Application of Ontology-Based Knowledge Representation to Design Reuse

Ontolingua, a language for ontology-based knowledge representation, provides the capability to construct comprehensive characterizations of knowledge bases. While the ability to characterize the content of a knowledge base is not new, Ontolingua includes a number of features that greatly enhance conventional data representation and modeling technologies through the incorporation of semantic context. In addition to supporting object-oriented modeling techniques, Ontolingua enables representation of constraints, definitions, and relationships among terms within ontologies. This facility provides a framework that supports automated translation among knowledge bases with differing data models and physical implementations. The ability to formally describe and unambiguously distinguish between diverse data sources is essential to enabling reuse of intellectual property. This paper presents a high-level view of ontology-based knowledge representation and an approach to solving the intellectual property reuse problem through the application of this technology.