| | 18 | |
| | 19 | == Ontology Description == |
| | 20 | |
| | 21 | The AlignmentOntology basically defines relations between ontology entities, e.g. classes, properties, instances. The semantic of a basic, untyped relation is a connection of any kind, a cooccurrence. There are also further specifications of a realtion: |
| | 22 | * '''Subsumption''' defines a relation like subclass_of or subproperty_of |
| | 23 | * '''Superordination''' is the opposite of Subsumption |
| | 24 | * '''Equivalence''' defines the two entities as semantically equivalent. In particular, this is the case if it is a supsumtion AND a superordination at the same time. |
| | 25 | * '''Classification''' defines a type_of relationship, e.g. that an instance belongs to a class. |
| | 26 | * '''Distinction''' states, that neither of the above holds for the relation |
| | 27 | |
| | 28 | [[Image(relationTypes.gif, 679px, align=center, The different Relation Types)]] |
| | 29 | |
| | 30 | Each relation defines |
| | 31 | * the two entities to relate |
| | 32 | * a confidence value which expresses the confidence that the producer has of the correctness of the relation |
| | 33 | * an arbitrary number of attachments, that supply additional information but are formally not important. |
| | 34 | |
| | 35 | |
| | 36 | Finally, an Alignment is defined as a set of such Relations. Since the consistency of an alignment is controversial, this is not taken care of here. Further specialisations of Alignment will adress such issues. |
| | 37 | |
| | 38 | [[Image(alignmentStructure.gif, 305px, The Alignment)]] |
