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A Mid Level Generic Data Collection Ontology

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A Mid Level Generic Data Collection Ontology DCO: A Mid Level Generic Data Collection Ontology by Joel Cummings A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science c Joel Cummings, November, 2017 ABSTRACT DCO: A Mid Level Generic Data Collection Ontology Joel Cummings Advisor: University of Guelph, 2017 Professor Deborah Stacey Ontologies have established themselves as the major framework for knowledge transfer and sharing. They allow consistent understanding of data to both computers and human modellers. This is done through a standard representation of a domains world view which captures the classes and relationships that exist in a particular domain. The interest in capturing a domains world view has led to the creation of many ontologies as ontological developers create ontologies to model their world views. An ontologies world view is a major contributor to reuse and interoperation. The significant number of ontologies produced has created a wealth a knowledge but particular application or domain specific views creates issue for others. The issue is com- munication and interoperation between ontologies. With so many different designs and terminology it is difficult to make use of existing terms and instances within these ontolo- gies without creating some way to relate or translate terminology. This thesis tackles the problem of data collection among ontologies through answering the question: How does one model the domain of data collection using an ontology while maintaining a level of domain agnosticism such that the ontology can be reused for any domain? We propose that a mid level ontology design can be used to model the domain of data collection while remaining domain generic otherwise. Consequently, we present the Data Collection Ontology (DCO) and evaluate it to show that we enable reusability through its high level class hierarchies that allow domain level terminology to be represented within the DCO. Direct contributions of this work include the Data Collection Ontology (DCO), the DCO Survey Ontology as well the philosophy of Classifiers as a way to introduce reasoning and dynamic ontology support. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation . 2 1.1.1 General Motivations . 3 1.1.2 Motivations for a Generic Data Collection Ontology . 3 1.2 Terminology . 4 1.3 Research Question and Hypotheses . 5 1.3.1 Domain Overlap . 6 1.3.2 Term Specificity . 6 1.3.3 Ontology Coverage . 6 1.4 Thesis Statement . 7 2 Literature Review and Design Anaylsis 8 2.1 Terminology Defined . 10 2.2 Classification Research . 13 2.2.1 Classifying Ontologies . 13 2.2.2 Upper Level Ontologies . 18 2.3 Problem Placement of Generic Data Collection . 22 iv 2.3.1 Mid Level Ontologies as Placement . 23 2.4 Conclusion . 24 3 Ontology Design 26 3.1 BFO Discussion . 26 3.2 Design Intentions . 27 3.2.1 Classifiers Examined . 30 3.3 Competency Questions Defined . 31 3.4 Ontology Components . 32 3.4.1 Classes . 33 3.4.2 Relations . 34 3.5 Working Example . 40 3.6 Design Summary . 42 4 Evaluation Methodology 47 4.1 Research Hypotheses . 48 4.1.1 Domain Overlap . 48 4.1.2 Term Specificity . 49 4.1.3 Ontology Coverage . 49 4.2 Experiment 1: The EPA Fuel Economy Ontology . 49 4.2.1 Classes . 51 4.2.2 Relations . 53 4.3 Experiment 2: A Case Study of the Survey Ontology . 56 4.3.1 The Survey Ontology Premise . 57 v 4.3.2 Integrated Survey Ontology . 59 4.3.3 DCO Survey Ontology Variant . 63 4.4 Evaluation using Traditional Techniques . 65 4.4.1 The FOCA Methodology . 66 5 Results 76 5.1 Data Collection Ontology Evaluation . 77 5.1.1 Competency Question Evaluation . 77 5.1.2 FOCA Evaluation . 79 5.2 Comparing the Survey Ontologies . 84 5.2.1 FOCA Evaluation Table Notation Defined . 86 5.2.2 Evaluating Ontology Hypotheses . 92 5.2.3 Survey Ontology Evaluation Conclusions . 92 5.3 Conclusion . 93 6 Conclusions 95 6.1 Contributions . 97 6.2 Future Work and Limitations . 97 A Diagrams 104 A.1 Fuel Economy Ontology Structure . 105 A.2 Survey Ontology Structure . 110 A.3 Integrated Survey Ontology Class Structure . 113 A.4 DCO Survey Ontology Class Structure . 119 vi List of Tables 2.1 The evaluated upper level ontology implementations summarized. 20 3.1 The top level classes of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) that divide major elements . 27 3.2 DCO Competency Questions to define the uses expected for the DCO imple- mentation. 32 3.3 DCO Object Relations Summarized. 37 3.4 Object Relations Continued . 38 3.5 DCO Data Properties Summarized. 39 4.1 Subjects defined in the EPA Fuel Economy Ontology. These subjects are based on the aspects that the EPA captures on the Vehicles tested. 53 4.2 EPA Ontology Relations. These relations are defined to match the terminol- ogy used by the EPA for the values captured. 53 4.3 Object Relations for the Vehicle Class . 54 4.4 DCO Survey Object Relation Locations within the DOC. Each relation is presented with the it's parent in the DCO. 62 4.5 DCO Survey Data Relation Locations within the DCO. Each relation is pre- sented with the it's parent in the DCO. 62 vii 4.6 DCO Survey Relations added to DCO along with the DCO parent under which it is defined. 65 4.7 FOCA Goal 1 [14] defined along with a description used to evaluate each question. 68 4.8 FOCA Goal 2 [14] defined along with a description used to evaluate each question. 69 4.9 FOCA Goal 3 [14] defined along with a description used to evaluate each question. 70 4.10 FOCA Goal 4 [14] defined along with a description used to evaluate each question. 71 4.11 FOCA Goal 5 [14] defined along with a description used to evaluate each question. 72 5.1 Competency Question Justifications to assess the if the ontology implemen- tation meets the requirements of each question. 78 5.2 Competency Question Justifications Continued . 79 5.3 Question Scores for the DCO Ontology . 80 5.4 DCO FOCA Goal 1 Justifications . 81 5.5 DCO FOCA Goal 2 Justifications . 82 5.6 DCO FOCA Goal 3 Justifications . 82 5.7 DCO FOCA Goal 4 Justifications . 83 5.8 DCO FOCA Goal 5 Justifications . 83 5.9 Goal 1 Questions and Justifications for Survey Ontologies . 88 5.10 Goal 2 Questions and Justifications for Survey Ontologies . 89 5.11 Goal 3 Questions and Justifications for Survey Ontologies . 90 viii 5.12 Goal 4 Questions and Justifications for Survey Ontologies . 90 5.13 Goal 5 Questions and Justifications for Survey Ontologies . 91 5.14 Survey Ontology Sizes Compared . 93 ix List of Figures 2.1 The Ontology Hierarchy demonstrates how term specificity and structural design affects use case. 16 2.2 An example of how domain level ontologies can utilize one or more mid level ontologies to extend capability while reusing existing terms. 24 2.3 The BFO Hierarchy demonstrates the use of different ontological levels (as defined within the Ontology Hierarchy, see Figure 2.1) by BFO developers, making it suitable for mid level construction. 25 3.1 The Basic Formal Ontologies Class Structure in its OWL implementation. All terms under owl:Thing are defined in BFO as an OWL Class. 28 3.2 An example of classifiers that demonstrates the use of equivalency relations defined on the Classifier classes to reason the type of instances. This type can then be compared to the has expected type on the relation to determine consistency. 30 3.3 DCO Process Types. State Driven Processes represent those that are block- ing and require one process to finish before the next starts. The Independent Process structure allows for parallel tasks. 34 3.4 DCO Classifier Type. Classifiers utilize the has expected type relation to compare to the type assigned by the OWL reasoner through equivalency relations assigned to a classifier to check consistency. 35 x 3.5 A partial model of the Vehicle Performance Ontology showing how DCO datums are used and linked to Subjects to specify units on captured instances. 41 3.6 The top level class structure of the DCO within the BFO. Classifiers exist at the entity to level support reasoning with any type. 43 3.7 The branch of BFO Continuant decedents defined in the DCO. Continuants represent entities that remain the same throughout time. 44 3.8 The branch of BFO Occurrent decedents defined in the DCO. Occurrents represent entities that exist within a period of time. 45 3.9 The list of DCO relations and their structures broken down by type. Rela- tions are used to link DCO classes and instances. 46 4.1 EPA Ontology Classifiers that are used to group vehicles based on their combined passenger.
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