A knowledge base with modularized ontologies for eco-labeling: application for laundry detergents Da Xu, Mohamed Hedi Karray, Bernard Archimède To cite this version: Da Xu, Mohamed Hedi Karray, Bernard Archimède. A knowledge base with modularized ontologies for eco-labeling: application for laundry detergents. Computers in Industry, Elsevier, 2018, 98, pp.118- 133. 10.1016/j.compind.2018.02.013. hal-01945196 HAL Id: hal-01945196 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01945196 Submitted on 5 Dec 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Open Archive Toulouse Archive Ouverte OATAO is an open access repository that collects the work of Toulouse researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible This is an author’s version published in: http://oatao.univ-toulouse.fr/20083 To cite this version: Xu, Da and Karray, Mohamed Hedi and Archimède, Bernard A knowledge base with modularized ontologies for eco-labeling: application for laundry detergents. (2018) Computers in Industry, 98. 118-133. ISSN 0166-3615 Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the repository administrator: [email protected] A knowledge base with modularized ontologies for eco-labeling: Application for laundry detergents Da Xu, Mohamed Hedi Karray*, Bernard Archimède Laboratoire Génie de Production, LGP, Université de Toulouse, INP-ENIT, Tarbes, France A B S T R A C T Along with the rising concern of environmental performance, eco-labeling is becoming more and more popular. However, the complex process of eco-labeling is demotivating manufacturers and service fi providers to be certi cated. The knowledge contained in eco-labeling criteria documents is not semantically exploitable to computers. Traditional knowledge base in relational data model is not inter- fi operable, lacks inference support and is dif cult to be reused. In our research, we propose a Keywords: comprehensive knowledge base composed of interconnected OWL (Ontology Web Language) ontologies. Ontology engineering This ontology based knowledge base allows reasoning and semantic query. In this paper, a Ontology modularization modularization scheme about ontology development is introduced and it has been applied to EU Knowledge base Eco-label (European Union Eco-label) laundry detergent product criteria. This scheme separates entity OWL imports SWRL knowledge and rule knowledge so that the ontology modules can be reused easily in other domains. Eco-labeling Reasoning and inference based on SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) rules in favor of eco-labeling process is also presented. 1. Introduction traditional knowledge base in relational data model is not fi interoperable, lacks inference support and is dif cult to be reused. Since the late 1980s, there has been a growing demand for In order to better understand these criteria and rules, stakeholders products that do less harm to the environment. The public need a common and machine accessible presentation of the willingness to use buying power as a tool to protect the knowledge. To address such problems, in our research, we propose environment provides manufacturers with an opportunity to an ontological knowledge base composed of modularized ontol- develop new products [1]. From a global point of view, promote of ogies. This scheme has been applied to the creation of the ontology environment-friendly consumption and production will contribute knowledge base of EU Eco-label's laundry detergent products. not only to the life quality but also the economy itself. But how Due to the fact that EU Eco-label is a large and complex labeling does a consumer judge and make good choices to reduce system covering dozens of products and service groups, it is environmental impacts? How should we assess the validity of a difficult and unrealistic to cover all its products and services in the statement about a product or service's environmental impacts? research stage. Thus, we decide to choose laundry detergent The need of evaluating a product's environmental performance has products group which has a middle size knowledge volume to be led to the establishment of eco-labels. Nowadays, most of the our study case. The rest of the paper will follow this Outline: The fi knowledge and criteria about eco-labeled products are published rst section presents a state of the art of eco-labeling and fi in of cial journals, web pages, and all kinds of documentation. modularized ontology; in Section 3, an overview of the criteria Usually, this knowledge is presented in such complex regulation document and requirement analysis is presented; The third section fi fi and speci cation documents that it is dif cult to be understood talks about how the terminology of ontology is retrieved; Section 5 even by humans. The integration of this knowledge into software presents detailed design and construction of the ontology. In requires that it must be exploitable to machines. However, until particular, an entity-rule separation pattern is introduced. Basic now, there is still a lack of computable format of that. Besides, idea of this separation is to put descriptive entity knowledge and subjective rule knowledge into different modules. This pattern is proven to be in favor of modularity and extendability, especially for ’ the rule module. It can also be applied to the other product groups * Corresponding author. ontology building and even other similar criteria-like document's E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D. Xu), [email protected] (M.H. Karray), fi [email protected] (B. Archimède). knowledge extraction; the fth section is about how to utilize fi reasoner to do the reasoning upon the ontology knowledge base ontology is a formal, explicit speci cation of a shared conceptuali- and the argumentation, which is very important to eco-labeling zation”. Today, so many ontologies and knowledge repositories decision support process; in Section 7, we have a brief evaluation have been developed and adapted into applications, especially in and analysis for the ontology; Section 8 is about some discussion of biomedical domains [9]. Successful examples and platforms are 2 3 4 experience feedback, and learned lessons. Finally, in the last BioPortal, UniProt, LEO, etc. section, we have conclusion, discussion and future work. Despite quite amount of ontologies of different domains are developed, a lot of problems are encountered when knowledge 2. State of art engineers as well as general users want to understand and reuse the ontologies into their own development. As for the application fi 2.1. Eco-label and EU Eco-label of ontology, there is de nite need to gather knowledge from multiple remote ontological sources. It is known that, when 1 “ According to Global Eco-labelling Network (GEN), eco- knowledge is distributed, the idea to collect all knowledge and put labelling” is a voluntary method of environmental performance them into a single repository (i.e. the integration approach) is very certification and labelling that is practiced around the world. An difficult to implement, because of semantic heterogeneity calling fi “eco-label” is a label that identi es overall proven environmental for human processing [10]. Another very important reason is the fi preference of a product or service within a speci c product/service low reusable design of these ontologies. Good ontology design category. They usually concern the whole life cycle of the product pattern has drawn the attention of many researchers. In [11] and and are issued by a third party [2]. Eco-labeling has a number of [12], a method to describe ontology design pattern is presented. A fi 5 bene ts from various points of view. First, eco-labeling is a good Semantic Web portal called OntologyDesignPatterns.org is also way to inform consumers of the environmental impacts of selected available. However, most of the submitted patterns are cataloged fi products. In the practice of some existent eco-labeling, the tness in Content Ontology Design Patterns which means that the of use and human health aspects are also included. All this patterns themselves may contain certain semantics and domain information will help a consumer make decision out of different knowledge, which may still set obstacles to ontology reuse. Also, ’ willingness. Then, eco-labeling is generally cheaper than regula- most of these patterns structure is hard to be modularized and fi tory controls in terms of global economics. By empowering very few of them care about modularity in a speci c way. Thus, customers and manufacturers to make environmentally support- better engineering principle and philosophy about ontology ive decisions, the need for regulation is kept to a minimum. This is modularity is needed. beneficial to both government and industry [3]. Eco-labeling will Generally speaking, there are two important aspects of also stimulate market development and encourage continuous ontology modularization: independently developing modules that improvement on products and services. can be integrated coherently and uniformly (ontology composi- EU Eco-label is a successful example among all the eco-labels. tion) or extracting such modules from an integrated ontology for fi Created in 1992, EU Eco-label is the only of cial European supporting a particular use cases (ontology decomposition) [9]. fi ecological label authorized for use in every member country of Most of our research focus on the rst aspect and we emphasize the European Union [4]. Until 2011, there are over 1300 enterprises more on reusing, inference and change management of ontology that have been issued EU Eco-label licenses.