Advance Course of ontological Engineering 本体工程高级
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Abstract ： This article deals with advanced topics of ontological engineering to convince readers ontology is more than a rule base of terminological problems and is worth to consider a promising methodology in the next generation knowledge processing research. Needless to say, ontology in AI is tightly connected to ontology in philosophy. The first topic here is on philosophical issues which are very important to properly understand what an ontology is. After defining class, instance and is-a relation, we point out some typical inappropriate uses of is-a relation in existing ontologies and analyze the reasons why. Other topics are basic ontological distinction, part-of relation, and so on. As an advanced example of ontology, an ontology of representation is extensively discussed. To conclude this tutorial, a success story of ontologicalengineering is presented.It is concerned with a new kind of application of ontology, that is, knowledge systematization. An ontology-based framework for functional knowledge sharing has been deployed into a company for two years and has been a great success. Finally, future of ontological engineering is discussed followed by concluding remarks.
摘要：本文通过讨论本体工程的高级课题，来说服读者本体不仅仅是一项基于术语（terminological）课题的规则，而是值得考虑一个有前途的，在下一代知识加工学习（Research）的方法论。毋庸置疑，本体在人工智能紧密的连接到哲学中的本体论。首先得话题就是哲学问题，这对正确理解什么是本体非常重要。然后定义类、实例和is-a关系，我们指出在现有的本体中is-a关系的一些典型的不当使用，并分析其中原因。其他主题包括基本的本体区分，part-of关系，等等。作为本体论的一个高级应用的实例，本体表示法被广泛地讨论。总结教程，呈现（presented）了一个本体工程成功的实例。一种新的本体应用值得关注，也就是知识系统化。一个基于本体的共享功能知识框架在一家公司已经部署了两年，并取得较大成功。最后，通过总结讨论了本体工程的前景。
1. Fundamental issues
Building an ontology needs a lot of skill and knowledge about fundamental issues. This section discusses issues which have to be seriously investigated to build a good ontology.
1.基础研究
构建一个本体需要很多技能和基础重点问题的知识。这部分讨论的主要问题是构建一个好的本体必须的探讨的论点。
1.1 Background
One of the most critical contributions of an ontology is that it gives the higher level distinction of concepts which help understand the lower level concepts, that is, domain concepts systematically and consistently which is hard to attain without ontological ways of thinking. The main topic here is so-called ontological distinction which is indispensable for designing upper ontology. An ontology design is a kind of design activity which necessarily has some design rationale that largely influences the resulting ontology. In other words, any ontology cannot be free from some assumption and/or designer’s standpoint. The standpoint taken in this article consists of Newtonian world point of view and 3D modeling, that is, the world is considered as being composed of the three-dimensional Euclidean space with the absolute time and both object(continuant) and process (occurrent) exist with equal importance. The latter is discussed in detail below.
1.1 背景
本体一个最关键的贡献是给出了有助于理解低层次概念的高层次概念的区别。换句话所，摈弃本体论的思想（思维），领域概念难以达到系统化和持续化。这里主要的话题是所谓的本体区别，这是设计上层本体不可或缺的。一次本体设计就是一种设计活动，这必然有一些很大程度上影响本体设计结果的设计理念。换句话所，任何本体不能脱离一些假设和（或）设计者的观点。本篇论文所持的立场是由牛顿世界的视角和3D模型。也就是说，这个世界被视为绝对时间和同等重要的物质和处理共同组合的三维欧氏空间。后者将在下面详细讨论。本体一个最关键的贡献是给出了有助于理解低层次概念的高层次概念的区别。换句话所，摈弃本体论的思想（思维），领域概念难以达到系统化和持续化。这里主要的话题是所谓的本体区别，这是设计上层本体不可或缺的。一次本体设计就是一种设计活动，这必然有一些很大程度上影响本体设计结果的设计理念。换句话所，任何本体不能脱离一些假设和（或）设计者的观点。本篇论文所持的立场是由牛顿世界的视角和3D模型。也就是说，这个世界被视为绝对时间和同等重要的物质和处理共同组合的三维欧氏空间。后者将在下面详细讨论。
One of the difficulties in understanding ontology research is the definition of each concept. How deeply and rigorously should we define a concept? How is an ontology different from a dictionary in word definition? These are common questions about thistopic. A dictionary consists of definitions of terms people use for human consumption and basically tries to cover as many terms as possible. Some says an ontology is a computer-understandable dictionary. Although it is not incorrect, it tends to lead people to a misunderstanding about ontology. It is critical to note that in principle, it is impossible for us to define the meaning of each term/concept in a computer as we understand it. Try to define what a human is as you understand it. A human is living. What is “living”? He/she falls in love, laughs, cries, eats, produces an artifact, walks, dies, etc. How can we represent them in the computer? What are music, poem, dog, forest, etc.? How is a horse different from a cow? Etc. etc. Answering such questions is not the job of ontology researchers. Those who answer them are domain experts or lexicographers.
理解本体研究的难点之一是每一个概念的定义。我们应该如何深入而严谨定义概念？如何从词典的词定义区分出一个本体？这些都是有关这个主题的普遍问题。词典有术语的定义构成，人们用来为人类消耗，尽力解释（覆盖）尽可能多的术语。有些人说本体是一个能使计算机理解的词典。尽管这不是错误的，但是他导致了人们对本体的误解。需要注意的是，原则上我们不可能在计算机定义每一个术语/概念的含义，就像我们理解的那样。尽力去定义你理解的什么是人类。人类是一个生物。什么是生物？他/她恋爱，大笑，哭了，吃，人工劳作，行走，死亡等等。我们如何能在计算机内刻画（表述）他们呢？什么是音乐，诗歌，狗，森林等等。如何区分一匹马和一头牛？等等，等等。回答这些问题不是本体研究者的工作。回答这些问题的是领域专家或者是词典编纂人员。
Then, what is the job of ontology researchers? Ontology research in ontological engineering is mainly concerned with something like meta-questionssuch as what is identity?, how is identity inherited?, what is a proper taxonomy?, what is class/instance?, what is a role?, what is a whole(what makes it a whole rather than just a collection of things)?, what are is-a andpart-oflinks?, how are an object and a process different?, etc. Once again, even when investigating what is an instance, ontology researchers never try to define what a particular instance, say, Mr. A is. It is just like building a taxonomy of animals is not the ontology researcher’s but zoologist’s job.
那么，什么是本体论研究人员的工作？本体论研究的本体工程关注的主要是像元一样的一些问题，例如什么是身份标识？怎么身份继承？什么是正确的分类？什么是类/实例？什么是角色？什么是整体（什么使得它为一个整体，而不只是一个事物的集合）？什么是is-a和part-of连接？如何区分一个对象和一个进程？等等。再次，即使在探究什么是对象（实例），本体论的研究人员从来没有试图界定什么特定的实例，例如，A先生是。它就像建造动物的分类学不是本体论研究者的，而是动物学家的工作那样。
