- From: Daniel Oberle <oberle@aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de>
- Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 09:38:41 +0200
- To: public-swbp-wg@w3.org
- CC: Holger Knublauch <holger@SMI.Stanford.EDU>
Hi Holger,
just wanted to send you a paragraph of my thesis that highlights
the differences between conceptual modelling techniques, such as
UML, and ontologies. Might be relevant for the new note. We might
build and argue on them:
"In essence, ontologies are similar to existing conceptual
modelling techniques, e.g., the Entity Relationship Model
or UML.\footnote{In fact, we visualize
ontologies by means of UML class diagrams throughout the
document.} However, ontologies differ from existing methods and
technologies in the following way: (i) the primary goal of
ontologies is to enable agreement on the meaning of specific
vocabulary terms and, thus, to facilitate information integration
across individual applications; (ii) ontologies are
formalized in logic-based representation languages. Their
semantics are thus specified in an unambiguous way. (iii)
The representation languages come with executable calculi enabling
querying and reasoning at run time."
Best,
Daniel
Received on Wednesday, 17 August 2005 07:38:02 UTC