Ontologically Efficient Modeling
The OMG's Ontology Platform Special Interest Group (Ontology PSIG) strives towards laying the groundwork for semantic interoperability. We live in an information-centric world where decision-making is increasingly automated based on data from a myriad of sources, which now includes pervasive devices. To ensure information is captured, combined, processed and shared consistently and accurately requires more than just names and structures. It requires a formal understanding of their semantics. This article provides an exceptional brief overview on the importance of technical ontologies. The Ontology PSIG works with organizations to facilitate the ease of technical systems communication decision-making.
Mission:
Enable ontology-related technology development by:
- Unifying expertise in software semantics and knowledge representation, consistency checking, and knowledge-processing to leverage technologies
- Coordinating semantic foundations of platform independent models within OMG domain activities
- Capturing OMG's domain-oriented knowledge to maximize reuse of experience gained from developing domain-oriented APIs
- Developing working relationships among OMG activities and related activities, such as the semantic web and agent communities
- Gathering prior work and developing white papers, languages, and mappings (profiles and MOF metamodels)
NOTABLE DELIVERABLES:
- Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM): Offers 1) options in level of expressivity, complexity and form available for designing and implementing conceptual models, ranging from familiar UML and ER methodologies to formal ontologies represented in description logics or first order logic; 2) grounding in formal logic, through standards-based, model-theoretic semantics for the knowledge representation languages supported, sufficient to enable reasoning engines to understand, validate and apply ontologies using the ODM; 3) profiles and mappings sufficient to support the exchange of independently developed models in various formalisms and enable consistency checking and validation in ways that have not been feasible to date and 4) the basis for a family of specifications that marry MDA and semantic web technologies to support semantic web services, ontology and policy-based communications and interoperability as well as declarative, policy-based applications in general.
- Distributed Ontology, Model and Specification Language (DOL): Designed to achieve integration and interoperability of ontologies, specifications and models (OMS). DOL is a anguage for distributed knowledge representation, system specification and model-driven development across multiple OMS, specifically, OMS formalized in different OMS languages.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
- Robotic Service Ontology RFP: The service robot industry is expected to grow substantially in the coming decades. However, there is no common understanding of the services that might be provided by these robots. We need a common vocabulary or ontology in order to describe robotic services and the components that comprise those services. Such an ontology will assist not only in communications among robots and between robots and the humans they support but will enable developers of both robotic services and robotic functional components to compose higher order robotic services from well-defined, consistent building blocks (components) and have confidence that the resulting services are consistent will work together as designed.
Get Involved:
If you're an OMG member, have a member account, and want to get involved, you can Subscribe to The Ontology PSIG Mailing List to receive frequent group email updates and/or contact [email protected]. If you don't know if your organization is already a member, check the OMG Member List, Request An Account, and follow the prior steps, if your organization is a member, to get engaged. If not a member and interested in getting involved please visit our Membership Overview Webpage and/or contact [email protected]..
