0 u_ _,_ c_ I U cO IDEF5 Ontology Description o Z 0 Cap ture Me tho d Concept Paper _D Christopher P. Menzel E Richard J. Mayer _-. 3) CL,F._. 4,. ¢_'L>,. V', _' _.J U_ C Knowledge Based Systems Laboratory (.._ C Texas A&M University E ,..jolt,. CU-_ 0 1990 __] 0. ,.-, CC_ ¢ _) ._ Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16 Research Activity No. IM.06: LJ Methodologies for Integrated Information Management Systems e_. NASA Johnson Space Center Information Systems Directorate Information Technology Division Research Institute for Computing and Information Systems University of Houston-C/ear Lake TECHNICAL REPORT The RICIS Concept I The University of liouston-Clear Lake established the Research Institute for Computing and InformaUon Systems (RICIS) in 1986 to encourage the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC] and local industry to actively support research in the computing and information sciences, As part of this endeavor, UHCL proposed a partnership with JSC to Jointly define and manage an integrated program of research in advanced data processing technology needed forJSC's main missions, including administrative, engineering and science responsi- biliUes. JSC agreed and entered into a continuing cooperative agreement with UHCL beginning in May 1986, to Jointly plan and execute such research through RIC[S. Addltionally, under CooperaUve Agreement NCC 9-16, computing and educational faciliUes arc shared by the two insUtutlons to conduct the research. The UHCL/RICIS mission is to conduct, coordinate, and disseminate research and professional level education in computing and information systems to serve the needs of the government, industry, community and academia. RICIS combines resources of UHCL and its gateway affiliates to research and develop materials, prototypes and publications on topics of mutual interest to its sponsors and researchers. Within UHCL, the mlsslon is being implemented through interdisciplinary involvement of faculty and students from each of the four schools: Business and Public Administration, Educa- t_lon, Human Sciences and HumanlUes, and Natural and Applied Sciences. RICIS also co]aaborates with industry in a companion program. This program is focused on serving the research and advanced development needs of industry. Moreover, UHCL established relationships with other universities and re- search organizaUons, having common research interests, to provide addl- Uonal sources of expertise to conduct needed research. For example, UHCL has entered into a special partnership with Texas A&M University to help oversee RICIS research an'[ education programs, while other research organizations are involved via the "gateway" concepL A major role of RICIS then is to find the best match of sponsors, researchers and research objectives to advance knowledge in the computing and informa- tion sciences. RICIS, working Jointly with its sponsors, advises on research needs, recommends princlpals for conducting the research, provides tech- nical and administrative support to coordinate the research and integrates technical results into the goals of UHCL, NASA/JSC and industry. IDEF5 Ontology Description Cap ture Me th od Concept Paper RICIS Preface This research was conducted under auspices of the Research Institute for Computing and Information Systems by Dr. Christopher P. Menzel and Dr. Richard J. Mayer of Texas A&M University. Dr. Peter C. Bishop served as RICIS research coordinator. Funding has been provided by the Air Force Armstrong Laboratory, Logistics Research Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base via the Information Systems Directorate, NASA/JSC through Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16 between the NASA Johnson Space Center and the University of Houston-Clear Lake. The NASA technical monitor for this research activity was Robert T. Savely of the Information Technology Division, NASA/JSC. The views and conclusions contained in this report are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representative of the official policies, either express or implied, of NASA or the United States Government. IDEF5 Ontology Description Capture Method Concept Paper Christopher P. Menzel Richard J. Mayer Knowledge Based Systems Laboratory Department of Industrial Engineering Texas A&M University College Station TX 77843 Reviewed by Michael K. Painter, Capt, USAF Armstrong Laboratory Logistics Research Division Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio 45433-6503 Th_ report wu prepared under subczmtract between the University of Houston - Clear Lake and ,_i_5,U[_ Tex_ A&M, on RICIS Research Activity No. IM.16. (NASA Cooperative Agreement NCC 9-16). Copyright O 1990, Texas A&M University Permission to use, copy, and distribute d_s document for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above notice appeaTs in all copies and that both the copyright notice and this permission no6ce appe_ in supporting documentation, and that the name of Texas A&M University not be used in advertising or publicity penaLning to the distribution of the document without specific, written prior permission. The information in this document is subject to change without notice, and should not be cons0rued as • commitment by Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University auumes no r_ibility for the use of tl_ information. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the research team, and should not be interpreted as representing the poikies, either expressed or implied, of the United States Air Force, of NASA, nor of the RICIS Program Office. This report describes the research accomplished at the Knowledge Based Systems Laboratory of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Texas A&M University. Funding for the Laboratory's research in Integrated Information System Development Methods and Tools has been provided by the Air Force Armstrong Laboratory, Logistics Research Division, AFWAL_RL, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio 45433, under the technical direction of USAF Captain Michael K. Painter, under subcontract through the NASA RICIS Program at the University of Houston. The authors and the design team wish to acknowledge the technical insights and ideas provided by Captain Painter in the performance of this research as well as his assistance in the preparation of this report. Special thanks goes to the IDEF5 research team whose names are listed below: Dr. Christopher P. Menzel Dr. Richard J. Mayer Dr. Paula S.D. Mayer Mike Futrell 2 Summary This report presents the results of research towards an ontology capture method refered to as IDEF5. Viewed simply as the study of what there is in a domain, ontology is an activity that can be understood to be at work across the full range of human inquiry prompted by the persistent effort to understand the world in which it has found itself---and which it has helped to shape. In the context of information management, ontology is the task of extracting the structure of a given engineering, manufacturing, business, or logistical domain and storing it in an usable representational medium. A key to effective integration is a system ontology that can be accessed and modified across domains and which captures common features of the overall system relevant to the goals of the disparate domains. If the focus is on information integration, then the strongest motivation for ontology comes from the need to support data sharing and function interoperability. In the correct architecture, an enterprise ontology base would allow the construction of an integrated environment in which legacy systems appear to be open architecture integrated resources. H the focus is on system/ software development, then support for the rapid acquisition of reliable systems is perhaps the strongest motivation for ontology. Finally, ontological analysis has been demonstrated to be an effective first step in the construction of robust knowledge based systems. An IDEF5 description of an ontology is a computationally tractable representation of what exists in a given domain. IDEF5 provides the means to identify the primary classes, or kinds, of objects there are within the domain by isolating the properties that define the members of those kinds, and the characteristic relations that hold between domain objects (see below). IDEF5 allows such representations to be purposely structured in a way that closely reflects human conceptualization of the domains in question. In IDEF5, differing perspectives on the same domain (e.g., varying levels of granularity) and their interrelations are also supported. Finally, IDEF5 supports the identification of complex kinds (system kinds) and the properties and relations that characterize members of those kinds. 1.0 Back2rouod. MQtivatiQn and InfQrmai Foundations Any organized system---a business, a university, a manufacturing plant-- can be thought of as the resultant of three vectors: (i) the system's ontology, i.e., the basic entities that populate the system-personnel, equipment, manufacturing systems, etc.; (ii) the structure those entities jointly exhibit--the relations they bear to one another; and (iii) the processes they undergo--the changes that take place in the organization over time. An accurate representation of such a system will thus reflect the information within all three vectors. Currently, existing IDEF methodologies are geared chiefly toward information of the second and third types: IDEF1 and IDEF1X capture primarily structural information, IDEF0 and IDEF3 various types of process information. Of course, since both structural information and process information