Applied ontology explained

Applied ontology is the application of Ontology for practical purposes. This can involve employing ontological methods or resources to specific domains,[1] such as management, relationships, biomedicine, information science or geography.[2] [3] Alternatively, applied ontology can aim more generally at developing improved methodologies for recording and organizing knowledge.[4]

Much work in applied ontology is carried out within the framework of the Semantic Web.[5] [6] Ontologies can structure data and add useful semantic content to it, such as definitions of classes and relations between entities, including subclass relations. The semantic web makes use of languages designed to allow for ontological content, including the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL).

Applying ontology to relationships

The challenge of applying ontology is ontology's emphasis on a world view orthogonal to epistemology. The emphasis is on being rather than on doing (as implied by "applied") or on knowing. This is explored by philosophers and pragmatists like Fernando Flores and Martin Heidegger.

One way in which that emphasis plays out is in the concept of "speech acts": acts of promising, ordering, apologizing, requesting, inviting or sharing. The study of these acts from an ontological perspective is one of the driving forces behind relationship-oriented applied ontology.[7] This can involve concepts championed by ordinary language philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Applying ontology can also involve looking at the relationship between a person's world and that person's actions. The context or clearing is highly influenced by the being of the subject or the field of being itself. This view is highly influenced by the philosophy of phenomenology,[8] the works of Heidegger, and others.[9] [10]

Ontological perspectives

Social scientists adopt a number of approaches to ontology.[11] Some of these are:[12]

  1. Realism - the idea that facts are "out there" just waiting to be discovered;
  2. Empiricism - the idea that we can observe the world and evaluate those observations in relation to facts;
  3. Positivism - which focuses on the observations themselves, attending more to claims about facts than to facts themselves;
  4. Grounded theory - which seeks to derive theories from facts;
  5. Engaged theory - which moves across different levels of interpretation, linking different empirical questions to ontological understandings;[13]
  6. Postmodernism - which regards facts as fluid and elusive, and recommends focusing only on observational claims.

Data Ontology

See main article: Ontology (information science).

Ontologies can be used for structuring data in a machine-readable manner.[14] In this context, an ontology is a controlled vocabulary of classes that can be placed in hierarchical relations with each other.[15] These classes can represent entities in the real world which data is about. Data can then be linked to the formal structure of these ontologies to aid dataset interoperability, along with retrieval and discovery of information.[16] [17] The classes in an ontology can be limited to a relatively narrow domain (such as an ontology of occupations),[18] or expansively cover all of reality with highly general classes (such as in Basic Formal Ontology).[19]

Applied Ontology is a quickly growing field. It has found major applications in areas such as biological research,[20] Artificial intelligence,[21] banking,[22] healthcare,[23] and defense.[24]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Sadegh-Zadeh . Kazem . Kazem Sadegh-Zadeh . 6 April 2015 . 22.1.2 Applied Ontology . Handbook of Analytic Philosophy of Medicine . Volume 119 of Philosophy and Medicine . 2 . Dordrecht . Springer . 2012 . 760 . 9789401795791 . 4 July 2023 . Applied ontology, also called domain ontology, is concerned (i) with the question of what entities exist in a particular domain, for example, in the domain of a scientific branch such as biology, or even in the more specialized domain of a scientific theory such as the theory of active immunity; and (ii) with the formal taxonomy of those entities..
  2. Hoehndorf . Robert . Schofield . Paul . Gkoutos . Georgios . The role of ontologies in biological and biomedical research: a functional perspective . Briefings in Bioinformatics . 2015 . 16 . 6 . 1069–1080 . 10.1093/bib/bbv011 . 25863278 . 4652617 . 10754/543733 . free .
  3. Web site: W3C Geospatial Ontologies . w3 . 11 June 2024.
  4. Book: Munn . Katherine . Munn . Katherine . Smith . Barry . Barry Smith (ontologist) . 2 May 2013 . 2008 . Introduction: What is Ontology for? . Applied Ontology: An Introduction . Metaphysical Research, Volume 9 . Heusenstamm, Hesse . ontos verlag . 7 - 8 . 9783110324860 . 4 July 2023 . The authors' goal in producing this book has been to show how philosophy and information science can learn from one another, so as to create better methodologies for recording and organizing our knowledge about the world..
  5. Web site: What are Ontologies? . ontotext . 11 June 2024.
  6. Web site: Joury . Ari . How Ontology and Data Go Hand-in-Hand . built in . 11 June 2024.
  7. News: The Power of Words . Harriet . Rubin . https://web.archive.org/web/20030422150037/http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/21/flores.html . 2003-04-22 . . 1085-9241 . 1998-12-21 . 2010-03-24 . Talk all you want to, Flores says, but if you want to act powerfully, you need to master 'speech acts': language rituals that build trust between colleagues and customers, word practices that open your eyes to new possibilities. Speech acts are powerful because most of the actions that people engage in -- in business, in marriage, in parenting -- are carried out through conversation. . live .
  8. Encyclopedia: Phenomenology . 2013-12-16 . Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Stanford University.
  9. McCarl, Steven R.; Zaffron, Steve; Nielsen, Joyce McCarl and Kennedy, Sally Lewis, "The Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum". Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. XXIII, No. 1 & 2, Jan/Feb & Mar/Apr 2001
  10. Web site: Hyde . Bruce . An Ontological Approach to Education . 10 June 2024.
  11. Web site: Raddon. Arwen. Epistemology & Ontology in Social Science Research. le.ac.uk/. University of Leicester. 28 March 2018.
  12. Web site: Research Methodology: Ontology. Research Methodologies. research-methodology.net. 28 March 2018.
  13. Book: James, Paul . Paul James (academic)

    . Paul James (academic) . Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In —Volume 2 of Towards a Theory of Abstract Community . 2006 . Sage Publications . London .

  14. Web site: Petkova . Teodora . Whose Meaning? Which Ontology? . ontotext . 16 March 2018 . 10 June 2024.
  15. Book: Arp . Robert . Smith . Barry . Spear . Andrew D. . Building ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology . 2015 . Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Cambridge, Massachusetts . 978-0-262-52781-1 . ix.
  16. Cruz . Isabel F. . Xiao . Huiyong . The Role of Ontologies in Data Integration . International Journal of Engineering Intelligent Systems for Electrical Engineering and Communications . Dec 2005 . 13 . 4 . 12 May 2024.
  17. Munir . Kamran . Amjum . M. Sheraz . The use of ontologies for effective knowledge modelling and information retrieval . Applied Computing and Informatics . July 2018 . 14 . 2 . 116–126 . 10.1016/j.aci.2017.07.003 . 12 May 2024. free .
  18. Beverley . John . Smith . Sam . Diller . Matthew . Duncan . William . Zheng . Jie . Judkins . John . Hogan . William . McGill . Robin . Dooley . Damion . He . Yongqun . The Occupation Ontology (OccO): Building a Bridge between Global Occupational Standards . CEUR Workshop Proceedings . 3637 . 10 June 2024.
  19. Book: Arp . Robert . Smith . Barry . Spear . Andrew D. . Building ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology . 2015 . Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Cambridge, Massachusetts . 978-0-262-52781-1 . ix.
  20. Smith B, Ashburner M, Rosse C, Bard J, Bug W, Ceusters W, Goldberg LJ, Eilbeck K, Ireland A, Mungall CJ, Leontis N, Rocca-Serra P, Ruttenberg A, Sansone SA, Scheuermann RH, Shah N, Whetzel PL, Lewis S . 6 . The OBO Foundry: coordinated evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integration . Nature Biotechnology . 25 . 11 . 1251–5 . November 2007 . 17989687 . 2814061 . 10.1038/nbt1346 .
  21. Web site: The Role of Ontology and Information Architecture in AI . EARLEY Information Science . 10 June 2024.
  22. Web site: Financial Regulation Ontology . 10 June 2024.
  23. Goyer . Francois . Fabry . Paul . Barton . Adrien . Ethier . Jean-François . An ontology for healthcare systems . CEUR Workshop Proceedings . 10 June 2024.
  24. Web site: DoDAF . defense.gov . DoD . 11 June 2024.

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