Concept Diagrams for Ontology Modelling: Design, Formalization and Reasoning
Dr Gem Stapleton (University of Brighton)
CSIRO ICTDATE: 2013-03-19
TIME: 11:00:00 - 12:00:00
LOCATION: CSIT Building (108) Room S206 Level 2 (CSIRO)
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ABSTRACT:
The process of designing and modelling an ontology can be difficult, particularly if the user finds the syntax with which they are working to be relatively inaccessible. Providing users with graphical syntax with which they can model and visualize their ontology has the potential to be helpful to users. This talk will informally introduce a diagrammatic notation, called concept diagrams, for ontology visualization and modelling. The design of the notation will be linked to cognitive theories of what constitutes an effective diagram. We will then demonstrate the (now standard) approach to formalizing diagrammatic notations, via an abstract syntax and model theoretic semantics, as applied to concept diagrams. The use of concept diagrams will be demonstrated via two case studies. The first is based on privacy and will be used to introduce the notation. The second case study, based on the University of Manchester's People Ontology, has two components: (a) a set of axioms, and (b) a set of theorems that follow from the axioms, together with their proofs. The proofs have been constructed so that they have, in our opinion, an intuitive style. From these proofs, we derive a set of sound inference rules that can be used to formally reason about ontologies. This approach to designing inference rules for a diagrammatic logic differs from previous efforts where the primary focus has been on obtaining a set of sound and complete inference rules, rather than on obtaining intuitive rules. Lastly, we will discuss some of the challenges that must be overcome in order to make concept diagrams a practical alternative to existing approaches.
BIO:
Dr Gem Stapleton is a Reader in Computer Science at the University of Brighton, with expertise in the field of visual languages. Specifically, she is interested in establishing important properties of diagrammatic logics, such as their expressiveness, decidability and completeness. She has also conducted research on automated theorem proving using diagrams, for which she was awarded Best Paper at Diagrams 2004 (with Flower and Masthoff). Recently, her research has considered how one might model ontologies using diagrammatic logics. Another major theme of her work has been to develop the theoretical underpinnings for automated Euler diagram drawing methods. To date, she has around 70 publications, appearing in outlets such as IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, and she has been supported by a number of research grants from the UK's EPSRC and the Leverhulme Trust. She has received three Best Paper awards, was the only UK finalist for the international Cor Baayen Award in 2006 and was runner-up for the British Computer Society Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2005. Gem is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Visual Languages and Computing and is Chair of the Diagrams Steering Committee.
Gem will also be available for research discussions for Mon-Thursday of that week. Please contact Kerry.Taylor@csiro.au if you'd like to arrange a meeting.
