technical common ground

Following the Methontology framework by Fernández-López et al. 1999, the ontology lifecycle is coherent with the following standardized phases:

• [specification] terminology, micro-objectives, main purpose and limitations scope, granularity level
• [conceptualization] semi-formal way of dealing with technical aspects of ontology modelling and domain knowledge
• [implementation] formalization of the representation and implementation of classes, hierarchies, properties and attributes.

Nevertheless is important to remember that knowledge aquisition process has been actionable through NLP techniques.

Process planning is concerned with optimizing a specific process, whereas project management is concerned with managing a specific project.

• process planning

[what]

For the optimization of the process that lead to a good ontology modelling, we rely on some key actions aimed at identify the necessary steps, tools and resources to deliver a good product. Reducing cost of time and energies, but still having a reliable product.

[how]

The process planning here presented reveals the wide opportunity set by a work on ontology-nmaking that, contrary to database devopment, are focused less on the integrity check and more on the concept of consistency checking, relying on automated reasoning. That is a crucial role of ontologies.
The process planning is the core of the project managment, for it to be a reliable system to talk about and think of the organization of classes, properties and attributes (thing that is impossible to envision with a database).

• A first opportunity to gather and consider previous ontologies allows to see how the work of philosophical ethical shifts, like that of Donna Haraway, has been configured for an ontology engineering procedure. Furthermore, we have analyzed how the notion of event and causality. Finally, the consideration of other ontology modelling stands as an opportunity for further developments, such as integration with other systems.
• About metadata representation, the ontology representation language chosen has been pwl, through rdf schema

tools

[ontology development environment] Protegé
[ontology evaluation] --
[ontology querying] SPARQL to our endpoint
[ontology visualization] OWLgrEd + http://vowl.visualdataweb.org/webvowl.html

• project management

The project management has to be developed in different levels, according to the work we have been dealing with.

first level: ontology modelling

1. INVESTIGATION: checking of previous ontologies and taxonomies, together with other sources regarding the knowledge domain.
2. SPECIFICATION OF OBJECTIVES: development of competency questions and draft of classes properties and attributes.
3. OVERALL FRAMEWORK: formalization of classes and their explanation.
4. TOPOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS: classes and class hierarchies are defined in detail.
5. FINAL SPECIFICATIONS AND COMPUTATION: relationships and develppment in Protegé environment
6. REASONING: reasoning based on competency questions

second level: modelling domains

The second level regards the Knolwedge Base. The KG is characterized by different domains, that are all those that the ontology refers to, directly or indirectly. The KB is constructed starting to think about where effectively the ontology will be used, and for what main purpose.
In our case, the purpose is purely educational, so ideally if could support a web-application based on Information Model (IFC-based) in which several terms are analyzed for the sake of a postcolonial, therefore non human-centric vision of environments and the actors inside it.
Hence, our domain of reference are:

• philosophical, especially the late 90s philosophy domain and all of that ethics-shifting paradigms that rely on a narrative-based perspective.
• [...]

[CLASSES]

• Thing
• Method
• Agent
  [...]

[TOPOLOGICAL STRUCTURE]

• Core class of the Chthulu ontology is Thing/Critter, being other classes dependent on it. In fact, by using the relationships and properties each critter is described in terms of agent, [...]
• Since the Thing class reflects the hightly materialist approach of the ontology, there are a numbers of concepts, i.e. the class Concept, that contains a list of individuals which represent the nature of the concept itself. In this way it is possible to reveal the nature of the concept: practical if its nature is strictly of a material matrix, [...]

a non-human centered ontology

While dealing with an Haraway-an ontology, the question is: how to communicate that a non-human centered ontology is reported in an ontology-like format? As we can see, ontologies are basically the equivalent of knowledge-based systems mangaed by AI, like that ones used in the medical domain. These knowledge-based sytems are naturally human-centered. This is for sure a challenge, rather than an issue.

Little note:

• Ontology: the study of what there is in the world that we should know about
• Epistemology: the study of how we should get to know the things in the world.
  source

assets

1. a table displaying past try in ontology making related to some stuff of our interest
2. web-based ontology vz: http://vowl.visualdataweb.org/webvowl.html
3. Image of the modelling domains taken into consideration
4. table of the entities specification

1

For simulation and evidence-based policy making, the philosophy of Donna Haraway is of great inspiration. That's why, also from a technical point of view, this ontology could contribute to expand the possible scenarios in the application of some activities for policy making and earth-related issues.

https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~yhu42/papers/activityOntology.pdf