Lecture 6 of MAS course at URV, 2010

1. LECTURE 6:
An introduction to ontologies
and ontology development
Artificial Intelligence II – Multi-Agent Systems
Introduction to Multi-Agent Systems
URV, Winter-Spring 2010
(Based on a presentation by Dr David Sánchez)

2. Outline of the lecture
Ontologies
Definition
Components
Use in MAS
OWL: Web Ontology Language
A method for ontology development

3. Ontologies in FIPA-ACL
You have come across ontologies before in
this course:
(cfp
:sender (agent-identifier :name j)
:receiver (set (agent-identifier :name i))
:content
"((action (agent-identifier :name i)
(sell book “The Lord of the Rings”)
(any ?x (and (= (price book) ?x) (< ?x 10)))))"
:ontology book-market
:language fipa-sl)

4. What Is An Ontology (I)
Tom Gruber:
Short answer: An ontology is a specification of a
conceptualization
Long answer: […] an ontology is a description
(like a formal specification of a program) of the
concepts and relationships that can exist in a
given domain of discourse for an agent or a
community of agents

5. What Is An Ontology (II)
An ontology is an explicit description of a domain
concepts
properties and attributes of concepts
restrictions on properties and attributes
individuals (often, but not always)
An ontology defines
a common vocabulary
a shared understanding of a domain among a set of
agents

6. Why Develop an Ontology?
To share a common understanding of the
structure of information
among people
among software agents
To make domain assumptions explicit
To enable reuse of domain knowledge
to avoid “re-inventing the wheel”
to introduce standards to allow interoperability

7. Ontology components
Concepts
Disease, Treatment, Symptom
Properties and attributes of concepts
Causes, OccursIn, Receives
Restrictions on properties and attributes
Cancer always Receives Radiotherapy
Individuals (often, but not always)
“John Smith’s cough” is a particular Symptom

9. What Is “Ontology Engineering”?
Defining concepts in the domain (classes)
Arranging the concepts in a hierarchy
(subclass-superclass hierarchy)
Defining attributes and properties that
classes can have and restrictions on their
values
Defining individuals and filling in property
values

10. Size and scope of an ontology
Two extremes (the reality is usually something in
between):
One huge ontology that captures "everything“ in the domain
One (small) ontology for each specific application
A A O A
A O
A O
O A A A
O O O
A A A
A O A A

11. "One large ontology" approach (I)
Benefits
Few or no internal inconsistencies
Easier to find for an application developer
Uniform documentation
Less overlapping work!

12. "One large ontology" approach (II)
Drawbacks
Who maintains it?
Who is responsible?
Heavy and slow to use (both for human
users and for applications)
Difficult to take into account everybody's
opinions and wishes at design time and
when updating
Difficult and expensive construction

13. Example: Unified Medical Language
System (UMLS)
Metathesaurus
Over 1 million biomedical concepts
Integrates 100 vocabularies and classification
systems
ICD-10: International classification of diseases (more
than 12400 codes)
MeSH: Medical Subjects Headings (more than 25,000
descriptors)
LOINC: Logical Observation Identifiers Names and
Codes (58,000 observation terms)
SNOMED CT: Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine -
- Clinical Terms (over 1 million medical concepts)

14. "Several small ontologies" approach (I)
Benefits
Ontologies fit perfectly the application
demands
Smaller, and thus faster to use
Easier to understand and to form the
complete picture of an ontology (fewer
concepts and interrelations)

15. "Several small ontologies" approach (II)
Drawbacks
Different ontologies do not fit together without
either
central coordination body, or
ontology alignment software
Overlapping work - same concepts defined in
multiple ontologies, either in the same way or
(even worse!) differently
Application developers have to choose between
multiple incomplete options

16. Basic example of ontology alignment

17. Some mixed approaches
A O A O A O
A
A O A O O
O O O
upper O O
ontology A O A
A O domains
A O
A mediating A A none
software
A
A O A
O M A
O A A
A A
A A
A

18. Importance in MAS (I)
Agent-systems are typically distributed
systems
There is certainly the possibility of being
able to access different domain ontologies
Agent-systems consisting of a single
agent are rare and often not useful
Agents typically need to communicate with
each other
Agents should understand each other

19. Importance in MAS (II)
People often design and implement
agents independently, unaware of
other developers working in the same
domain
Agents' understanding of each other is
mostly based on ontologies

20. Usual alternatives (I)
Single, common
A A ontology
Uses:
A MAS developed by a
O A
unique group
[Practical exercise]
A A Well-structured domain
A
with a jointly agreed
standard vocabulary
[Medicine]

21. Usual alternatives (II)
Common core
A O
ontology (e.g. high
A
level ontologies like
A O WordNet)
O complemented with
O O
A
especialised lower-
A O
level classes and
instances locally by
each agent

22. Usual alternatives (III)
A A
O
A
O M A
O
A
A
A
Application that maps the concepts and
relationships in different partial domain ontologies
Usually quite complex, and with human supervision
Union of previous MASs

23. Outline of the lecture
Ontologies
Definition
Components
Use in MAS
OWL: Web Ontology Language
A method for ontology development

24. Representation of ontologies
Languages: RDF, DAML, OIL, OWL
Tools to edit ontologies:
Protégé
OilEd
OntoEdit

29. OWL: Web Ontology Language
The newest ontology representation language
Since October 2009, OWL2
Standard worldwide notation
Designed to bring semantic content to the Web
(Semantic Web)
WebOnt group developed the OWL formalism
OWL language now a W3C recommendation
http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/REC-owl2-quick-reference-
20091027/ OWL2 Quick Reference Guide (October 2009)

30. OWL: Language components
RDF Schemas Features
Equality and Inequality
Property Characteristics
Property Restrictions
Logical Operators

31. RDF Schemas Features
They define basic ontological components
Classes
Subclasses
Individuals
Properties
Subproperties
Domain
Range

32. Classes
Classes are sets of individuals with common
characteristics
A Class should be described such that it is possible
for it to contain Individuals
Classes that cannot possibly contain any individuals
are said to be inconsistent
Eg: Disorder, Patient, Treatment, Symptom

33. Subclasses
Define class specializations by constraining
their coverage
Ex: Breast Cancer is a subclass of Cancer
Class hierarchies can be specified by making
one or more statements that a class is a
subclass of another class

35. Individuals (Instances)
Individuals are the specific objects in the domain
Individuals may be (and are likely to be) members
of multiple Classes
Ex. St_Johns_Hospital, Peter_Smith_disorder

36. Properties
Properties can be used to state relationships
between individuals or from individuals to data
values
Relationships in OWL are binary
Subject predicate Object
Individual a hasProperty Individual b
Individual hasProperty Value
Eg: hasSymptom, isCausedBy, Author

37. Property types
Object Property: relates individuals
Establishes a relationship between objects
Datatype Property: relates individuals to data (int,
string, float etc)
Can be considered “attributes” of the instance
Annotation Property: for attaching metadata to
classes, individuals or properties
E.g. version, author, comment

38. Property examples
isCausedBy
Object Disorder Cause
Property
hasScientificName
Datatype String
Disorder
Property
comment
Annotation Disorder Meta-data
Property

39. Built-in datatypes
Basic datatypes:
http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#name
xsd:string, xsd:boolean, xsd:decimal, xsd:float, xsd:double,
xsd:dateTime, xsd:time, xsd:date, xsd:gYearMonth, xsd:gYear,
xsd:gMonthDay, xsd:gDay, xsd:gMonth, xsd:hexBinary,
xsd:base64Binary, xsd:anyURI, xsd:normalizedString, xsd:token,
xsd:language, xsd:NMTOKEN, xsd:Name, xsd:NCName,
xsd:integer, xsd:nonPositiveInteger, xsd:negativeInteger,
xsd:long, xsd:int, xsd:short, xsd:byte, xsd:nonNegativeInteger,
xsd:unsignedLong, xsd:unsignedInt, xsd:unsignedShort,
xsd:unsignedByte and xsd:positiveInteger.

40. Sub Properties
Defines properties specializations by
constraining their coverage
Make hierarchies from one or more
statements that a property is a subproperty of
one or more other properties
Ex. hasScientificName is a subPropertyOf
hasName

41. Domain
It indicates the individuals to which the
property should be applied
If a property relates an individual A to
another individual B, and the property has a
class C as its domain, then the individual A
must belong to class C
Ex. hasSymptom has the domain
Disorder
X hasSymptom Y X is a Disorder

42. Range
It indicates the individuals to which the
property should be applied
If a property relates an individual A to another
individual B, and the property has class C as
its range, then the individual B must belong to
class C
Ex. hasSymptom has a range of Symptom
X hasSymptom Y Y is a Symptom

43. Equality and Inequality
OWL terms that allow expressing equalities
and inequalities between ontological
components
EquivalentClass: two classes are equivalent
EquivalentProperty: two properties are
equivalent
SameIndividualAs: different names that refer to
the same individual
DifferentFrom: two individuals are different
AllDifferent: all members of a list are distinct
and pairwise disjoint

44. Property Characteristics
They define the semantics of properties
InverseProperty: one property is the inverse of
another
TransitiveProperty: the property is transitive
SymmetricProperty: the property is symmetric
FunctionalProperty: the property has a unique
value
InverseFunctionalProperty: The inverse of the
property is functional

45. Property Restrictions (I)
Define some constraints on the use of
properties
AllValuesFrom: all the values in the range of a
property belong to a given class
Cancer isTreatedWith [AllValuesFrom Radiotherapy]
SomeValuesFrom: at least one value in the range
of a property belongs to a given class
Flu hasSymptom [SomeValuesFrom Fever]

46. Property Restrictions (II)
MinCardinality, MaxCardinality:
minimum/maximum number of individuals to
whom you can be related with a certain
property

47. Logical Operators (I)
Define classes out of other classes
IntersectionOf
Tuberculosis_Symptoms = Fever IntersectionOf
Coughing_Blood
UnionOf
Flu_Symptoms = Fever UnionOf Vomit
ComplementOf
StandardDisorder = ComplementOf
ContagiousDisorder

48. Logical Operators (II)
DisjointWith: two classes are disjoint
Symptom DisjointWith Cause
OneOf: defines a class by enumerating all
the individuals that belong to it
Hospitals is OneOf {University-Hospital},
{St_John}, {City-Clinic}

49. OWL - Conclusions
OWL is a language for representing ontologies,
which extends frame languages
OWL has a rich set of features
There exist reasoners to check the consistency
of an ontology
Before building a knowledge base (ontology) an
study of the domain is required (in order to
determine constraints, relationships and
incompatibilities)

50. Outline of the lecture
Ontologies
Definition
Components
Use in MAS
OWL: Web Ontology Language
A method for ontology development

51. Ontology Development Process
In this talk:
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
In reality - an iterative process:
determine consider enumerate consider define enumerate define
scope reuse terms reuse classes terms classes
define define define define create define create
properties classes properties restrictions instances classes instances
consider define define create
reuse properties restrictions instances

52. General golden rules
There is not one ‘correct’ way to model a
domain
There are always different structuring
possibilities
Ontology development is necessarily an
iterative process
Concepts in the ontology should be close to
(physical or logical) objects –nouns- and
relationships –verbs- in the domain of
interest

53. I-Determine Domain and Scope
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Goal: limit the scope of the model
What is the domain that the ontology will cover?
For what are we going to use the ontology?
To what types of questions (competency questions) should
the information in the ontology provide answers?
Who will use and maintain the ontology?
Answers to these questions may change during the lifecycle

54. Limiting the scope
An ontology should not contain all the
possible information about the domain
No need to specialize or generalize more than the
application requires
No need to include all the possible properties of a
class
Only the most relevant properties
Only the properties that the application requires

55. Competency Questions
Incremental explicit list of questions that the
final ontology knowledge base should be able
to answer
Is cancer contagious or not?
Which symptoms define the flu disorder?
Which are the causes of hypertension?
Which treatment should I apply for a patient that
is allergic to penicillin and has flu?

56. II-Consider Reuse
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Why reuse other ontologies?
To avoid repeating the work
To interact with the tools that use other ontologies
To use ontologies that have been validated through use in
previous applications
To make the final knowledge base compatible with
predefined standards (e.g. MeSH, UMLS)

57. What to Reuse?
Domain-specific standard terminology
Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)
MeSH, ICD10

58. Example: Gene Ontology

59. III-Enumerate Important Terms
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Goal: build a complete list of terms in the delimited
scope.
Are they the appropriate ones to answer all the
Competency Questions?
Which are the terms we need to talk about?
What do we want to say about the terms?
Make a comprehensive list of the terms without
considering (here) the overlap between concepts they
represent, relations among terms, or whether the
concepts are classes or properties

60. Enumerating Terms – Medical Ontology
Disorder, symptom, treatment, cause, …
Disorder contagiousness, disorder scientific
name, disorder standard code, …
Cancer, blood disorder, flu, hepatitis, …
Fever, icterus, vomit, cough, …

61. IV-Define Classes and a Class Hierarchy
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Goal: find out in the list of terms those which represent
concepts in the domain
A class is a concept in the domain
A class of Disorders
A class of Symptoms
A class of Cancers
A class is a collection of elements with similar properties
A class can later be instantiated
John’s blood disorder

62. Class Inheritance
Classes usually constitute a taxonomic hierarchy (a
subclass-superclass hierarchy)
An instance of a subclass is an instance of a
superclass
If you think of a class as a set of elements, a
subclass is a subset that has a certain common
characteristic

63. Class Inheritance - Example
Cancer is a subclass of Disorder
Every cancer is a disorder
Lung cancer is a subclass of Cancer
Every lung cancer is a cancer

64. Levels in the Hierarchy

65. Modes of Development
Top-down: define the most general concepts
first and then specialize them
Bottom-up: start with the most specific
concepts and then organize them in more
general classes
Combination: define the more relevant
concepts first and then generalize and
specialize them as necessary

66. Documentation
Classes (and properties) usually have
documentation
Describing the class in natural language
Listing domain assumptions relevant to the class
definition
Listing synonyms
Different labels for different languages

67. Some hints
If a class only has one child, there may be a
modelling problem
If a class has more than a dozen children,
additional subcategories may be necessary
Subclasses of a class usually …
have additional properties
have different restrictions
participate in different relationships

68. V-Define Properties of Classes
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Describe attributes of instances of the class and
relations to other instances
[Attributes] For each disorder we want to know its natural
language name, its scientific name, its ICD-10 code, etc.
[Relations to other concepts] Each disorder has symptoms,
causes, treatments, etc.

69. Relationships in a medical ontology

70. Properties
Datatype vs Object properties
Datatype properties (attributes)
Contain primitive values (strings, numbers)
Disorder name: string
Disorder scientific name: string
Disorder ICD-10 code: float
Disorder contagiousness: boolean
Object properties (relationships)
Contain (or point to) other objects
A syndrome has a set of symptoms
A disease can be the cause of a syndrome
An intervention plan is associated with a syndrome

71. Property and Class Inheritance
A subclass inherits all the properties from
its superclass
If a disorder has a name and a contagiousness, a Flu
disorder also has a name and a contagiousness
If a class has multiple superclasses, it
inherits properties from all of them
Leukemia is both a Blood disorder and a Cancer

72. VI-Property Restrictions
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Property restrictions constrain or limit the set
of possible values for a property
The scientific name of a disorder is a string
The symptoms of any disorder have to be instances of the
Symptom class
A disorder is required to have at least one MeSH code

73. Common Restrictions
Cardinality: the number of values a property
has
Value type: the type of values a property has
Minimum and maximum value: a range of
values for a numeric property
Default value: the value a property has
unless explicitly specified otherwise

74. Domain and Range of a Property
Domain of a property: the class (or classes) that
have the property
More precisely: class (or classes) of instances which can
have the property
Which are the classes that can use a property?
Range of a property: the class (or classes) to which
property values belong
Which are the classes restricting the property possible
values?

75. Restrictions and Class Inheritance
A subclass inherits all the properties
restrictions from its superclass
A subclass can override the restrictions to
“narrow” the list of allowed values
Make the cardinality range smaller
Replace a class in the range with a subclass

76. VII-Create Instances (Individuals)
determine consider enumerate define define define create
scope reuse terms classes properties restrictions instances
Choose the class of the instance to be created
Create an instance of a class
The class becomes a direct type of the instance
Any superclass of the direct type is a type of the instance
Assign property values for the instance frame
Property values should conform to the restrictions
Knowledge-acquisition tools often check it

77. Extra material in Moodle space
OWL official description
Link to Protégé web page