solutions for semantic web (OWL ontologies, SPARQL, reasoning) and model driven development (metamodel, model design, model transformation, code generation)

OWLizer = Software Languages -> OWL Ontologies Part II

| Thursday, May 27, 2010
The OWLizer transforms software language (Ecore Metamodel/Model) into OWL ontologies. In the following we present an extension of this simple model transformation approach. It is extended by transforming specific EAnnotations to specific OWL constructs. For example by annotating elements in the metamodel with „#Class“- as well as „#ObjectProperty“, EClassifiers and EReferences can be marked as appropriate OWL -Entities. Starting at the „#Class“-EAnnotation, further OWL-Classaxioms can be annotated, that means, by creating further nested EAnnotations.
An example is given in the following:


Here the OWLizer transforming the metamodel (depicted in figure 1) would result the following OWL ontology axioms and class expressions. EquivalentClasses(Cisco7603 ObjectMinCardinality(1 hasConfiguration. Configuration7603)).
Here the OWLizer is able to interpret the annotations and creates corresponding axioms in ontology (e.g. #ObjectMinCardinality means the creation of the corresponding class expressions in the ontology; #EquivalentClasses means the creation of the corresponding axiom).
In general we have built an annotation profile for annotating Ecore-based metamodels. The metamodel itself and in addition its annotations are transformed to a pure ontology by the OWLizer . Thus we extended the expressivity of the Ecore metamodeling language to a new comprehensive approach that combines standard metamodeling with using ontology-based expressions and axioms in an integrated manner.