Keynote: Towards Modular Ontology Modeling with Ontology Design Patterns

By Pascal Hitzler, Sunday 22 October 2017 14:05, room TC 2.02 (Ernst & Young)

Abstract: Modularity is a notion with many different meanings in the context of ontologies. In this presentation, we will approach it from an informal, naive perspective, in which a “module” is loosely defined as a part of an ontology which corresponds to what a human may conceive as a conceptual unit. As such, modules can overlap and be nested. In this presentation, we will show how this notion of “module” leads naturally to a ontology modeling paradigm which makes it very easy to draw on domain experts' knowledge. Key to this modeling approach are ontology design pattern, which can be understood as blueprints or building blocks for the developement of modules. We will also discuss open issues regarding this approach, in particular regarding tooling and aspects of formal semantics.

Presenter's Bio: Pascal Hitzler is endowed NCR Distinguished Professor and Director of Data Science at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, U.S.A. His research record lists over 400 publications in such diverse areas as semantic web, neural-symbolic integration, knowledge representation and reasoning, machine learning, denotational semantics, and set-theoretic topology. He is Editor-in-chief of the Semantic Web journal by IOS Press, which is the leading journal in the field, and of the IOS Press book series Studies on the Semantic Web. He is co-author of the W3C Recommendation OWL 2 Primer, and of the book Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies by CRC Press, 2010 which was named as one out of seven Outstanding Academic Titles 2010 in Information and Computer Science by the American Library Association's Choice Magazine, and has translations into German and Chinese. He is on the editorial board of several journals and book series and is a founding steering committee member of the Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (NeSy) workshop series, and of the Association for Ontology Design and Patterns (ODPA). He also frequently acts as conference chair in various functions. For more information, see http://www.pascal-hitzler.de.