Ontologies in Use
Implicit ontologies are a prerequisite for
communication among humans and organizations.
Knowledge is explicitely represented in AI-systems;
sometimes the ontology is explicit as well.
Database schemas are partial explicit ontologies
- Relational schemas only terms & 1:1 dependencies.
- E-R designs contain 1:n, m:n cardinalities
- Structural schemas contain semantic dep. types
Conceptual graphs define terms of discourse and
a modest number of relationship types
Variables in software represent ontologies poorly.