TY - GEN
T1 - Semantic Cooperation and Knowledge Reuse by Using Autonomous Ontologies
AU - Zhao, Yuting
AU - Wang, Kewen
AU - Topor, Rodney
AU - Pan, Jeff Z.
AU - Giunchiglia, Fausto
PY - 2007/12/1
Y1 - 2007/12/1
N2 - Several proposals have been put forward to support distributed agent cooperation in the Semantic Web, by allowing concepts and roles in one ontology be reused in another ontology. In general, these proposals reduce the autonomy of each ontology by defining the semantics of the ontology to depend on the semantics of the other ontologies. We propose a new framework for managing autonomy in a set of cooperating ontologies (or ontology space). In this framework, each language entity (concept/role/individual) in an ontology may have its meaning assigned either locally with respect to the semantics of its own ontology, to preserve the autonomy of the ontology, or globally with respect to the semantics of any neighbouring ontology in which it is defined, thus enabling semantic cooperation between multiple ontologies. In this way, each ontology has a "subjective semantics" based on local interpretation and a "foreign semantics" based on semantic binding to neighbouring ontologies. We study the properties of these two semantics and describe the conditions under which entailment and satisfiability are preserved. We also introduce two reasoning mechanisms under this framework: "cautious reasoning" and "brave reasoning". Cautious reasoning is done with respect to a local ontology and its neighbours (those ontologies in which its entities are defined); brave reasoning is done with respect to the transitive closure of this relationship. This framework is independent of ontology languages. As a case study, for Description Logic we present two tableau-based algorithms for performing each form of reasonings and prove their correctness.
AB - Several proposals have been put forward to support distributed agent cooperation in the Semantic Web, by allowing concepts and roles in one ontology be reused in another ontology. In general, these proposals reduce the autonomy of each ontology by defining the semantics of the ontology to depend on the semantics of the other ontologies. We propose a new framework for managing autonomy in a set of cooperating ontologies (or ontology space). In this framework, each language entity (concept/role/individual) in an ontology may have its meaning assigned either locally with respect to the semantics of its own ontology, to preserve the autonomy of the ontology, or globally with respect to the semantics of any neighbouring ontology in which it is defined, thus enabling semantic cooperation between multiple ontologies. In this way, each ontology has a "subjective semantics" based on local interpretation and a "foreign semantics" based on semantic binding to neighbouring ontologies. We study the properties of these two semantics and describe the conditions under which entailment and satisfiability are preserved. We also introduce two reasoning mechanisms under this framework: "cautious reasoning" and "brave reasoning". Cautious reasoning is done with respect to a local ontology and its neighbours (those ontologies in which its entities are defined); brave reasoning is done with respect to the transitive closure of this relationship. This framework is independent of ontology languages. As a case study, for Description Logic we present two tableau-based algorithms for performing each form of reasonings and prove their correctness.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=50049108187&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-540-76298-0_48
DO - 10.1007/978-3-540-76298-0_48
M3 - Published conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:50049108187
SN - 3540762973
SN - 9783540762973
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 666
EP - 679
BT - The Semantic Web - 6th International Semantic Web Conference - 2nd Asian Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2007 + ASWC 2007, Proceedings
A2 - Aberer, Karl
A2 - Choi, Key-Sun
A2 - Noy, Natasha
A2 - Allemang, Dean
A2 - Lee, Kyung-Il
A2 - Nixon, Lyndon
PB - Springer
T2 - 6th International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2007 and 2nd Asian Semantic Web Conference, ASWC 2007
Y2 - 11 November 2007 through 15 November 2007
ER -