Feasibility of Automated Foundational Ontology Interchangeability

While a foundational ontology can solve interoperability issues among the domain ontologies aligned to it, multiple foundational ontologies have been developed. Thus, there are still interoperability issues among domain ontologies aligned to different foundational ontologies. Questions arise about the feasibility of linking one’s ontology to multiple foundational ontologies to increase its potential for uptake. To answer this, we have developed the tool SUGOI, Software Used to Gain Ontology Interchangeability, which allows a user to interchange automatically a domain ontology among the DOLCE, BFO and GFO foundational ontologies. The success of swapping based on equivalence varies by source ontology, ranging from 2 to 82% and averaging at 36% for the ontologies included in the evaluation. This is due to differences in coverage, notably DOLCE’s qualities and BFO and GFO’s roles, and amount of mappings. SUGOI therefore also uses subsumption mappings so that every domain ontology can be interchanged, preserves the structure of the ontology, and increases its potential for usability.