Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 7
Description of the usage of a technique
4 Implementation of the Knowledge Base
This section presents the implementation principles of a usable knowledge base
that is based on the model presented in the previous section. The knowledge base
must satisfy at least two important requirements:
1. To have an expressive representation language that makes use of the vocabulary
defined in the conceptual model and that is sufficient to express complex tech-
nique descriptions, such as “techniques with an output location that is a Street
or a Building but not a WaterBody”.
2. To express and solve queries by using logical inference. For instance, when look-
ing for a technique that uses solid objects as output shapes, a technique that uses
cones or spheres should be selected (because cones and spheres are solid objects).
For these reasons, and for others mentioned below, it is highly suitable to use a formal
ontological language, such as OWL (OWL Working Group
2012
), and an ontology
management system (including an OWL reasoner) to implement the knowledge base.
4.1 An Ontology-Based Implementation
The first part of the implementation consists in translating the UML conceptual
schema into OWL definitions. For the proposed model this can be done in a very
