Seminars: Prof. Diego Calvanese - Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. - June, 30 2026 – 5:00 PM (CEST)
Gabriella Cortellessa
[* Apologies in case of multiple posting *]
The Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence is pleased to announce the next seminar of its Spotlight Seminars on AI initiative:
Date and Time: June, 30 2026 – 5:00 PM (CEST)
Online attendance: The seminars will be held virtually on the YouTube channel of the Association (https://www.youtube.com/c/AIxIAit),
Title: Lightweight Description Logics with Heavyweight Impact
Speaker: Prof. Diego Calvanese - Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
Abstract: Since the mid-2000s, research in knowledge representation has focused on identifying ontology languages that are expressive enough to model complex real-world domains, yet simple enough to support efficient automated reasoning. Two families of such languages, known as DL-Lite and EL, have played a central role in this development. Both are Description Logics, which provide the logical foundations for OWL 2, the W3C standard ontology language, and offer different, carefully tuned ways of making reasoning scalable. DL-Lite was designed to support efficient ontology-mediated query answering over large data and (virtual) knowledge graphs, by relying on query-rewriting techniques. EL, on the other hand, supports consequence-based reasoning with polynomial-time complexity, a feature that has proven crucial for handling large-scale biomedical ontologies and knowledge graphs, such as SNOMED CT. Over the past two decades, DL-Lite and EL have shaped research in Description Logics, with a profound impact in both theory and practice. They have triggered extensive investigations of the trade-off between expressive power and complexity of inference across a wide range of reasoning tasks beyond satisfiability and query answering. They have also influenced the design of practical ontology languages, providing the basis for the QL and EL profiles of OWL 2, and supporting applications in biomedical knowledge representation, ontology-based data access, data integration, and the semantic enrichment of knowledge graphs. In this talk, we revisit the theoretical foundations of these logics, examine their role in defining tractable fragments of Description Logics, and discuss how their principles continue to influence research and applications at the intersection of ontologies, knowledge graphs, and scalable AI reasoning.
Bio: Diego Calvanese is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (unibz), Italy, where he serves as Head of the Institute of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. He carries out foundational and applied research in Artificial Intelligence and Databases, with a focus on Virtual Knowledge Graphs for data management and integration, Semantic Technologies, and Data-aware Processes, and his research is widely cited. He has been Program Chair of PODS 2015, General Chair of ESSLLI in 2016 and 2021, Program co-Chair of KR 2020, and Program Chair of IJCAI-ECAI 2026. He is a Fellow of ACM, EurAI, and AAIA. From 2020 to 2024, he was a Wallenberg Guest Professor in Artificial Intelligence for Data Management at Umeå University, Sweden. He is also the co-founder and past President of Ontopic, the first spin-off company of unibz, developing cutting-edge technologies and solutions for data management and integration, which was established in 2019 and acquired by Digital Science in 2026.
AIXIA spotlight seminars: The seminar series aims to illustrate, explore and discuss current scientific challenges, trends, and possibilities in all branches of our articulated research field. The seminars will be held virtually on the YouTube channel of the Association (https://www.youtube.com/c/AIxIAit), every month (and made permanently available on that channel), by leading Italian researchers as well as by top international scientists.
The seminars are mainly aimed at a broad audience interested in AI research, and they are also included in the Italian PhD programme in Artificial Intelligence; indeed, AIxIA warmly encourages the attendance of young scientists and PhD students.
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The Spotlight Seminars on AI Committee,
Giuseppe De Giacomo
Antonio Lieto
Luciano Serafini