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An Overview of OntoClean

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Handbook on Ontologies

Part of the book series: International Handbooks on Information Systems ((INFOSYS))

Summary

OntoClean is a methodology for validating the ontological adequacy and logical consistency of taxonomic relationships. It is based on highly general ontological notions drawn from philosophy, like essence, identity, and unity, which are used to elicit and characterize the intended meaning of properties, classes, and relations making up an ontology. These aspects are represented by formal metaproperties, which impose several constraints on the taxonomic relationships between concepts. The analysis of these constraints helps in evaluating and validating the choices made. In this chapter we present an informal overview of the philosophical notions involved and their role in OntoClean, review some common ontological pitfalls, and walk through the example that has appeared in pieces in previous papers and has been the basis of numerous tutorials and talks.

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Acknowledgments

Many people have made useful comments on OntoClean, and have participated in its refinement. We would like to thank in particular Mariano Fernandez Lopez, Aldo Gangemi, Giancarlo Guizzardi, Claudio Masolo, Alessandro Oltramari.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Applied Ontology (ISTC-CNR), Via alla Cascata, 56/C, 38100, Trento, Italy

    Nicola Guarino

  2. IBM Watson Research Center, Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, 19, 10532, NY, USA

    Christopher A. Welty

Authors
  1. Nicola Guarino
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  2. Christopher A. Welty
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicola Guarino .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. Informatik, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Universitaetsstr. 1, Koblenz, 56016, Germany

    Steffen Staab

  2. Inst. Angewandte Informatik und, Universität Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, 76128, Germany

    Rudi Studer

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Guarino, N., Welty, C.A. (2009). An Overview of OntoClean. In: Staab, S., Studer, R. (eds) Handbook on Ontologies. International Handbooks on Information Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92673-3_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-70999-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-92673-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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