On the Representation of Temporally Changing Information in OWL

Abstract

An important challenge in the Knowledge Representation area is on representing and reasoning over temporally changing information. Particularly, a number of authors have been investigating approaches to extend the expressivity beyond what is currently supported by the DL (Description Logics) based languages in order to address this issue, while maintaining compatibility with subclasses of DLs adopted in the Semantic Web. This is mainly due to the increasing popularity of the Semantic Web initiative as well as the role played by DL in that context. In this paper we defend the need of a higher-level foundational framework based on results coming from the discipline of Formal Ontology. We present two complementary proposals for modeling temporally changing information in OWL, based on the most discussed strategy in the literature to address this problem, namely, the use of a perdurantist (or 4D) view of domain entities. Moreover we compare the results with some related work and discuss its limitations and further improvements.

Towards Better Semantics for Services in eHealth Standards: A Reference Ontology Approach

“…The use of the well-founded OntoUML profile for modelling UFO-S leverages the conceptual distinctions in UFO as well as the tool support already developed for OntoUML; This includes formal verification of the model (guaranteeing that the models put forth here are compliant with the UFO ontological constraints), validation of the model via visual simulation (relying on an OntoUML infrastructure developed on top of the Alloy Analyzer [3]) as well as the systematic implementation of UFO-S in computational level languages such as OWL [40]. In order to ensure precision of interpretation, we add axioms in firstorder logic to the UFO-S OntoUML models as a means to reflect the relevant constraints that are not directly implied by the OntoUML models (these are omitted here; the reader can refer to [31] for further details on the axiomatization of UFO-S).…”

“…Computational ontologies could then be generated from reference ontologies in order to support ontology-aware implementations and interoperability formats (see, e.g., the approach in [40]). An immediate benefit of this approach is that the computational ontologies are structured following the principles that guide the engineering of reference ontologies (such as clarity and precision).…”

Towards a Commitment-Based Reference Ontology for Services

“…The most salient differences between UFO-S and such previous works are: (i) the adoption of OntoUML, and (ii) the grounding in UFO (instead of DOLCE). With respect to the former, OntoUML offers well-founded modeling capabilities that are associated to a number of tools (e.g., model verification and simulation [43] and generation of OWL implementations [44]). Regarding the latter, we highlight the use of the social and intentional distinctions underlying UFO-C, and that, besides offering a hierarchy of individuals, UFO (in contrast to DOLCE) also offers a hierarchy of universals, which contributes, among others, to the definition of types required in our account (e.g.…”

“…Our use of the well-founded OntoUML profile for modeling UFO-S leverages the conceptual distinctions in UFO as well as the tool support already developed for OntoUML; This includes formal verification of the model (guaranteeing that the models put forth here are compliant with the UFO ontological constraints), validation of the model via visual simulation (relying on an OntoUML infrastructure developed on top of the Alloy Analyzer [43]) as well as the systematic implementation of UFO-S in computational level languages such as OWL [44].…”

Improving Model Quality Through Foundational Ontologies: Two Contrasting Approaches to the Representation of Roles

“…In contrast, a perdurantist approach such as BORO considers all particulars as having a temporal as well as a spatial extent, often referred to as 4D (e.g. [3,4,5,6]). …”