Re: RDF ontology for describing reusable software components

> translation of UML into RDF
> were investigated in works of
> S. Melnik http://www-db.stanford.edu/~melnik/rdf/uml/
> Ubot project http://ubot.lockheedmartin.com/
> also see works of Franconi on Conceptual Modeling and descriptiong logics
> and general review of DL for conceptual modeling at
> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~franconi/dl/course/tutorial/iswc-02-tutorial.pdf

Thanks for the refs.  For some reason, I only came across Melnik's work in my 
own searches.  And I think it's not the right solution for interop.

In order to plug properly into OMG's MDA world-view, I really think we need a 
mapping at the MOF level.  I don't know whether this is what UBOT undertakes.


> The task of "integration" UML  and traditional conceptual modeling with
> Semantic Web technologies or Knowledge Representation is very big and seems
> unfeasible,

For sure.


> and I think it can be separated in a few parts to be implemented
> Some of them
> 1 use of Knowledge Representation technologies, especially reasoning to  get
> implicit knowledge for UML/ER models or find inconsistencies in models
> - see ICOM project http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~franconi/icom/
> 2 re-engineer traditional applications described in UML diagrammes into
> Semantic Web ontology based applications to make them "open"
> see UBOT project
> 3 re-use of conceptual modeling practises and methodologies, some of which
> are very tested for ontology development
> 4 extend ontology languages to describe behavior or better describe
> integrity rules  + emrbace all levels of modeling epist., conceptual,
> logical, etc in one framework
> 
> For me all these parts are very different and require very different
> approaches for UML + SW integration

Wow.  I have in mind something even less ambitious than 1,2,3 or 4, and in 
fact, would be likely prerequisite for these.  I'll call it

0) Define a standard mapping from the UML meta-model or MOF to RDFS or 
DAML+OIL.  This is a static mapping that does not involve reasoning or any 
dynamic facilities whatsoever.

I think just 0 is a titanic undertaking, but it is what is needed for RDF and 
MDA to profit most directly, each from the other.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                               Principal Consultant
uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com               +1 720 320 2046
Fourthought, Inc.                         http://Fourthought.com 
4735 East Walnut St, Boulder, CO 80301-2537, USA
XML strategy, XML tools (http://4Suite.org), knowledge management
Track chair, XML/Web Services One (San Jose, Boston): 
http://www.xmlconference.com/

Received on Friday, 5 April 2002 12:57:32 UTC