On the Semantics of Linking and Importing in Modular Ontologies

Thumbnail Image
Date
2006-01-01
Authors
Bao, Jie
Caragea, Doina
Honavar, Vasant
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Authors
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Organizational Unit
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Department
Computer Science
Abstract

Modular ontology languages, such as Distributed Description Logics (DDL), E-connections and Package-based Description Logics (P-DL) offer two broad classes of approaches to connect multiple ontology modules: the use of mappings or linkings between ontology modules e.g., DDL and E-connections; and the use of importing e.g., P-DL. The major difference between the two approaches is on the usage of "foreign terms" at the syntactic level, and on the local model disjointness at the semantic level. We compare the semantics of linking in DDL and E-connections, and importing in P-DL within the Distributed First Order Logics (DFOL) framework. Our investigation shows that the domain disjointness assumption adopted by the linking approach leads to several semantic di�culties. We explore the possibility of avoiding some of these difficulties using the importing approach to linking ontology modules.

Comments
Description
Keywords
Citation
DOI
Source
Copyright
Collections