The CLIME Ontology

In the CLIME project a large-scale ontology was developed for the purpose of a web-based legal advice system, MILE (Maritime Information and Legal Explanation, see Figure 1). The system features both extended conceptual retrieval and normative assessment (See [WBBH00] and [WBBB99]) on international rules and regulations regarding ship-classification (Bureau Veritas) and maritime pollution (MARPOL). The user can formulate a case using a structured natural-language interface (WYSIWYM, see [PECT00]). This interface uses only the terms available in the ontology, which ensures that the user formulates a query on a topic the system knows about. The second purpose of the ontology in this context is to provide the means for adequate knowledge management on the rules and regulations. An example is the possibility to perform (semi)automatic consistency checking because of the representation of regulations in a formal framework. The KDE ([JBvL01]) project reused the CLIME ontology in a knowledgeand workflow-management environment. In the KDE system, the CLIME ontology functioned as a domain ontology for the work of those associated with ship classification within the Bureau Veritas organisation. In a full-blown application the ontology would be used to index not only the rules and regulations – as it did in MILE – but all the documents and reports produced in the process of classifiying ships, and existing (legacy) databases containing information on registered ships, clients etc.