Algorithms for Ontological Mediation.
A. E. Campbell, Stuart C. Shapiro · 1998
We lay the foundation for ontological mediation as a method for resolving communication difficulties resulting from different ontologies. The notion of hierarchical relations enables a theory of orientation or direction of ontologies to be presented. We describe an ontologcial mediator as being able to think about (or conceptualize) concepts from ontologies and find equivalences between them. Algorithms for finding the meanings of unfamiliar words by asking questions are introduced and evaluated experimentally. Introduction Clearly, in order for communication between computational agents to be truly successful, each agent must be able to understand what the other says. Presently, this involves deciding ahead of time on the following: I. a syntax and semantics for the language in which they communicate (a popular one is KIF (Genesereth 1995)), and II. an ontology, or domain conceptualization that sets forth the terminology they may use, along with relations that hold between the concep...