FORMAL ONTOLOGY IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications FAIA covers all aspects of theoretical and applied artificial intelligence research in the form of monographs, doctoral dissertations, textbooks, handbooks and proceedings volumes. The FAIA series contains several sub-series, including “Information Modelling and Knowledge Bases” and “Knowledge-Based Intelligent Engineering Systems”. It also includes the biennial ECAI, the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, proceedings volumes, and other ECCAI – the European Coordinating Committee on Artificial Intelligence – sponsored publications. An editorial panel of internationally well-known scholars is appointed to provide a high quality selection. Series Editors: J. Breuker, R. Dieng-Kuntz, N. Guarino, J.N. Kok, J. Liu, R. López de Mántaras, R. Mizoguchi, M. Musen, S.K. Pal and N. Zhong Volume 183 Recently published in this series Vol. 182. H. Fujita and I. Zualkernan (Eds.), New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques – Proceedings of the seventh SoMeT_08 Vol. 181. A. Zgrzywa, K. Choroś and A. Siemiński (Eds.), New Trends in Multimedia and Network Information Systems Vol. 180. M. Virvou and T. Nakamura (Eds.), Knowledge-Based Software Engineering – Proceedings of the Eighth Joint Conference on Knowledge-Based Software Engineering Vol. 179. A. Cesta and N. Fakotakis (Eds.), STAIRS 2008 – Proceedings of the Fourth Starting AI Researchers’ Symposium Vol. 178. M. Ghallab et al. (Eds.), ECAI 2008 – 18th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence Vol. 177. C. Soares et al. (Eds.), Applications of Data Mining in E-Business and Finance Vol. 176. P. Zaraté et al. (Eds.), Collaborative Decision Making: Perspectives and Challenges Vol. 175. A. Briggle, K. Waelbers and P.A.E. Brey (Eds.), Current Issues in Computing and Philosophy Vol. 174. S. Borgo and L. Lesmo (Eds.), Formal Ontologies Meet Industry Vol. 173. A. Holst et al. (Eds.), Tenth Scandinavian Conference on Artificial Intelligence – SCAI 2008 Vol. 172. Ph. Besnard et al. (Eds.), Computational Models of Argument – Proceedings of COMMA 2008 Vol. 171. P. Wang et al. (Eds.), Artificial General Intelligence 2008 – Proceedings of the First AGI Conference Vol. 170. J.D. Velásquez and V. Palade, Adaptive Web Sites – A Knowledge Extraction from Web Data Approach ISSN 0922-6389 Formal Ontology in Information Systems Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference (FOIS 2008) Edited by Carola Eschenbach University of Hamburg, Germany and Michael Grüninger University of Toronto, Canada Amsterdam • Berlin • Oxford • Tokyo • Washington, DC © 2008 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-58603-923-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008936296 Publisher IOS Press Nieuwe Hemweg 6B 1013 BG Amsterdam Netherlands fax: +31 20 687 0019 e-mail: [email protected] Distributor in the UK and Ireland Distributor in the USA and Canada Gazelle Books Services Ltd. IOS Press, Inc. White Cross Mills 4502 Rachael Manor Drive Hightown Fairfax, VA 22032 Lancaster LA1 4XS USA United Kingdom fax: +1 703 323 3668 fax: +44 1524 63232 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected] LEGAL NOTICE The publisher is not responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS Formal Ontology in Information Systems v C. Eschenbach and M. Grüninger (Eds.) IOS Press, 2008 © 2008 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved. Preface Since its inception ten years ago, the International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS) has explored the multiple perspectives on the notion of ontology that have arisen from such diverse research communities as philosophy, logic, computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, and various scientific domains. As ontologies have been applied in new and exciting domains such as the World Wide Web, bioinformatics, and geographical information systems, it has become evident that there is a need for ontologies that have been developed with solid theoretical foun- dations based on philosophical, linguistic, and logical analysis. Similarly, there is also a need for theoretical research that is driven by the issues that have been raised by recent work in the more applied domains. FOIS is intended to be a forum in which to explore this interplay between the theoretical insights of formal ontology and their application to information systems and emerging semantic technologies. The papers appearing in this year’s conference exemplify this interaction in very interesting ways, with papers covering the range from foundational issues and generic ontologies to methodologies for ontological engineering, reasoning, and ontology integration. Themes emerging from the papers give us a snapshot of current issues within the fields of formal ontology and ontological engineering, as well providing us with a glimpse of future research directions. Although ontologies were originally motivated by the need for sharable and reusable knowledge bases, the reuse and sharing of ontologies themselves is still limited because the ontology users (and other designers) do not always share the same assumptions as the original designers. It is difficult for users to identify implicit assumptions and to understand the key distinctions within the ontology and whether or not disagreements reflect fundamentally different ontological commitments. The challenge therefore still stands to propose ontological engineering methodologies that emphasize ontology reuse and that identify the characteristics of an ontology that enhance its reusability. The interaction between ontology and science has emerged as an interesting new theme. First, ontologies can be treated as scientific theories, rather than as engineering artefacts. Second, there are ontologies for scientific theories, such as biology and chem- istry, which play a role in integrating multiple data sets. Finally, there is work on devel- oping ontologies of scientific theories; such ontologies play a supporting role in scien- tific research by providing explicit representations for alternative theories. This is also interesting insofar as one can consider ontologies for scientific domains to be a proposed solution for the sixth of twenty-three challenge problems posed by David Hilbert in an address to the International Congress on Mathematicians in 1900: Mathematical treatment of the axioms of physics: The investigations on the foundations of geometry suggest the problem: To treat in the same manner, by means of axioms, those physical sciences in which mathematics plays an important part. The identification and logical formalization of fundamental ontological distinctions continues to be an impetus for current research. Fundamental distinctions, such as uni- vi versals vs. particulars, features vs. substrates, and artefacts vs. roles are still a source of many challenging problems. Many of these issues converge in unexpected ways, par- ticularly in the treatment of collective objects. Linguistic expressions have also moti- vated several areas in formal ontology, particularly in the areas of vague predicates and geographic terminology. Ontology evaluation, both from a logical and empirical perspective, has also been recognized as a critical phase in ontological engineering. On the one hand, this leads to a deeper understanding of the relationships between ontologies. As ontologies are increas- ingly being deployed on the web, users are faced with the dilemma of selecting amongst multiple possible ontologies for similar domains. On the other hand, ontology evalua- tion is based on the relationship between the ontology and its initial conceptualization and intended application. We can rigorously characterize the relationship between the intended models of the ontology and the models of the axiomatization of the ontology, but it is more difficult to evaluate the correspondence between the intended models and their adequacy for the intended application of the ontology. Finally, the widespread deployment of ontologies also raises the challenge of manag- ing discrepancies that arise between ontologies. Although this is most evident in applica- tions that require the integration of multiple domain (and possibly upper) ontologies, the problem must also be addressed by end users who want to merge concepts from multiple ontologies to create new ontologies that meet the specific needs of some domain. Inte- grating sets of independently designed ontologies also has ramifications for supporting automated reasoning with the ontologies. The success of FOIS-08 has been the result of a truly collaborative effort. We would like to thank the members of the Programme Committee for their diligent work and constructive feedback, which have contributed to an excellent conference programme. We would like to thank the three invited speakers, Johanna Seibt, York Sure, and Mike Uschold, for providing their interesting perspectives on formal ontology in information systems. Finally, we would like to thank the Conference Chair, Nicola Guarino, and the Local Chairs, for managing all of the details that have made the conference a productive interaction of researchers from the diverse disciplines that contribute to formal ontology. Carola Eschenbach Michael Grüninger vii Conference Organisation Organising Committee Conference Chair Nicola Guarino