of steps since δ is a finite set. Furthermore, we can compute an order  on the set
Pn (IndKB ) based on the ⊇-relation, defined as follows: Let P1 , P2 ∈ Pn (IndKB ),
then P1  P2 iff
1. X1i ⊇ X2i for each X1i ∈ P1 and X2i ∈ P2 and
2. X1i ⊃ X2i for some X1i ∈ P1 and X2i ∈ P2 .

Lemma 1. Given a default-knowledge-base (KB , δ), if KB P is classically satis-

fiable for some P ∈ Pn (IndKB ), then (KB , δ) has a d-model.

Proof. Let P1 ∈ Pn (IndKB ) such that KB P1 has a classical model I. Then there
are two possible cases.
In the first case there is no Px ∈ Pn (IndKB ) such that Px  P1 and KB Px
has a classical model. In this case I satisfies all the conditions of a d-model:
(1) I satisfies all axioms of KB since KB ⊆ KB P . (2) I satisfies condition 2 of
the definition of d-model, this follows from the second step of the construction
of KB P . (3) This follows directly from the assumption for this case. So I is a
d-model for (KB , δ) in this case.
The second case is when there is some Px ∈ Pn (IndKB ) for which there is
a classical model I for KB Px and Px  P1 . Again, there are two possibilities
as in case of P1 . Either the first case above holds for Px , or there is some
Py  Px ∈ Pn (IndKB ) for which the second case holds. In the latter situation,
the argument repeats, eventually giving rise to an ascending chain with respect
to the order  on Pn (IndKB ). However, since Pn (IndKB ) is finite this chain has
a maximal element and thus the first case applies. Therefore, there is a d-model
for (KB , δ). 


The following theorem is a direct consequence of Lemma 1 and the finiteness

of δ.
Theorem 1. The task of determining d-satisfiability of default-knowledge-bases
is decidable.
It should be noted that in case of Reiter’s defaults it is known that for normal
default theories an extension always exists, but in the case of free defaults it
can be easily seen that there might be some default-knowledge-bases which do
not have a d-model. This is not completely satisfactory of course. However, at
this stage it is unknown whether a stronger result can be obtained without
giving up decidability. Though the notion of d-satisfiability is important for
checking that the default-knowledge-base modelled is consistent and can be used
for reasoning-based query services, the more interesting problem in the case of
default-knowledge-bases is to handle d-entailment inference services. As it can
be observed that d-entailment checking is not directly reducible to satisfiability
 Revisiting Default Description Logics 11

checking of the default-knowledge-base,6 we define a mechanism of checking d-

entailments and show that this is also decidable.

Proposition 2. Let (KB , δ) be a default-knowledge-base. If I is a d-model of

(KB , δ), then there exists P ∈ Pn (IndKB ) such that I is a classical model of KB P
and all classical models of KB P are d-models of (KB , δ).

Proof. Given I we construct a P ∈ Pn (IndKB ) as follows: Given a default Ci d

Di ∈ δ, let Xi be the maximal subset of IndKB such that XiI ⊆ (Ci  Di )I ∪
(¬Ci )I . Given all these Xi s, let P = {X1 , . . . , Xn }.
Clearly, I is then a classical model of KB P .
Furthermore, since I is a d-model of (KB , δ), there is no Px ∈ Pn (IndKB ) such
that KB Px has a classical model and Px  P. By construction of KB P all classical
models of KB P satisfy the three d-model conditions for (KB , δ) because (1)
KB ⊆ KB P , all axioms of KB are satisfied, (2) the second step of the construction
of KB P ensures the second condition of d-model is satisfied. (3) Since P satisfies
the maximality condition, all classical models of KB P also satisfy the maximality
condition of being a d-model ensured by step one of the construction of KB P .  

Consider the two sets

PKB-d={P ∈ Pn (IndKB ) | KB P is classically satisfiable}

PKB-d-model={P ∈ PKB-d | P is maximal w.r.t. }

and note that they are both computable in finite time. We refer to all the KB P ’s
generated from all P ∈ PKB-d-model as d-model generating knowledge bases.

Lemma 2. A DL axiom α is d-entailed by a default-knowledge-base (KB , δ)

iff it is classically entailed by every KB P obtained from KB , δ, and all P ∈
PKB-d-model .

Proof. This is a consequence of Proposition 2, since all classical models of each

{KB P | P ∈ PKB-d-model } are also the d-models of the knowledge base. 


We assume KB is in a decidable description logic L that supports nominals

and full negation. It is a well known result that all common inference tasks are
reducible to a satisfiability check in DLs that support full negation [5]. Further-
more, KB P is constructed by adding GCIs involving concept expressions using
nominals and conjunctions, so we can safely assume that KB P also falls under
the DL L. Hence, all the d-model generating knowledge bases are in L.

Theorem 2. (Decidability of d-entailment) Let L be a decidable DL with full

negation and nominal support. Then the tasks of subsumption checking, instance
checking, and class satisfiability are decidable for default-knowledge-bases with
KB in L.
6
This is due to non-monotonicity of the logic.
12 K. Sengupta et al.

Proof. Given a default knowledge base (KB , δ), then by Lemma 2 the inference
tasks can be reduced as follows:
- Subsumption: C  D is d-entailed by (KB , δ) iff KB P ∪ {C  ¬D} is classically
unsatisfiable for all P ∈ PKB-d-model .
- Instance checking: C(a) is d-entailed by (KB , δ) iff KB P ∪{¬C(a)} is classically
unsatisfiable for all P ∈ PKB-d-model .
- Class satisfiability: a class C is satisfiable iff C  ⊥ is not d-entailed by (KB , δ).
Consider the task of checking (KB , δ) |=d C  D. Then (KB , δ) |=d C  D
iff KB P ∪ {C  ¬D} is classically unsatisfiable for all P ∈ PKB-d-model . Since
PKB-d-model is finitely computable and checking classical satisfiability is decid-
able in L, checking the satisfiability for each KB P is decidable. Hence, checking
(KB , δ) |=d C  D is decidable. Similar arguments hold for the other tasks.  

5 Default Role Inclusion Axioms

So far we have restricted our attention to default concept inclusions. We made

this restriction for the purpose of obtaining a clearer presentation of our app-
roach. However, as may be clear by now, we can also carry over our approach to
cover default role inclusions, and we discuss this briefly in the following.
We use the notation R d S for free (normal) role defaults. As in the case of
default concept inclusion axioms for role defaults, we restrict the exceptions to
these defaults to be pairs of named individuals only. The intuitive semantics of
R d S is that for every pair (a, b) of named individuals in the knowledge base,
if R holds then assume S also holds unless it leads to an inconsistency. For all
other pairs of individuals (with at least one unnamed individual), if R holds then
S also holds. We extend the definition of default-knowledge-bases and adjust the
other definitions in the following.

Definition 7. Let KB be a knowledge base in a decidable DL and let δ be a set

of default axioms of the form C d D or R d S, where C, D and R, S are
respectively concepts and roles appearing in KB . Then we call (KB , δ) a default-
knowledge-base. Furthermore:
- The definition of IndKB , P(IndKB ), Pn (IndKB ) carry over from Definition 3,
where n is the number of axioms of the form C d D in δ.
- P(IndKB × IndKB ) denotes the power set of IndKB × IndKB .
- Pm (IndKB × IndKB ) is the set of m-tuples obtained from the Cartesian product:
P(IndKB × IndKB ) × . . .mtimes × P(IndKB × IndKB ), where m is the number of
default role axioms in δ.

For simplicity of presentation we assume that δ is arranged such that all

default concept inclusion axioms appear before all default role inclusion axioms.
Now, consider the set DKB = Pn (IndKB ) × Pm (IndKB × IndKB ) which is a set of
tuples, where each tuple is of the form ((X1 , . . . , Xn ), (Y1 , . . . , Ym )) such that
(X1 , . . . , Xn ) ∈ Pn (IndKB ) and (Y1 , . . . , Ym ) ∈ Pm (IndKB × IndKB ). An interpre-
tation for default-knowledge-bases with default role inclusion axioms should now
 Revisiting Default Description Logics 13

map δ to a tuple as follows. δ I = (X I , Y I ) ∈ DKB , where X I = (X1I , . . . , XnI )

and Y I = (Y1I , . . . , YmI ) such that XiI = (CiI ∩ DiI ∩ ΔIInd ) ∪ ((¬C)I ∩ ΔIInd ) and
YjI = (RjI ∩ SjI ∩ (ΔIInd × ΔIInd )) ∪ ((¬Rj )I ∩ ΔIInd × ΔIInd ), for all Ci d Di ∈ δ
and Rj d Sj ∈ δ. In other words XiI denotes the extension of the named indi-
viduals that satisfy the ith default concept axioms and YjI denotes the extension
of pairs of named individuals that satisfy the j th default role axiom.
To ensure the maximal application of the default axioms we need the prefer-
ence relation to be adapted to this setting.
Definition 8. (Preference relation >KB,δ ) Given a knowledge base KB , a set of
default axioms δ, and I and J be two interpretations of (KB , δ). We say that I
is preferred over J , written I >KB,δ J , if
1. conditions 1-4 of Definition 4 hold,
2. YiI ⊇ YiJ for all 1 ≤ i ≤ m, where YiI ∈ Y I and YiJ ∈ Y J ,
3. YiI ⊃ YiJ for some 1 ≤ j ≤ m, where YiI ∈ Y I and YiJ ∈ Y J .
where m is the number of role inclusion axioms in δ.
The definition of d-model now carries over from Definition 5, the only differ-
ence being that the new definition >KB,δ of the preference relation is used when
default role axioms are also included.
To show the decidability of reasoning with any default-knowledge-base (KB , δ)
with role defaults, we assume that KB is in a decidable DL L which supports
nominal concept expression, boolean role constructors, concept products, and the
universal role U. In [22], it was shown that expressive DLs can be extended with
boolean role constructors for simple roles without compromising on complexity
and decidability. For some tuple P ≡ ((X1 , . . . , Xn ), (Y1 , . . . , Ym )) ∈ DKB , let
KB P be the knowledge base that is obtained by adding the following axioms to
KB . For each Ci d Di ∈ δ add the following.
1. Xi ≡ (Ci  Di  {a1 , . . . , ak })  (¬Ci  {a1 , . . . , ak }), where Xi is the nominal
expression {x1 , . . . , xm } containing exactly the named individuals in Xi , and
{a1 , . . . , ak } = IndKB .
2. Ci  ¬{a1 , . . . , ak }  Di , where {a1 , . . . , ak } = IndKB .
And for each Rj d Sj ∈ δ, add the following.
1. For each (a, b) ∈ Yj , add the ABox axiom Ra,b (a, b) and the axiom

{x}  ∃Ra,b .{y}  {a}  ∃U.({y}  {b}),

where Ra,b is a fresh role name, and {x} and {y} are so-called nominal
schemas as introduced in [19]: They are a kind of nominal variables, which
can stand for any nominal. In fact, this axiom can easily be cast into a set
of axioms not containing nominal schemas, as shown in [19]. The axiom just
I
given
 enforces that Ra,b ∩ (ΔIInd × ΔIInd ) = {(a, b)}.
2. (a,b)∈Yj Ra,b ≡ (Rj  Dj  Ug )  Rj  ¬Ug , where Ug ≡ IndKB × IndKB .
3. Rj  ¬Ug ≡ Sj , where Ug = IndKB × IndKB .
The construction just given for role defaults is analogous to the one for class
inclusion defaults, with the exception that we do not have a nominal constructor
14 K. Sengupta et al.

for roles. However, for the specific setting we have here, we can obtain the same
result by using the axioms from points 1 and 2 just given.
It should also be noted that the above outlined construction of KB P can be
computed in a finite number of steps.
The remainder of the decidability argument for d-entailment now carries
over easily from section 4, and we omit the details. It should be noted that the
availability of boolean role constructors is required for our argument, and that
corresponding simplicity restrictions may apply, depending on the concrete case.

6 Application of Defaults in Ontology Alignment

Variety and semantic heterogeneity are at the very core of many fields like the
Semantic Web, Big Data etc. To give a concrete example, many interesting sci-
entific and societal questions cannot be answered from within one domain alone
but span across disciplines. Studying the impact of climate change, for instance,
requires to consider data and models from climatology, economics, biology, ecol-
ogy, geography, and the medical science. While all these disciplines share an
overlapping set of terms, the meanings of these terms clearly differ between
them. A street, for instance, is a connection between A and B from the view
point of transportation science, and, at the same time, a disruptive separation
which cuts through habitats from the view point of ecology. Even within single
domains, the used terminology differs over time and space [16]. The idea that this
variety should be ’resolved’ is naive at best. The defaults extension proposed in
this work can thus support more robust ontology alignments that respect variety
and still allow us to share and integrate the heterogeneous data. In the follow-
ing we give some concrete examples that cannot be sufficiently addressed with
existing ontology alignment frameworks, but would benefit from the proposed
extension.
Consider the axioms in Figure 2. The ontology fragment consisting of (17)
to (21) reflects a certain perspective on canals valid in a transportation appli-
cation. In contrast, the axioms (22) to (24) reflect a different but equally valid
perspective from an agricultural perspective. Typically, ontology alignment sys-
tems would default to a syntactic matching of shared primitives such as Agricul-
turalField or IrrigationCanal. However, applied to these two ontology fragments
this would yield a logical inconsistency in which some waterbodies would have to
be land masses at the same time. Using our proposed free defaults, only certain
canals from a would qualify as canals in b, avoiding the inconsistencies.
While in the above example the inconsistency was largely caused by the
cardinality restrictions, other cases involve concrete domains. For instance, each
US state (and the same argument can be made between counties as well) has its
own legally binding definition of what distinguishes a town from a city. Thus,
to query the Linked Data cloud for towns it is required to take these local
definitions into account. Otherwise one would, among hundreds of thousands
of small municipalities, also retrieve Los Angeles, CA or Stuttgart, Germany.7
7
In case of DBpedia via dbpedia:Stuttgart rdf:type dbpedia-owl:Town.
 Revisiting Default Description Logics 15

a:flowsInto  a:IsConnected (17)

a:IrrigationCanal  a:Canal (18)
∃a:flowsInto.a:AgriculturalField  a:IrrigationCanal (19)
a:Waterbody  a:Land  ⊥ (20)
a:AgriculturalField  a:Land (21)
b:flowsInto  b:IsConnected (22)
b:Canal  (≥2 b:IsConnected.b:Waterbody) (23)
b:IrrigationCanal ≡ (=1 b:isConnected.b:Waterbody)
 (=1 b:flowsInto.b:AgriculturalField) (24)

Fig. 2. Fragments of two ontologies, (17)-(21), respectively (22)-(24), to be aligned

In several cases these state-specific distinctions solely depend on the population

count and, thus, could be handled using existing alignment systems. However,
in other cases they are driven by administrative divisions of geographic space,
are based on historical reasons, or other properties. As argued before, our free
defaults can handle these cases.
Let us now return to the example from section 1 and discuss it in more techni-
cal depth. We showed that an alignment using axiom (14) leads to inconsistency.
Now consider instead using the approach of free defaults, by replacing axiom (14)
with b:hasSpouse d a:hasSpouse. As per our semantics the pair (b:mike, b:david)
will act as an exception to the default role inclusion that we just added and
a:hasSpouse(b:mike, b:david) will not hold anymore. On the other hand if we also
add the axiom a:hasSpouse d b:hasSpouse then b:hasSpouse(a:john, a:mary)
will also hold.
To see this formally, consider all the axioms of figure 1 except (14) to be KB
and let δ ≡ {(a:hasSpouse d b:hasSpouse), (b:hasSpouse d a:hasSpouse)} and
consider an interpretation I such that (a:hasSpouse)I = {(a:johnI , a:maryI )}
and (b:hasSpouse)I = {(b:mikeI , b:davidI ), (a:johnI , a:maryI )}. Note that forc-
ing (b:mikeI , b:davidI ) in the extension of a:hasSpouse will result in an inconsis-
tency because of the reasons mentioned in section 1. On the other hand, if we
consider an interpretation J such that (a:hasSpouse)J = {(a:johnJ , a:maryJ )}
and (b:hasSpouse)J = {(b:mikeJ , b:davidJ )}, then clearly I >KB,δ J , because
the extension of b:hasSpouse in I is greater than that of J . So, I is preferred
over J . In fact I is also a d-model of this default-knowledge-base.
The above example shows that in case of ontology alignments, using default
constructs to map terms could help us avoid potentially inconsistent merged
knowledge bases due to subtle semantic differences in the different ontologies.
As final example, we want to discuss the implications our approach has with
respect to the use and abuse of owl:sameAs in linked data [12],8 where this Web
ontology language (OWL) construct is used extensively to provide links between
8
Note owl:sameAs is OWL representation of individual equality in DLs
16 K. Sengupta et al.

different datasets. However, owl:sameAs is, semantically, a strong equality which

equates entities, and this strong (specification-compliant) interpretation easily
leads to complications. For instance, consider two linked datasets a and b where a
contains the axioms: a:airport(a:kennedy) and a:airport  a:place, and b contains
axioms b:president(b:kennedy) and b:president  b:person plus the disjointness
axiom b:person  a:place  ⊥.
Now, if some text-based co-reference resolution system identifies a:kennedy
and b:kennedy as the same object, then it will result in a link such as owl:sameAs
(a:kennedy, b:kennedy). Obviously, this yields to an inconsistency because of
the disjointness axiom. However, if we use defaults this could be expressed as
{a:kennedy} d {b:kennedy}, which essentially is another way of saying that
a:kennedy is identical to b:kennedy unless it causes an inconsistency. While [12]
argues for a set of variants of equality with differing semantic strength, automatic
identification of the exact variant of equality to be used is yet another matter,
and presumably rather difficult to accomplish. So for automated co-reference res-
olution, we would argue that the use of free defaults, which semantically recover
from erroneous guesses by the alignment system, are a much more suitable
solution.

7 Conclusion

In this paper, we have provided a new semantics for embedding defaults into
description logics, and have shown that reasoning tasks are decidable in our
setting. Both the decidable logic from [2] and our work are variants of Reiter’s
defaults [21]. But the approach in [2] is very restricted and arguably violates
some key intuitions. Our proposal provides an improvement, mainly because
with our free defaults, the application of defaults is not limited to named indi-
viduals. However, we impose that exceptions to the default rules only occur in the
named individuals of the knowledge base. Also, our approach to the semantics is
model-theoretic whereas most of the previous work on defaults has been mainly
based on fixed point semantics [6,7]. We have furthermore given a thorough
motivation of the usefulness of free defaults in the context of ontology align-
ments. Through the examples in section 6, it is shown that the new semantics
that we have introduced in this paper is useful when dealing with the integration
of heterogeneous ontologies. We believe that our work provides a foundation for
a new and more powerful ontology alignment language.
Whether defaults over DLs are decidable when we allow exceptions to also
occur over unnamed individuals, is still an open question and we intend to inves-
tigate this in the future. Future work also includes smart algorithmization and
implementation of d-entailment tasks mentioned in this paper. A naive algorithm
can easily be developed by searching for maximal d-model generating tuples from
Pn (IndKB ), i.e. by searching for all maximal Ps in Pn (IndKB ) for which KB P has a
classical model and then using the process outlined in Theorem 2. Although this
reasoning procedure appears to be decidable it is very expensive and thus not
feasible for practical use. However, the algorithmization could be made smarter
Another random document with
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“Not silly at all,” demurred Clint. “Feel that way myself—only more
so.” He cleared his throat for a confession. “Fact is, Bess, he’s
managed to put me in a hole. Or else I’ve put myself there. It’s that
infernal quick temper of mine. I’d no business to let myself go. Of
course, I was figurin’ him just a bum like the others, an’ for that
matter he is a tramp—”
“He quoted Shakespeare at me,” inserted Betty, by way of comment.
“I dare say. He’s no ignorant fool. I didn’t mean that. What was it he
called me?” The ranchman smiled ruefully. “A local God Almighty on
tin wheels! Maybe I do act like one.”
“Sometimes,” agreed Betty.
The smile that went with the word robbed her concurrence of its
sting. It was tender and understanding, expressed the world-old
superiority of her sex over the blundering male who had always
claimed mastership. There were times when Betty was a mother to
her father, times when Clint marveled at the wisdom that had found
lodgment in the soft young body of this vivid creature who was
heritor of his life and yet seemed so strangely and wonderfully alien
to it.
“Point is that I didn’t measure up to my chance and he did,” Reed
went on gloomily. “It don’t set well with me, honey. After I’d thrashed
him till he couldn’t stand, he goes right away an’ fights for you
because you’re a woman. Makes me look pretty small, I’ll say. I’d like
to take him by the hand and tell him so. But he wouldn’t have it that
way. I’ve got to play my cards the way he’s dealt ’em. Can’t say I
blame him, either.”
“No, he had a right to refuse to have anything more to do with us
after the way we’d treated him.”
“Mostly we get second chances in this life, but we don’t always,
Bess. Oh, well, no use crying over spilt milk. What’s done’s done.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Don’t worry, Dad. I did my best to get him to stay
—went down on my knees almost. But he wouldn’t. There’s
something queer about him. What is it? He acts as though he
doesn’t care what becomes of him, as though he’s let go somehow.
Did you notice that?”
“Going to the devil fast as he can, looked like to me.”
This was probably accurate enough as a summary, but it did not
explain why to Betty. She dismissed the subject for the moment,
because Ruth came into the room followed by Bridget.
The child was in her nightgown and had come to kiss them before
going to bed. She ran to her father, threw her arms around his neck,
and gave him a great bear hug. Long since she had forgotten his
harshness of the morning.
But he had neither forgotten nor forgiven himself. In the first place,
he had been unjust. The injunction against going to the barn had not
been a blanket one. It had applied only to that part of the building
where the blooded stallion was kept in a box stall. He had hurt her
feelings as a vent to his annoyance at what had taken place by the
creek a half-hour earlier. It was pretty small business, he admitted, to
take out his self-disgust on an innocent four-year-old.
He held Ruth close in his arms while Bridget waited smilingly and the
little one confided to him plans about the puppies.
“’N’ I’m gonna have Lon make me a wagon, ’n’ I’ll drive it jus’ like
Betty does the team, ’n’ I fink I’ll call the puppies Prince ’n’ Rover ’n’
Baby Fifi ’n’—’n’ everyfing,” she concluded all in a breath.
“That’ll be bully,” the father agreed, stroking the soft flaxen curls
fondly. He wondered reproachfully why it was that he could turn on
those he loved, as he had done on the child this morning. He had
never done it before with Ruth, and he resolved he never would
again.
Ruth kissed Betty good-night and went out of the room in the arms of
Bridget, held close to her ample bosom, kicking and squealing with
delight because she was being tickled in the ribs.
As soon as Betty was in her own room, alone with her thoughts and
the rest of the world shut out, her mind went back to the problem of
the boy who had so early made such shipwreck of his life. She
puzzled over this while she was preparing for bed and afterward
while she lay between the white sheets, barred squares from the
window frames checkering the moonlight on the linen. What in the
world could cause a man, educated, clean-fibered, strong, to let go
of life like that?
It could not be a woman. In spite of her youth, she knew this by
instinct. A game man did not give up because of blows dealt to him
from the outside. The surrender had to come from within. No wounds
at the hands of another can subdue the indomitable soul. Young
though she was, she knew that. Books of fiction might say the
contrary, but she had a sure conviction they were wrong. What was it
Browning said?—“...Incentives come from the soul’s self.” Well, the
converse of it must also be true.
Somewhere in this boy—she persisted in thinking of him as a boy,
perhaps because his great need so filled her with the desire to help
him—there must be a weak strain. It was not, could not be, a vile
one. She held to that steadily and surely, without any of the
passionate insistence that doubt engenders. Ragged and dusty
though he was physically, on the drift to destruction, cynically self-
condemned, he was yet essentially clean and fine, a strain of the
thoroughbred in him. That was her judgment, and she was prepared
to wager all she had on the truth of it.
Betty did not sleep. Thoughts drifted through her mind as fleecy
clouds do across a summer sky. The magnet of them was this youth
who had already drunk so deeply of life’s bitterness. He
extraordinarily stimulated her interest.
It must have been near midnight that she heard quick voices and
lifted her head to the cry of “Fire!” Sketchily she dressed and ran
downstairs. The blaze was in the lower meadow where the wheat
was gathered for the thresher. A great flame leaped skyward and
filled the night with its reflection.
One of the men from the bunkhouse was running toward the unpent
furnace. She caught up a saddle blanket from the porch and
followed. In the lurid murk figures like marionettes moved to and fro.
As she ran, she saw that there were three fires, not only one. This
surprised her, for the distance between two of them was at least one
hundred and fifty yards. It was strange that in this windless night a
spark had traveled so far.
The roar of the conflagration reminded her of some huge living
monster in a fury. Tongues of flame shot heavenward in vain menace
to the stars.
“Stand back!” Forbes shouted at her. “All we can do is see it don’t
spread.” He was flailing at a line of fire beginning to run in the dry
stubble.
“How did it start?” she asked breathlessly.
“Fire-bugs.”
“You mean—on purpose?”
“Yep.”
“The tramps?”
“I ain’t sayin’ who.” He shouted to make his voice heard above the
crackle of the bellowing red demon that had been set loose. Already
he spoke hoarsely from a throat roughened by smoke.
“Where’s Dad?” she called back.
“Don’t know. Ain’t seen him since I left the house.” Dusty gave
information. “Saw him runnin’ toward the creek awhile ago.”
Almost instantly Betty knew why. He, too, must have guessed that
this fire had come from no chance spark, but of set design. No doubt
he was trying to head off the incendiary.
“Just which way?” she asked the cowpuncher.
Dusty jerked a thumb to the left. The girl turned and moved swiftly in
the direction of the fringe of bushes that rose as a vague line out of
the darkness. She believed her father’s instinct was true. Whoever
had fired the stacks would retreat to the willows and make his
escape along the creek bed, hiding in the bushes if the pursuit grew
close.
Before she had taken a dozen steps a sound leaped into the night. It
was a revolver shot. Fear choked her. She began to run, her heart
throbbing like that of a half-grown wild rabbit in the hand. Faint futile
little cries broke from her throat. A sure intuition told her what she
would find by the creek.
Her father lay on a sand spit close to the willows. He was dragging
himself toward the cover of some brush. From the heavy foliage a
shot rang out.
Betty flew across the open to her father.
“Look out!” he called sharply to her. “He’s in the willows. Down here.”
Reed caught at her arm and pulled her behind him where he lay
crouched.
The automatic of the man in ambush barked again. A spatter of sand
stung Betty’s face. Almost simultaneously came the bull roar of the
foreman’s hoarse voice.
“You’re shot, Daddy,” the girl whimpered.
“Keep still!” he ordered.
A heavy body crashed through the bushes in flight. At the same time
came the thump of running feet. Dusty broke into sight, followed by
the foreman.
The wounded rancher took command. “He went that way, boys,” he
said, and pointed down the creek. “Lit out a minute ago. Hustle back
to the house and get guns, then cut down the road in the car and
head him off.”
Forbes nodded to Dusty. “You do that. Take the boys with you. Hit
the creek at the ford and work up.” He turned to his employer. “How
about it, Clint? Where’d he hit you? How bad?”
“In the leg. It’ll wait. You get him, Lon.”
The foreman pushed into the willows and disappeared.
Reed called him back, but he paid no attention. The ranchman
fumed. “What’s the matter with the dawg-goned old idiot? No sense
a-tall. That’s no way to do. He’ll get shot first thing he knows.”
Her father was so much his usual self that Betty’s terror fell away
from her. If he were wounded fatally, he would not act like this.
He had been hit just above the top of his laced boots. Betty
uncovered the wound and bathed it with water she brought from the
creek in Clint’s hat. Around the wound she bound a large
handkerchief she found in his hip pocket.
“Does it hurt much?” she asked, her soft voice mothering him.
“Some. Know I’ve got a leg. Lucky for me you came along. It must ’a’
scared him off. You an’ Lon too.”
“See who he was?”
“Too dark.”
“Think it was the tramps? Or Jake Prowers?”
“The tramps. Not the way Jake pulls off a job. He’s no bungler.”
She sat down and put his head in her lap. “Anything else I can do,
Dad? Want a drink?” she asked anxiously.
Reed caught her little hand and pressed it. “Sho! Don’t you go to
worryin’ about me, sweetheart. Doc Rayburn, he’ll fix me up good as
new. When Lon comes back I’ll have him—”
He stopped. A rough voice was speaking. A foot struck a stone.
Vague figures emerged from the gloom, took on distinctness. The big
one was Lon Forbes. He walked behind a man who was his prisoner,
his great hands clamped to the fellow’s arms.
Betty stood up and waited, her eyes fastened on them as they
moved forward. Her heart was going like a triphammer. She knew
what she dreaded, and presently that her apprehensions were
justified.
The foreman’s prisoner was the tramp who called himself Tug.
 CHAPTER X
“ONE SQUARE GUY”

From Betty’s cheeks the delicate wild-rose bloom had fled. Icy
fingers seemed to clutch at her heart and squeeze the blood from it.
This was the worst that could happen, since she knew her father was
not wounded to death.
Lon spoke, grimly. “Bumped into him down the creek a ways—hidin’
in the willows. Heard a rustling an’ drapped in on him onexpected.
Thought he wouldn’t come with me at first, then he changed his mind
an’ thought he would.”
The tramp said nothing. His dogged eyes passed from Betty to her
father. She thought there leaped into them a little flicker of surprise
when they fell upon the ranchman sitting on the ground with his leg
bound up.
“Have you taken his gun from him?” Reed asked.
“Couldn’t find it. He must ’a’ throwed it away.” The foreman passed
an exploring hand over the body of the prisoner to make sure that he
had not missed a concealed weapon. “No, sir. He ain’t got a gat with
him now, unless he’s et it.”
“Take him to the bunkhouse and keep him guarded. We’ll ’phone for
the sheriff. Soon as you get to the house call up Doc Rayburn and
have him run right out. Then hook up a team and come get me,” the
ranch-owner directed.
From the fog of Betty’s distress a small voice projected itself. “You’re
not going to send for the sheriff without making sure, Dad?”
“Sure of what?” The steel-gray eyes were hard and cold.
“Sure he did it. He hasn’t said so.”
Reed’s laughter was harsh and without humor. “Nor he ain’t liable to.
Right now he’s trying to fix up his alibi.”
“Aren’t you going to hear what he’s got to say?”
“He can tell it in court.”
Betty turned from him to the prisoner. “Why don’t you say
something?”
She did not get past the defense of his sardonic smile. “What shall I
say?”
“Tell him you didn’t do it,” she begged, seeking assurance for herself.
“Would he believe me? Would you?”
There came to her a conviction that she would—if he said it in a way
to inspire confidence.
“Yes,” she said.
The veil of irrision lifted from his eyes. He looked straight at her. “I
didn’t do it.”
Instantly Betty knew he was telling the truth. A warm resurgent wave
flooded her veins. His life was bound up with tragedy. It had failed of
all it had set out to be. But she knew, beyond doubt or evidence, that
he had not fired the stacks or shot her father. The amazing thing
now, to her mind, was that even for a moment she could have
believed he would kill at advantage in cold blood.
“I knew it! I knew it all the time!” she cried.
“How did you know all that?” her father asked.
“Because.”
It was no answer, yet it was as good as any she could give. How
could she phrase a feeling that rested only on faith in such a way as
to give it weight to others?
“I’m one o’ these Missouri guys,” the foreman snorted. “He’ll have to
show me. What’s he doin’ here? What was he hidin’ out in the
bushes for? How could he tell soon as I jumped him that a man had
been shot?”
“He can explain that,” she urged; and to the vagrant, “Can’t you?”
“I can,” he answered her.
“We’re waiting,” snapped Reed, and voice and manner showed that
he had prejudged the case.
The young man met his look with one of cold hostility.
“You can keep on waiting—till the sheriff comes.”
“Suits me,” snapped the ranchman. “Hustle along, Lon. No use
wasting time.”
The foreman and his prisoner departed. Betty stayed with her father,
miserably conscious that she had failed to avert the clash of inimical
temperaments. None the less she was determined to keep the young
man out of the hands of the law.
She began at once to lay siege to her father.
“I knew he didn’t do it. I knew he couldn’t. It was that one they call
Cig. I know it was.”
“All three of ’em in it likely.”
“No. They had quarreled. He wouldn’t be in it with them. That Cig
thought he had told you about his attacking me. He threatened this
Tug. I think he’d have shot him just as he did you—if he’d got a
chance.”
“If he did shoot me. That’s not been proved.”
“Well, if this one—the one they call Tug—if he did it, why didn’t he
have a gun when Lon found him? Lon says he came on him
unexpectedly. He had no time to get rid of it. Where is it?”
“Maybe he dropped it while he was running.”
“You know you don’t believe that, Dad,” she scoffed. “He’d have
stopped to pick it up. Don’t you see he had to have that gun—the
man that shot you did—to make sure of getting away? And when
Lon found him he would have killed Lon, too. He’d have had to do it
—to save himself from the hangman. The fact that this Tug didn’t
have a gun proves that he didn’t shoot you.”
“Say he didn’t, then. Does it prove he wasn’t in cahoots with the man
who did? What was he hiding here on the ground for?”
“You didn’t give him a chance to tell. He was ready to, if you’d let
him.”
“I asked him, didn’t I?”
“Oh, Dad, you know how you asked him,” she reproached. “He’s got
his pride, same as we have. If he wasn’t in this—and I know he
wasn’t—you can’t blame him for getting stubborn when he’s
badgered. His explanations would have tumbled out fast enough if
he’d been guilty.”
This struck Reed as psychologically true. The fellow had not acted
like a guilty man. He had held his head high, with a scornful and
almost indifferent pride.
“What did I say, for him to get his back up so quick?” the ranchman
grumbled.
“It’s the way you said it, and the way Lon acted. He’s quick-
tempered, and of course he’s fed up with our treatment of him.
Wouldn’t you be?”
“What right has he to travel with a bunch of crooks if he doesn’t
expect to be classed as one?”
“Well, he hasn’t.” Betty put her arms round his neck with a warm
rush of feeling. Motives are usually mixed in the most simple of us.
Perhaps in the back of her mind there was an intuition that the road
to her desire lay through affection and not argument. “I can’t row with
you now, Daddikins, when you’re wounded and hurt. I’m so worried
about you. I thought—a while ago—when I saw you lying on the
ground and that murderer shooting at you—”
She stopped, to steady a voice grown tremulous in spite of herself.
He stroked her black hair softly.
“I know, li’l’ girl. But it’s all right now. Just a clean flesh wound. Don’t
you feel bad,” he comforted.
“And then that boy. I don’t want us to rush into doing anything that
will hurt the poor fellow more. We’ve done enough to him. We’d feel
awf’ly bad if we got him into trouble and he wasn’t the right man.”
Reed surrendered, largely because her argument was just, but
partly, too, because of her distress. “Have it your own way, Bess. I
know you’re going to, anyhow. We’ll hear his story. If it sounds
reasonable, why—”
Her arms tightened in a quick hug and her soft cheek pressed
against his rough one. “That’s all I want, Dad. I know Clint Reed.
He’s what Dusty calls one square guy. If you listen to this tramp’s
story, he’ll get justice, and that’s all I ask for him.” She dismissed the
subject, sure in her young, instinctive wisdom that she had said
enough and that more would be too much. “Is the leg throbbing,
Daddy? Shall I run down to the creek and get water to bathe it?
Maybe that would help the pain.”
“No, you stay right here where it’s dark and quit talking. The boys
may drive that fellow back up the creek. My leg’ll be all right till
Rayburn sees it.”
“You think he’ll come back here again?” she asked, her voice a-
tremble.
“Not if he can help it, you can bet on that. But if the boys hem him in,
and he can’t break through, why, he’ll have to back-track.”
The girl’s heart began to flutter again. She had plenty of native
courage, but to lie in the darkness of the night in fear of an assassin
shook her nerves. What would he do if he came back, hard-pressed
by the men, and found her father lying wounded and defenseless? In
imagination she saw again the horrible menace of his twisted face,
the lifted lip so feral, the wolfish, hungry eyes.
Would Lon Forbes never come back? What was he doing? What
was keeping him so long? He had had time long since to have
reached the house and hitched a team. Maybe he was wasting
precious minutes at the telephone trying to get the sheriff.
A dry twig crackled in the willows and Betty’s hand clutched
spasmodically at her father’s arm. She felt rather than saw his body
grow taut. There came a sound of something gliding through the
saplings.
Betty scarce dared breathe.
A patter of light feet was heard. Clint laughed.
“A rabbit. Didn’t think it could be any one in the willows. We’d ’a’
heard him coming.”
“Listen!” whispered Betty.
The rumble of wagon wheels going over disintegrated quartz drifted
to them.
“Lon’s coming,” her father said.
Presently they heard his voice talking to the horses. “Get over there,
Buckskin, you got plenty o’ room. What’s eatin’ you, anyhow?”
Forbes stopped on the bluff and came down. “Left the fellow with
Burwell tied up in the bunkhouse. Got both the sheriff and Doc
Rayburn. How’s the leg, Clint?”
Reed grunted a “’S all right,” and showed the foreman how to
support him up the incline to the wagon.
Five minutes later they were moving back toward the ranch house.
The fired stacks had burned themselves out, but smoke still rolled
skyward.
“Keller’s watchin’ to see everything’s all right there,” Forbes said. “I
don’t aim to take chances till we get the whole crop threshed.”
“Might ’a’ been worse,” Clint said. “If that fellow’d known how to go at
it, he could have sent half the crop up in smoke. We’re lucky, I’ll say.”
“Luckier than he is. I’ll bet he gets ten years,” the foreman said with
unction.
Neither father nor daughter made any answer to that prophecy.
 CHAPTER XI
MR. NE’ER-DO-WELL

Tug walked to the bunkhouse beside the foreman, the latter’s fingers
fastened like steel bands to his wrist. If Forbes said anything to his
prisoner during the tramp through the wheatfield, the young fellow
scarcely heard it. His mind was full of the girl who had defended him.
In imagination she still stood before him, slim, straight, so vitally
alive, her dark eyes begging him to deny the charge that had been
made against him.
The low voice rang in his brain. He could hear the throb in it when
she had cried, “Tell him you didn’t do it,” and the joyous lift of her
confident “I knew it—I knew it all the time.”
The vagrant’s life was insolvent in all those assets of friendship that
had once enriched it. He had deliberately bankrupted himself of them
when he had buried his identity in that of the hobo Tug, driven to it
by the shame of his swift declension. It had been many months since
any woman had clung so obstinately to a belief in him regardless of
facts. He had no immediate family, no mother or sister with an
unshakable faith that went to the heart of life.
But this girl who had crossed his path—this girl with the wild-rose
color, the sweetness that flashed so vividly in her smile, the dear
wonder of youth in every glance and gesture—believed in him and
continued to believe in spite of his churlish rejection of her
friendliness.
Though he was one of the lost legion, it was an evidence of the
divine flame still flickering in him that his soul went out to meet the
girl’s brave generosity. In his bosom was a warm glow. For the hour
at least he was strong. It seemed possible to slough the weakness
that rode him like an Old Man of the Sea.
His free hand groped its way to an inner pocket and drew out a
package wrapped in cotton cloth. A fling of his arm sent it into the
stubble.
“What you doin’?” demanded Forbes.
“Throwing away my gun and ammunition,” the tramp answered, his
sardonic mouth twitching.
“It don’t buy you anything to pull that funny stuff,” growled the
foreman. “You ain’t got a gun to throw away.”
Forbes turned the captured vagrant over to Burwell, one of the extra
harvest hands, and left him at the bunkhouse while he went to
telephone the doctor and the sheriff.
It was a busy night at the Diamond Bar K. The foreman drove away
and presently returned. Tug heard the voices of Betty and her father
as they moved toward the house. Some one chugged up to the
house in a car with one spark plug fouled or broken.
Burwell went to the door of the bunkhouse.
“Get ’em, Dusty?” he asked.
“Not yet,” the cowpuncher answered while he was loosening the
plug. “But, y’betcha, we’ll get ’em if this bird we done got caged
didn’t play a lone hand.”
Presently Dusty drove away again, in a hurry to rejoin his
companions. He had come back to find out whether anything new
had been discovered.
The foreman showed up in the doorway. “The boss wants to have a
talk with you, young fellow,” he said.
Betty would have known without any explanation that the prisoner
had no intention of running away. But Lon had no perception of this.
He did not release his grip until the tramp was in the living-room.
The owner of the Diamond Bar K lay on a lounge and Betty was
hovering close to him as nurses do in their ministrations.
Reed spoke at once. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, young man. Put
your cards on the table if you’re in the clear. Come through clean.
What do you know about this business?” The rancher’s voice was
crisp, but not unfriendly.
Tug sensed at once a change in attitude toward him. He had come
expecting to be put through the third degree. It was possible that was
being held in reserve for him. His mind moved cautiously to meet
Reed.
“What do you mean come clean—confess?” he asked.
“Call it what you want to. You claim you didn’t shoot me—that you
weren’t in to-night’s job at all. Let’s hear your alibi.”
“If you’d care to tell it to us,” Betty suggested gently.
The vagrant looked at her. “Why not? I don’t fire wheatfields and I
don’t shoot from ambush.”
“All right. Let’s have it,” the wounded man said impatiently.
“When I left the ranch yesterday, I went to Wild Horse and camped a
mile or so out of town. I didn’t care to meet the fellows I’d been with.
They blamed me for having them hauled back to the ranch here—
thought I’d hurried back to squeal on them. But I was looking for
work and I wasn’t going to run away from them. About noon I
tramped it into town to see about getting a job. I saw this Cig in a
store. He was buying a gun and ammunition for it. He didn’t see me,
so I passed by. Later I went back to the store and made sure, by
asking the clerk, that Cig had bought the gun.”
Betty broke in eagerly. “And you thought he meant to kill Father. So
you followed him out here to-night,” she cried.
“Not quite,” the tramp answered with an edge of cold anger in his
voice. “I wouldn’t have lifted a finger for your father. He brought it on
himself. He could look out for himself. I don’t know what he did to Cig
yesterday afternoon, but I know it was plenty. What would he expect
from a fellow like Cig after he’d treated him that way? He’s
dangerous as a trapped wolf and just about as responsible morally.”
“Very well. Say I brought this fellow and his gun on me by giving him
what was coming to him. What next?” asked Reed brusquely.
“I couldn’t get him out of my head. If I could have been sure he’d limit
his revenge to you and your foreman— But that was just it. I couldn’t.
He might lie in wait for your daughter, or he might kidnap her little
sister if he got a chance.”
“Kidnap Ruthie?” the girl broke in, all the mother in her instantly alert.
“Oh, he wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Probably not.” He turned to her with the touch of deference in voice
and manner so wholly lacking when he faced her father. “I thought of
it because the other day we were talking of the Charley Ross case,
and Cig had a good deal to say about just how a kidnapping ought to
be done. The point is that I wouldn’t trust him, after what your people
have done to him, any more than I would a rattlesnake. His mind
works that way—fills up with horrible ideas of getting even. And he’s
absolutely unmoral, far as I’ve been able to find out.”
“So you trailed him out here—on the off chance that he might hurt
Betty or Ruth. Is that it?” inquired the rancher.
“You see I can’t mind my own business,” the prisoner jeered. “You
invited me forcibly to get off your land and stay off, but I had to come
trespassing again.”
“No need to rub it in,” blurted Reed by way of apology. “I got off
wrong foot first with you. Not all my fault, though. You acted mighty
foolish yourself. Still, you’ve got a legitimate kick coming. I’ll admit
that. Sorry—if that does any good.”
He did not offer to shake hands. It was his judgment that this youth
with the somber eyes so ready to express bitter self-mockery did not
want to have anything more to do with him.
The vagrant offered no comment. His white face did not soften or its
rigidity relax. Clearly he would make no pact with the Diamond Bar
K.
Betty asked a swift question, to bridge the silence left by his rejection
of her father’s tentative acknowledgment of wrong. “How did you
know when they were coming?”
“I knew they’d come after dark, and probably to-night.” He corrected
himself at once. “I oughtn’t to say ‘they,’ for I knew York wouldn’t
come. He hasn’t the nerve.”
“You’re dead right there,” the foreman said. “All we give him was a
first-class chapping, an’ he howled like he was bein’ killed. That
other guy, now, he’s one sure-enough bad actor, if you ask me, but
he’s game.”
“So I lay in the brush near their camp,” the gay-cat explained. “York
went down to the railroad yards. He’s likely riding the rods for ’Frisco
by this time. After dark Cig started this way and I followed. When he
left the track, I trailed behind. The moon wasn’t up, and I lost him. I
knew he couldn’t be far away, so I headed for the ranch, keeping
close to the creek. For a while I didn’t see or hear anything more of
him. Just as I’d made up my mind to strike for the house, the fires
flamed up. I heard two or three shots, then some one went by me on
the run. Time for me to be going, I thought. Your Mr. Forbes was of
another opinion. He showed up just then and invited me to stay.”
Reed’s cool, shrewd eyes had not lifted from the tramp while he was
making the explanation. He was convinced that he had been told the
truth. The man had come out to do a service for his children, which
was equivalent to one for Clint himself. Again he felt the sting of self-
reproach at having played a poor part in this drama that had been
flung into the calmness of their quiet round of existence.
“Glad Lon did find you,” the wounded man responded. “I’ll go the
whole hog and tell you straight I’m right sorry for the way I’ve treated
you. That makes twice you’ve come through for me. I’ll not forget it,
Mr.——” He hesitated, waiting for the other to supply the name.
“Mr. Ne’er-do-well,” suggested the white-faced tramp, and on his
face was a grim, ironic smile.
Reed flushed. “You’ve a right to remind me of that if you want to. It’s
not the first time I’ve been a damned fool, and it likely won’t be the
last. But you can tie to this, young man.” The steel-gray eyes seized
those of the hobo and held them fast. “If ever there comes a time
when you need Clint Reed, he’ll be here waiting. Send for him, and
he’ll come. That’s a promise.”
“Will he bring along with him Dusty and Mr. Forbes and the rest of
his outfit?” Tug asked, a derisive flash in his eyes.
“Say anything you’ve a mind to. I’ll not blame you if you hold hard
feelings. I would in your place. But don’t forget the fact. If you’re ever
in trouble, Betty and I are here waiting to be called on.”
The girl slipped her hand into her father’s and gave it a quick
squeeze. It told better than words how glad she was of the thing he
was doing.
“I can count on that knock-out punch of yours, can I?” the prisoner
asked ironically.
The girl came forward impulsively, a shell-pink flag fluttering in her
cheeks. “Please don’t feel that way. We’re sorry—we truly are. We’d
love to have you give us a chance to show you how we feel.”
The hard lines on his face broke. An expression warm and tender
transformed it. He turned his back on the others and spoke for her
ears alone.
“An angel from heaven couldn’t do more for me than you’ve done,
Miss Reed. I’ll always remember it—always. If it’s any comfort for
you to know it, be sure one scamp will never forget the girl who out
of her infinite kindness stretched down a hand to him when he was
sinking in the mud.”
“But won’t you take the hand?” she whispered, all eager desire to
help. “It’s not a very strong one, I’m afraid, but it’s ever so willing.”
He took it, literally, and looked down at it where it lay in his. “I’m
taking it, you see. Don’t blame yourself if it can’t pull the scalawag
out of the mire. Facilis descensus Averni, you know.”
“Is your trouble so far beyond help?” she murmured, and in her eyes
he read the leap of her sweet and gallant soul toward him. “I can’t
believe it. Surely there can’t be any sorrow or distress that friendship
won’t lighten. If you’ll let me in where you are—if you won’t shut me
out by freezing yourself up—”
The honk of an automobile horn had drawn Forbes to the window,
from which point of observation he was reporting progress to his
employer.
“Reckon it’s the sheriff an’ Doc Rayburn.... Yep. They’re gettin’ outa
the car an’ comin’ in.” He turned to Reed. “What about this fellow
here? What’s the play we’re makin’ to Daniels?”
“That he came to warn us, but got here too late. I’ll do the talking,
Lon.”
A fat little man with a medicine case in his hand bustled into the
room. At his heels moved a big blond cattleman whose faded blue
eyes were set in a face of brown leather.
“What’s the trouble? What’s the trouble?” fumed the doctor. It was
his habit of mind and manner to effervesce.
“Some tramps set fire to my wheat and shot me up, Doc. Nothing
worth putting in the papers, I reckon,” answered the ranchman
easily.
“Let’s see about that. Let’s see,” the doctor said with his little touch
of pomposity.
He stripped his automobile gloves for action.
 CHAPTER XII
“IS THIS BIRD A PRISONER, OR AIN’T HE?”

While Dr. Rayburn, with Betty and Forbes to wait upon him, made
preparations to dress the wound, Sheriff Daniels listened to the story
of the ranchman. The officer was a hard-headed Westerner who
applied common sense to the business of maintaining law and order.
“Looks like that tramp Cig did it, unless this young fellow is passing
the buck for an alibi,” he said in a low voice.
Reed shook his head. “No, Frank. This boy’s all right. I thought at
first he might be in it, but I know now he wasn’t. He helped my girl
out of a hole yesterday—licked this Cig because he got fresh with
Bess. Even before that he had parted company with the other two.
You’ll go to barkin’ up the wrong tree if you suspect him.”
The sheriff looked at Tug. The vagrant was standing beside the
piano glancing at the music piled on top of it. Ragged, dusty, and
unshaven, he was not a prepossessing youth. Livid and purple
bruises ridged his pallid cheeks. Daniels found in the face something
not quite normal, and, since he was a clean outdoor man himself, an
unhealthy variation from the usual stirred in him a slight feeling of
distrust.
“By yore way of it, Clint, you beat up this hobo here for trespassing
on yore land. I’d say from the looks of him you gave him a plenty.
Does it look reasonable to you that he’d trail the other hobo for miles
to protect you from him?”
“Not to protect me, Frank. He gave it to me straight it wasn’t for me.
’Seems he got to worryin’ about what this Cig might do to the
children. The fellow had been talkin’ about kidnapping and how easy
it could be pulled off. So this one—Tug he calls himself—followed
Cig here. Looks reasonable to me. He’s game. You’d ought to have