{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,2]],"date-time":"2026-05-02T06:37:04Z","timestamp":1777703824186,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,23]],"date-time":"2017-05-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1495497600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Journal of Intelligent &amp; Fuzzy Systems"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,23]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>In recent years there have been a great deal of interests in effectively extracting information from RDF repositories. However, users often experience empty answer problems (EAP) when they are not familiar with the structure or content of a RDF dataset and issue a restrictive query to the system. A solution is to allow users to incorporate fuzzy conditions into the query to make it more flexible. Although a fuzzy query is more or less satisfactory, there are still occasions when no or too few entities in a RDF dataset satisfy the query criteria with a degree more than zero, which is called a fuzzy-EAP problem. In this paper, we propose a query relaxation approach based on relative proximity relations to tackle this problem. We present a framework of fuzzy query relaxation over RDF datasets, and present query relaxation algorithms for atomic f-SPARQL queries and complex f-SPARQL queries. Moreover, this paper reports on a prototype implementation on an extension of LUBM dataset to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results show a relatively high recall as more relevant results are returned after relaxation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3233\/jifs-16675","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,26]],"date-time":"2017-05-26T14:43:24Z","timestamp":1495809804000},"page":"4145-4157","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Relaxing of flexible RDF queries: A relative proximity relation-based approach"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"32","author":[{"given":"Qiang","family":"Tong","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Software, Northeastern University, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jingwei","family":"Cheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fu","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,5,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","first-page":"144","article-title":"On the weakening of fuzzy relational queries","author":"Andreasen T.","year":"1994","unstructured":"AndreasenT. and PivertO., On the weakening of fuzzy relational queries, In Proceedings of 8th International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems (ISMIS \u201994), 1994, pp. 144\u2013153.","journal-title":"Proceedings of 8th International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems (ISMIS \u201994)"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-25957-2_5"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/11575771_18"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/11766254_4"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_6_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.fss.2008.01.007"},{"issue":"1","key":"e_1_3_2_7_2","first-page":"35","article-title":"Weakening of fuzzy relational queries: An absolute proximity relation-based approach","volume":"14","author":"Bosc P.","year":"2008","unstructured":"BoscP., HadjAliA. and PivertO., Weakening of fuzzy relational queries: An absolute proximity relation-based approach, Mathware & Soft Computing 14(1) (2008), 35\u201355.","journal-title":"Mathware & Soft Computing"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_8_2","first-page":"473","article-title":"Flexible querying for SPARQL","author":"Cal\u00ec A.","year":"2014","unstructured":"Cal\u00ecA., FrosiniR., PoulovassilisA. and WoodP.T., Flexible querying for SPARQL, In Proceedings of OTM Confederated International Conferences \u201cOn the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems\u201d (OTM 2014), 2014, pp. 473\u2013490.","journal-title":"Proceedings of OTM Confederated International Conferences \u201cOn the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems\u201d (OTM 2014)"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_9_2","first-page":"487","article-title":"f-sparql: A flexible extension of sparql","author":"Cheng J.","year":"2010","unstructured":"ChengJ., MaZ.M. and YanL., f-sparql: A flexible extension of sparql, In 21st International Conference Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA 2010), 2010, pp. 487\u2013494.","journal-title":"21st International Conference Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA 2010)"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1142\/S0218488503001941"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10844-008-0070-7"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_12_2","unstructured":"DuboisD. and PradeH. 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