The Sigma Ontology Development Environment

Abstract: We discuss the development of an environment for formal knowledge engineering. The Sigma system is an advance over previously developed systems in that it integrates a number of modern ontology development tools, which has motivated a number of research issues. Primary components include an ontology browsing and editing environment, a first order logic inference system and a natural language to logic translator. Although largely independent of any particular ontology, it supports a number of publicly available formal ontologies. We discuss the development of an environment for formal knowledge engineering. The Sigma system is an advance over previously developed systems in that it integrates a number of modern ontology development tools, which has motivated a number of research issues. Primary components include an ontology browsing and editing environment, a first order logic inference system and a natural language to logic translator. Although largely independent of any particular ontology, it supports a number of publicly available formal ontologies.