The formal model of the metaontology in the declarative knowledge base development for application domains, the elements of which are complex-structured systems

Abstract

According to contemporary methods for declarative knowledge base development, when knowledge bases are formed by experts without knowledge engineers, the experts have to undertake intensive analytical work with concepts of different generalization levels, while eliciting different types of concept relations, and “debugging” the developed knowledge base. The research towards the development of models, methods, and technologies that contribute to the development of additional (compared to the existing ontology and knowledge base editors) sets of software tools for expert support are of special relevance. One of such methods is the creation of the application domain ontology model. Ontology models in the form of unenriched systems of logical relations allow to set the ontology structure of each level and knowledge base structure, formulate problems in ontology terms, and develop the methods for the intelligent system to solve them. Metaontology model (ontology model of the level higher than 2) allows also to automate the creation of the intermediate concepts by the editor, which is not possible for all the domains. For the application domain class, the objects of which are complex-structured systems (rigorous definition is given, and assumes that the subsystems of such systems can be elementary, of hierarchical structure, or can be processes), it turns out to be possible. The aim of the article is to give the metaontology model for the application domain class, the objects of which are complex-structured systems, in the form of unenriched 3-level model of logical relations with parameters and constructors, and show its use for the knowledge base development for the application domain class representative. As a descriptive example, the application domain of chemical compound reaction capacity identification is chosen. The model is presented with the help of applied logics language. Specialized extensions “Macro” and “Complex numbers” for the language have been developed, the terms of which are presented. Ontology models, the levels of which are below 3, are obtained as a result of the described enrichment operation applied to the level-3 model. Different types of metaconcepts described in the metaontology model can be used for the development of the additional sets of software tools for expert support in the form of ontology intermediate concept generators for the application domains of this class.