Upper ontology

About: Upper ontology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9767 publications have been published within this topic receiving 220721 citations. The topic is also known as: top-level ontology & foundation ontology.

Enriching ontologies with multilingual information

Abstract: This paper presents a novel approach to ontology localization with the objective of obtaining multilingual ontologies. Within the ontology development process, ontology localization has been defined as the activity of adapting an ontology to a concrete linguistic and cultural community. Depending on the ontology layers-terminological and/or conceptual-involved in the ontology localization activity, three heterogeneous multilingual ontology metamodels have been identified, of which we propose one of them. Our proposal consists in associating the ontology metamodel to an external model for representing and structuring lexical and terminological data in different natural languages. Our model has been called Linguistic Information Repository (LIR). The main advantages of this modelling modality rely on its flexibility by allowing (1) the enrichment of any ontology element with as much linguistic information as needed by the final application, and (2) the establishment of links among linguistic elements within and across different natural languages. The LIR model has been designed as an ontology of linguistic elements and is currently available in Web Ontology Language (OWL). The set of lexical and terminological data that it provides to ontology elements enables the localization of any ontology to a certain linguistic and cultural universe. The LIR has been evaluated against the multilingual requirements of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in the framework of the NeOn project. It has proven to solve multilingual representation problems related to the establishment of well-defined relations among lexicalizations within and across languages, as well as conceptualization mismatches among different languages. Finally, we present an extension to the Ontology Metadata Vocabulary, the so-called LexOMV, with the aim of reporting on multilinguality at the ontology metadata level. By adding this contribution to the LIR model, we account for multilinguality at the three levels of an ontology: data level, knowledge representation level and metadata level.

A Semi-automatic Method to Ontology Design by Using FCA

Abstract: Ontology design is a complex and time-consuming process. It is extremely difficult for human experts to discover ontology from given data or texts. This paper presents a semi-automatic method for ontology extraction and design. The method is based on Formal Concept Analysis and a Horn clause model of a concept lattice. Inputs to the technique are domain-specific texts or data. After transformations, resulting domain-specific ontology is represented as a set of rules and facts according to Horn clause model of concept lattice based ontology representation. Ontology designer is given this initial ontology expression for further extension by adding concepts and relationships (part-of, related to, etc) by using a rule language based on Horn clauses. Validation of ontology is done by logical inference.

ERONTO: a tool for extracting ontologies from extended E/R diagrams

Abstract: Realization of Semantic Web requires structuring of web data using domain ontologies. Most data intensive websites are powered by relational databases whose design process involves developing conceptual model using E/R or Extended E/R diagrams. This paper discusses the implementation details of a tool that builds domain ontologies in OWL (Ontology Web Language) from Extended E/R diagrams. Ontology development being a knowledge intensive task, our tool would be helpful in reducing the developmental efforts by automating the process. We bring out the differences and the similarities between the expressive capabilities of the two conceptual modeling methods, namely OWL and Extended E/R diagrams.

Ontology-Driven Software Development

Abstract: This book is about a significant step forward in software development. It brings state-of-the-art ontology reasoning into mainstream software development and its languages. Ontology Driven Software Development is the essential, comprehensive resource on enabling technologies, consistency checking and process guidance for ontology-driven software development (ODSD). It demonstrates how to apply ontology reasoning in the lifecycle of software development, using current and emerging standards and technologies. You will learn new methodologies and infrastructures, additionally illustrated using detailed industrial case studies. The book will help you: Learn how ontology reasoning allows validations of structure models and key tasks in behavior models. Understand how to develop ODSD guidance engines for important software development activities, such as requirement engineering, domain modeling and process refinement. Become familiar with semantic standards, such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and the SPARQL query language. Make use of ontology reasoning, querying and justification techniques to integrate software models and to offer guidance and traceability supports. This book is helpful for undergraduate students and professionals who are interested in studying how ontologies and related semantic reasoning can be applied to the software development process. In addition, itwill also be useful for postgraduate students, professionals and researchers who are going to embark on their research in areas related to ontology or software engineering.