Using Partial Automorphisms to Design Process Ontologies

摘要

Process ontologies play key roles in semantic integration and decision support systems for applications in manufacturing, enterprise modeling and ecommerce. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the design and verification of domain-specific process ontologies that are extensions of generic process ontologies. This allows us to evaluate the correctness of process ontologies with respect to the class of intended models for their respective domains. Our approach is based on the correspondence between the effects of activities in the process ontology and the partial automorphisms of models of the underlying domain ontology. We then investigate in detail the process ontology for the domain of chains (sets of disjoint linear orderings) using this methodology.