Granular Meta-Ontology and Extended Allen's logic: Some Theoretical Background and Application to Intelligent Product Lifecycle Management Systems

摘要

A hierarchical system of ontologies is considered, where the concepts of meta-ontology and upper ontology are of primary concern. The concept of meta-ontology is discussed; the distinction between meta-ontology and upper ontology is shown. Various methodologies for constructing formal ontologies are analyzed. There is a need for a generalized approach to ontological modeling based of Maltsev's algebraic systems is justified. Basic principles of information granulation and granular ontology construction are formulated; some formal definitions of granular meta-ontologies together with fuzzy and linguistic ontologies (based on extended linguistic variables) are introduced. An application of granular meta-ontology and upper ontology concepts to lifecycle modeling is considered in the context of building new generation product lifecycle management systems - intelligent Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. Circular and sequential lifecycle representations are constructed and interpreted as coarse-grained and fine-grained ontologies. The use of extended Allen's interval logic as an integrated parallel-sequential lifecycle ontology is suggested.