Ontology for Knowledge Reuse

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Aiming at establishment of a methodology for building reusable knowledge bases, we conducted basic research on ontology which contributes to the goal. Ontology is roughly defined as "a system of vocabulary/concepts used as building blocks for artificial systems". It consists of task ontology and domain ontology both of which have been discussed in the research. Concerning task ontology, we established a describing scheme of it and described a task ontology for scheduling tasks. Concerning domain ontology, we designed an ontology and its representation language for behavior and function in the domain of heat transportation using fluid. Our scheduling task ontology was first represented in Ontolingua, an ontology representation language, but found we need another language. This motivated us to design our own language for task ontology representation. Within this research period, we came up with a new ontology representation language together with a environment for ontology design named CLEPE.Detailed design of CLEPE has been finished and is currently under implementation. We also investigated the difference between behavior and function and came up with four primitive dimensions named as Functional Toppings : FT which collectively characterize the difference between the two. FBRL : Function and Behavior Representation Language was developed using FT and its performance was evaluated. FBRL is used to represent qualitative models of devices which are used for building a simulation model of a system by configuring them. Furthermore, it has a rich set of vocabulary of behavior and function which enables the FBRL-built systems to easily produce explanation of how they work at the behavior and function levels. Thus, we developed a language based on behavior and function ontologies and enables computers and humans to share common understanding of how systems work.