An ontological approach to the construction of problem-solving models

Our ongoing work aims at defining an ontology-centered approach for building expertise models for the CommonKADS methodology. This approach (which we have named "OntoKADS") is founded on a core problem-solving ontology which distinguishes between two conceptualization levels: at an object level, a set of concepts enable us to define classes of problem-solving situations, and at a meta level, a set of meta-concepts represent modeling primitives. In this article, our presentation of OntoKADS will focus on the core ontology and, in particular, on roles - the primitive situated at the interface between domain knowledge and reasoning, and whose ontological status is still much debated. We first propose a coherent, global, ontological framework which enables us to account for this primitive. We then show how this novel characterization of the primitive allows definition of new rules for the construction of expertise models

Integration of the DOLCE top-level ontology into the OntoSpec methodology

This report describes a new version of the OntoSpec methodology for ontology building. Defined by the LaRIA Knowledge Engineering Team (University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France), OntoSpec aims at helping builders to model ontological knowledge (upstream of formal representation). The methodology relies on a set of rigorously-defined modelling primitives and principles. Its application leads to the elaboration of a semi-informal ontology, which is independent of knowledge representation languages. We recently enriched the OntoSpec methodology by endowing it with a new resource, the DOLCE top-level ontology defined at the LOA (IST-CNR, Trento, Italy). The goal of this integration is to provide modellers with additional help in structuring application ontologies, while maintaining independence vis-\`{a}-vis formal representation languages. In this report, we first provide an overview of the OntoSpec methodology's general principles and then describe the DOLCE re-engineering process. A complete version of DOLCE-OS (i.e. a specification of DOLCE in the semi-informal OntoSpec language) is presented in an appendix