From top-level to domain ontologies: ecosystem classifications as a case study

Authors:
Thomas Bittner
Affiliations:
Department of Philosophy, Department of Geography, New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, State Universit ...
Venue:
COSIT'07 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Spatial information theory
Year:
2007

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Abstract

This paper shows how to use a top-level ontology to create robust and logically coherent domain ontology in a way that facilitates computational implementation and interoperability. It uses a domain ontology of ecosystem classification and delineation outlined informally Bailey's paper on 'Delineation of Ecoregions' as a running example. Baily's (from an ontological perspective) rather imprecise and ambiguous definitions are made more logically rigorous and precise by (a) restating the informal definitions formally using the top-level terms whose semantics was specified rigorously in a logic-based top-level ontology and (b) by enforcing the clear distinction of types of relations as specified at the top-level and specific relations of a given type as they occur in the ecosystem domain. In this way it becomes possible to formally distinguish a number of relations which logical interrelations are important but which have been confused and been taken to be a single relation before.