Mimosa: using ontologies for modeling and simulation

Modeling is the shared activity for both modeling and simulation, and knowledge representation. However knowledge representation is focused on building a description, usually static, of the reality in terms of named categories, properties, relations and objects, while the modeling and simulation community aims at putting together behavioral components [MB05] as far abstractions of the dynamical structure of the reality. To face the complexity of the systems we are trying to model and to simulate nowadays, the challenge addressed in this paper is to mix both approaches in a common framework. Trying to use modeling and simulation as a way to combine both expert and profane knowledge in support to negotiation activities[Aa03], our aim is to cover the whole modeling activity going from knowledge elicitation and representation up to running simulation models for exploring prospective options.