Change - Ontology

Created on Dec. 15, 2012, 8:16 p.m. by Hevok & updated on Feb. 24, 2013, 12:40 a.m. by Hevok

Ontology (Greek on participle of "to be" and logia Science) is the mphilosophical study of the nature of being, Existence or Reality, as well as the basic Categories of being and their Relations. ¶
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It deals with what is real in the World. Therefore, the basic Question is what does really exists and what can be said to exist? It is a question of general Metaphysics in Philosophy. It is in contrast to the Epistemology that only deals with things of our perceptions, so what we see, what we hear and sol on. Often our perceptions are betraying us. We can only experience the world with out perception but sometimes the perceptions might betray us so one has to know what is real in the world, i.e. what is True. To define what is really True and independent of our Perception is what Ontology original was intended to define. ¶
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Ontology is the most critical enabling Technology in Semantic Web Applications. Basically an oOntology describes tTerms, and tTypes of rRelationships between pPairs of tTerms. In such an oOntology can be expressed/represented by a lList of tTuples in the form of (term x, relationship r, term y). For instance, ¶
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Denigma, is a kind of, Decipher Machine or ¶
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Aging, is a, Problem. ¶
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The basic tTasks in oOntology dDevelopment are </span><del style="background:#ffe6e6;">t</del><ins style="background:#e6ffe6;">T</ins><span>erm </span><del style="background:#ffe6e6;">s</del><ins style="background:#e6ffe6;">S</ins><span>election, </span><del style="background:#ffe6e6;">r</del><ins style="background:#e6ffe6;">R</ins><span>elationship </span><del style="background:#ffe6e6;">a</del><ins style="background:#e6ffe6;">A</ins><span>ssignment and </span><del style="background:#ffe6e6;">e</del><ins style="background:#e6ffe6;">E</ins><span>volution. ¶
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Normally an oOntology is developed by a small gGroup of eExperts. However, this aApproach does not scale with the ever increasing amount of iInformation. Specifically eExperts have difficulty keeping up with aAdvances in kKnowledge in the open dynamic wWorld wWide wWeb eEnvironment. Crowds Sourcing has the potential to be the most influential way to solve the problem of oOntology dDevelopment, by outsourcing a tTask traditionally done by eExperts to also non-eExperts (typically a large gGroup of pPeople) in the form of an open call (The Call of Duty). ¶
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An expression is correct if the majority of the users agree on it. ¶
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One approach to implement this is to aggregate kKnowledge from common wWeb uUsers. Ontology can be used to redefine a sSearch qQuery [http://www.hahia.com] and in this way the oOntology evolves indirectly. ¶
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Definitely cCrowds Sourcing will significantly change the aApproach of oOntology mMaintenance and eEvolution. ¶
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An oOntology is a dData mModel that represents a dDomain and is utilized to reason both the oObject in this dDomain and the rRelations between them. The application of oOntologies includes aArtificial iIntelligence, sSemantic wWeb, sSoftware eEngineering and iInformation aArchitecture, where it is used as a form of kKnowledge rRepresentation about the wWorld. An oOntology can also be understand as a set of dDefinitions of a formal vVocabulary with a huge potential in iInformation tTechnology. ¶
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Ontology is a Semantic skeleton of a dDomain, i.e. it defines what we can have in aAnnotations. It defines cCategories, pProperties, rRules, etc. We can have many oOntologies to describe one dDomain. It is only an iIdea. We are not there.