=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2721/paper528
|storemode=property
|title=Modular Ontology Modeling Meets Upper Ontologies: The Upper Ontology Alignment Tool
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2721/paper528.pdf
|volume=Vol-2721
|authors=Abhilekha Dalal,Cogan Shimizu,Pascal Hitzler
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/semweb/DalalSH20
}}
==Modular Ontology Modeling Meets Upper Ontologies: The Upper Ontology Alignment Tool==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2721/paper528.pdf
Modular Ontology Modeling Meets Upper
Ontologies: The Upper Ontology Alignment Tool
Abhilekha Dalal , Cogan Shimizu, and Pascal Hitzler
Data Semantics Lab, Kansas State University, USA
{adalal,coganmshimizu,hitzler}@ksu.edu
Abstract. We provide an extension to the Protégé-based modular on-
tology engineering tool CoModIDE, in order to make it possible for ontol-
ogy engineers to adhere to traditional ontology modeling processes based
on upper or foundational ontologies. As a bridge between the more re-
cently proposed modular ontology modeling approach and more classical
ones based on foundational ontologies, it enables a best-of-both worlds
approach for ontology engineering.
1 Motivation
Ontology modeling has become a primary approach to schema generation for
data integration and knowledge graphs, in many application areas (e.g., [10,13].
The quest for efficient approaches to model useful and re-useable ontologies has
over the years led to different proposals for ontology creation processes and
tooling.
One of the most classic approaches is based on so-called upper or foundational
ontologies [1,6,12]. Central to this paradigm is to utilize ontologies that are
generic and/or large and as such cover a wide swath of domains, such as BFO [1],
DOLCE [2], SUMO [5].1 In this approach to modeling, a new (domain) ontology
is created in accordance with the mindset or structure conveyed by these upper or
foundational ontologies. Technically, alignment of the domain ontology classes
and relations to the upper/foundational ontology entities – meaning creating
appropriate sub-class and sub-property relationships so that relevant structure
and/or axioms are inherited – play a prominent role.
Another, more recent approach to ontology modeling is based on an appar-
ently quite different mindset: Modular ontology modeling [9] is based on the idea
that an ontology may best be viewed as a collection of interconnected modules,
each of which correspond to a key notion according to the terminology used by
a domain expert. The approach is related to other recent proposals to approach
ontology modeling in a divide and conquer fashion [7,11] and is a refinement
0
Copyright c 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Com-
mons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
1
There are many others, of course; in a sense e.g. schema.org [4] is such an ontology.
2 Dalal, A., Shimizu, C., and Hitzler, P.
of the eXtreme Ontology Design methodology [8] based on Ontology Design
Patterns [3]. In its original conception, and the corresponding tooling, in partic-
ular the CoModIDE Protégé plug-in [9], the approach de-emphasizes sub-class
and sub-property relationships, and in particular does not account for upper or
foundational ontologies.
However, it has been argued that there are advantages to either paradigm,
which begs the question of whether they are compatible. In order to indeed show
that they are, i.e. that it is possible to utilize a combination of both approaches
depending on use-case requirements or the preferences of the ontology engineer,
we have developed an extension of the CoModIDE tool which incorporates the
specification of alignments with upper or foundational ontologies (or, in fact, any
ontology). This enables an engineer to pick the best of both worlds. It has been
developed keeping domain-level ontology developers or organizations dealing in
ontology development in mind, which may get help in minimizing the tooling
gap in order to unite paradigms and develop strong, flexible ontologies suitable
to their needs.
2 Implementation Details
The Upper Ontology Alignment (UOA) tool is a view for Protégé.2 The view’s
functionality, however, is dependent on CoModIDE (the comprehensive mod-
ular ontology design IDE), which is also a plug-in for Protégé, as it directly
extends CoModIDE’s functionality. CoModIDE is an interface for directly au-
thoring ontologies by drawing a schema diagram on a graphical canvas. Classes
are represented as cells and properties are represented as edges.
The UOA view allows a user to load an ontology – which may be an upper
or foundational ontology – directly into the view (which is kept isolated from
the ontology active in Protégé). The view extracts all of the classes and proper-
ties (excluding annotation properties) from the loaded ontology. The user then
selects classes (cells) or object/data properties (edges) on the graphical canvas.
The UOA tool then displays the pertinent entities depending on which glyph
is selected on the graphical canvas. Figure 1 shows the view’s interface when a
class has been selected on the graphical canvas. By selecting, or un-selecting,
the checkboxes next to these entities, the view will automatically construct and
add the pertinent SubClass or SubProperty axioms to the ontology. CoModIDE
detects these additions and will display the added relationships.
In addition, the view provides some supporting functionality for ease and
clarity of use: the view will display the currently selected entity, automatically
select checkboxes for axioms that are already present in the ontology (e.g. if
some entity is already a subclass of the Perdurant class, that particular checkbox
will be selected), allows for different ontologies to be loaded (i.e. a user is not
limited to a single upper ontology), and provides descriptive logging in the case
of failure.
2
See https://protege.stanford.edu.
The Upper Ontology Alignment Tool 3
Fig. 1. Checklist for classes when a “cell” is selected in the graphical canvas.
Information on the implementation, installation, and use of these tools (in-
cluding CoModIDE) can be found in our online portal.3
3 Demonstration
The anticipated demonstration consists of a walk-through of the entire process
as the aim is to adapt the traditional approach of building ontology with mod-
ular ontology modeling. For the purpose of this demonstration, we are going
to align the modular ontology model with an upper-level ontology GFO (Gen-
eral Formal Ontology). GFO is an upper-level ontology, designed such that it
should be capable to describe upper-level categories that are common to do-
main ontologies explained by scientists in varying disciplines. We will start by
having any pattern from the CoModIDE pattern library. GFO.owl file will be
uploaded; we will prepare some other example OWL files as well, but an at-
tendee may suggest their own. Then, we will demonstrate the steps for us-
ing the Upper Alignment Tool for “aligning” classes and properties present in
the active ontology.Re-loading of ontology will be shown by uploading differ-
ent ontology other than GFO. The material used for this demonstration can
be found at the demo webpage at https://daselab.cs.ksu.edu/content/
upper-alignment-tool-demonstration-iswc-pd-2020.
3
See http://daselab.org/content/modular-ontology-engineering-portal.
4 Dalal, A., Shimizu, C., and Hitzler, P.
4 Conclusion and Future Work
The Upper Alignment Tool provides the ontology engineer with the option of
combining modular ontology modeling with modeling approaches based on up-
per/foundational ontologies. Possible extensions of this work include automa-
tization or semi-automatization of upper alignments, provisions of more com-
plex alignment capabilities beyond sub-classes or sub-properties, enhancement
of namespace prefixes or labels, as well as validating its usefulness in a controlled
user study.
Acknowledgement. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Com-
merce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, under award number
70NANB19H094.
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