A Relevant Portion of an Ontology: Defining a System of ED Rules Using a Part-Whole Relationship

Abstract

This paper defines rules for an ontology server that enables the selection of the relevant portion of an ontology based on the notion of existence dependency (ED). We examine the ED on the part-whole relation represented in a unified modeling language (UML) and discuss its importance as a modeling primitive for the systems such as OWL (ontology Web language) and UML for ontology definition meta-model (ODM). We then raise a few anomalies in these systems regarding ontological semantics. We then employ the theory of formal ontology which ontologically resolves the semantics of the part-whole relation. As a result, we define rules so the server can find what is needed and present it to the user.