Thesis defense of Javier Cuenca Ariza

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Thesis defense of Javier Cuenca Ariza

THESIS

Thesis defense of Javier Cuenca Ariza

Title of the thesis: “A Methodology for Designing Layered Ontology Structures”. Obtained the SOBRESALIENTE qualification and the CUM LAUDE and DOCTOR INTERNACIONAL mentions.

2020·02·04

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  • Title of the thesis: “A Methodology for Designing Layered Ontology Structures”.
  • PhD programme: DOCTORATE PROGRAMME IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND ELECTRICAL ENERGY
  • Thesis directors: Felix Larrinaga Barrenetxea, Edward Curry.
  • Court:
    • President: Arkaitz Zubiaga Mendialdua (Queen Mary University of London)
    • Vocal: Izaskun Fernandez Gonzalez (IK4- TEKNIKER)
    • Vocal: Filipe De Carvalho Moutinho (NOVA University of Lisbon)
    • Vocal: Maria Poveda Villalón (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
    • Secretary: Alain Perez Riaño (Mondragon Unibertsitatea)

Abstract

Semantic ontologies represent the knowledge from different domains, which is used as a knowledge base by intelligent agents. The creation of ontologies by different developers leads to heterogeneous ontologies, which hampers the interoperability between knowledge-based applications. This interoperability is achieved through global ontologies, which provide a common domain representation. Global ontologies must provide a balance of reusability-usability to minimise the ontology reuse effort in different applications. To achieve this balance, ontology design methodologies focus on designing layered ontologies that classify into abstraction layers the domain knowledge relevant to many applications and the knowledge relevant to specific applications. During the design of the layered ontology structure, the domain knowledge classification is performed from scratch by domain experts and ontology engineers in collaboration with application stakeholders. Hence, the design of reusable and usable ontologies in complex domains takes a significant effort. Software Product Line (SPL) design techniques can be applied to facilitate the domain knowledge classification by analysing the knowledge similarities/differences of existing ontologies. In this context, this thesis aims to define new methodological guidelines to design layered ontology structures that enable to classify the domain knowledge taking as reference existing ontologies and to apply these guidelines to enable the development of reusable and usable ontologies in complex domains. The MODDALS methodology guides the design of layered ontology structures far reusable and usable ontologies. lt brings together SPL engineering techniques and ontology design techniques to enable the classification of the domain knowledge by exploiting the knowledge similarities/differences of existing ontologies. MODDALS eases the design of the layered ontology structure. The MODDALS methodology was evaluated by applying it to design the layered structure of a reusable and usable global ontology for the energy domain. The designed layered structure was taken as reference to develop the ontology. The resulting ontology simplifies the ontology reuse process in different applications. In particular, it reduced the average ontology reuse time by 0.5 and 1.2 person-hours in in two different applications in comparison with a global energy ontology which does not follow a layered structure.