Towards ontology design patterns to model multiple classification criteria of domain concepts in the semantic web

摘要

This thesis explores a very recurrent modeling scenario in ontology design that deals with the notion of real world concepts that can be classified according to multiple criteria. Current ontology modeling guidelines do not explicitly consider this aspect in the representation of such concepts. Such void leaves ample room for ad-hoc practices that can lead to unexpected or undesired results in ontology artifacts. The aim is to identify best practices and design patterns to represent such concepts in OWL DL ontologies suitable for deployment in the Web of Data and the Semantic Web. To assist with these issues, an initial set of basic design guidelines is put forward, that mitigates the opportunity for ad-hoc modeling decisions in the development of ontologies for the problem scenario described. These guidelines relies upon an existing simplified methodology for facet analysis from the field of Library and Information Science. The outcome of this facet analysis produces a Faceted Classification Scheme (FCS) for the concept in question where in most cases a facet would correspond to a classification criterion. The Value Partition, the Class As Property Value and the Normalisation Ontology Design Patterns (ODPs) are revisited to produce an ontology representation of a FCS. A comparative analysis between a FCS and the Normalisation ODP in particular, revealed the existence of key similarities between the elements in the generic structure of both knowledge representation paradigms. These similarities allow to establish a series of mappings to transform a FCS into an OWL DL ontology that contains a valid representation of the classification criteria involved in the characterization of the domain concept. An existing FCS example in the domain of Dishwasher Detergent" and existing ontology examples in the domain of Pizza", Wine" and Fault" (in the context of a computer system) are used to illustrate the outcome of this research