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Semantic ontology tools in IS design

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Foundations of Intelligent Systems (ISMIS 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1609))

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Abstract

The availability of computerized lexicons, thesauri and “ontologies”—we discuss this terminology—makes it possible to formalize semantic aspects of information as used in the analysis, design and implementation of information systems (and in fact general software systems) in new and useful ways. We survey a selection of relevant ongoing work, discuss different issues of semantics that arise, and characterize the resulting computerized information systems, called CLASS for Computer-Lexicon Assisted Software Systems. The need for a “global” common ontology (lexicon, thesaurus) is conjectured, and some desirable properties are proposed. We give a few examples of such CLASS-s and indicate avenues of current and future research in this area. In particular, certain problems can be identified with well-known existing lexicons such as CYC and WordNet, as well as with sophisticated representation-and inference engines such as KIF or SHOE. We argue nevertheless that large public lexicons should be simple, i.c. their semantics become implicit by agreement among “all” users, and ideally completely application independent. In short, the lexicon or thesaurus then becomes the semantic domain for all applications.

This research was partially supported by the ESPRIT Project “TREVI”, nr. 2331 under the European Union 4th Framework Programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Building G/10, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050, Brussels, Belgium

    R. A. Meersman

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  1. R. A. Meersman
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Zbigniew W. Raś Andrzej Skowron

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Meersman, R.A. (1999). Semantic ontology tools in IS design. In: Raś, Z.W., Skowron, A. (eds) Foundations of Intelligent Systems. ISMIS 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1609. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg . https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0095088

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0095088

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65965-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48828-6

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