Abstract. (Semi-)automatic mapping — also called (semi-)automatic alignment — of ontologies is a core task to achieve interoperability when two agents or services use different ontologies. In the existing literature, the focus has so far been on improving the quality of mapping results. We here consider QOM, Quick Ontology Mapping, as a way to trade off between effectiveness (i.e. quality) and efficiency of the mapping generation algorithms. We show that QOM has lower run-time complexity than existing prominent approaches. Then, we show in experiments that this theoretical investigation translates into practical benefits. While QOM gives up some of the possibilities for producing high-quality results in favor of efficiency, our experiments show that this loss of quality is marginal. 1

Abstract. With rising importance of knowledge interchange, many industrial and academic applications have adopted ontologies as their conceptual backbone. However, industrial and academic environments are very dynamic, thus inducing changes to application requirements. To fulfill these changes, often the underlying ontology must be evolved as well. As ontologies grow in size, the complexity of change management increases, thus requiring a wellstructured ontology evolution process. In this paper we identify a possible sixphase evolution process and focus on providing the user with capabilities to control and customize it. We introduce the concept of an evolution strategy encapsulating policy for evolution with respect to user’s requirements. 1

Ontology mapping is important when working with more than one ontology. Typically similarity considerations are the basis for this. In this paper an approach to integrate various similarity methods is presented. In brief, we determine similarity through rules which have been encoded by ontology experts.

Increasingly, effort has been devoted to surveying ontology-related research studies from various aspects. However, no survey is available for the ontology library system. For this reason, we decided to examine existing library systems in this paper. First, we identified the main criteria (management, adaptation, and standardization) for evaluating the functionality of the library systems. Then, based on the further enriched criteria, we surveyed most existing ontology library systems. Finally, we summarized the comparison and proposed various important requirements for structuring ontology library systems. The ontology library systems surveyed include: WebOnto, Ontolingua, DAML Ontology Library System, SHOE, Ontology Server, IEEE Standard Upper Ontology, OntoServer and ONIONS. 1.

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Abstract. The Semantic Web will allow for significantly more machinereadable content to be available on the World Wide Web. Getting this content onto the web, and using it once it is there, requires new “metaphors ” for working with Semantic Web data. In this paper, we describe the “Semantic Web Portal ” an approach to using Semantic Web content, and some (open source) tools that we are developing to make it a reality. 1

The development of business and information systems requires a significant amount of modeling. The current modeling languages and tools have difficulties supporting the modeling of systems spanning through multiple organizational levels. The use of inadequate modeling abstractions is one of the important causes for these difficulties. This paper proposes an ontology that defines the concepts needed for object-oriented modeling and gives a graphical example. The ontology is based on RM-ODP and relies on Constructivism and System Theory. The proposed ontology allows the definition of development methods, modeling languages and tools that are applicable to complex systems. This can lead to significant productivity improvements in the business and software development communities.

Agents seeking to discover and compose needed Web services may face knowledge sharing interoperability problems due to differing ontologies. In practice, agents may not have a global consensus ontology that will facilitate knowledge sharing and integration of required services. We investigate a method for agents to develop local consensus ontologies to aid in the communication within a multi-agent system of business-tobusiness (B2B) agents. We compare variations of syntactic and semantic similarity matching to form local consensus ontologies with and without the use of a lexical database.

This paper presents and motivates an extended ontology knowledge model which represents semantic information about concepts explicitly. This knowledge model results from enriching the standard conceptual model with semantic information which precisely characterises the concept's properties and expected ambiguities, including which properties are prototypical of a concept and which are exceptional, the behaviour of properties over time and the degree of applicability of properties to subconcepts. This enriched conceptual model permits a precise characterisation of what is represented by class membership mechanisms and helps knowledge engineers to determine, in a straightforward manner, the meta-properties holding for a concept. Meta-properties are recognised to be the main tool for a formal ontological analysis that allows building ontologies with a clean and untangled taxonomic structure. This enriched semantics can prove useful to describe what is known by agents in a multi-agent systems, as it facilitates the use of reasoning mechanisms on the knowledge that instantiate the ontology. These mechanisms can be used to solve ambiguities that can arise when heterogeneous agents have to interoperate in order to perform a task.

Business contract knowledge exists dispersed in different domains. For successful business process functioning, a precise, clear understanding and interpretation of contractual terms and conditions is required. A semantic interpretation of contract obligations and their required performances to fulfill the obligations, is aimed to bridge the existing gap between business process management and contract management. The increasing impact of e-commerce also necessitates the requirement for centralized, reusable knowledge bases. This paper presents conceptual models and an ontological representation methodology for capturing semantic interpretations of business contracts in a Multi Tier Contract Ontology. Humanity started trading using simple barter systems, goods in exchange for goods. Business trade relationships are now complex processes of building trust, understanding and mutual agreement. At the center of these processes are the business legal contracts. It is essential that all parties concerned have a clear understanding of