The Distributed Ontology, Model and Specification Language DOL

Oliver Kutz and Till Mossakowski

  • Area: LoCo
  • Level: I
  • Week: 1
  • Time: 11:00 – 12:30
  • Room: D1.01

Abstract

There is a diversity of ontology languages in use, among them OWL, RDF, OBO, Common Logic, and F-logic. Related languages such as UML class diagrams, entityrelationship diagrams and object role modelling provide bridges from ontology modelling to applications, e.g. in software engineering and databases. Also in model-driven engineering, there is a diversity of diagrams: UML consists of 15 different diagram types, and SysML provides further types. Finally, in software and hardware specifcation, a variety of formalisms are in use, like Z, VDM, first-order logic, temporal logic etc.
Another diversity appears at the level of ontology, model and specification modularity and relations among ontologies, specifications and models. There is ontology matching and alignment, module extraction, interpolation, ontologies linked by bridges, interpretation and refinement, and combination of ontologies, models and specifications. The Distributed Ontology, Modeling and Specification Language (DOL) aims at providing a unified metalanguage for handling this diversity. In particular, DOL provides constructs for

  • “as-is” use of ontologies, models and specifications (OMS) formulated (as a logical theory) in a specific ontology, modelling or specification language,
  • OMS formalised in heterogeneous logics,
  • modular OMS,
  • mappings between OMS,
  • networks of OMS, and
  • queries.

The final DOL specification was submitted as a standard to the Object Management Group (OMG) in early 2015. This course will introduce syntax and semantics of the DOL language, discuss a number of modelling and interoperability problems that can be addressed with DOL, and introduce to the use of available DOL tools.

Slides

Day 1: Motivation and Introduction

Slides of Lecture 1 (PDF)

Day 2: Basic Structuring with DOL

Slides of Lecture 2 (PDF)

Day 3: Structured OMS

Slides of Lecture 3 (PDF)

Day 4: Semantics and Proof Calculus for Structured OMS

Slides of Lecture 4 (PDF)

Day 5: Advanced Concepts and Applications

Slides of Lecture 5 (PDF)

Additional References

Central page for DOL
Analysis and Proof Tool Hets, speaking DOL – please install Hets on your computer (Ubuntu). Fur Mac and Windows, use a virtual machine. If the local WLAN is too slow for that, see here. If you have downloaded a VM, please update to the latest Hets version as follows:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove hets-core
sudo apt-get install hets-desktop-all

Hets for Mac:

brew tap spechub/hets
brew install hets-server
brew install hets-desktop

emacs mode for DOL

Ontohub web platform, speaking DOL – please create an account at Ontohub
DOL examples for ESSLLI

T. Mossakowski, M. Codescu, F. Neuhaus, O. Kutz
The Distributed Ontology, Modelling and Specification Language – DOL
The Road to Universal Logic, Festschrift for the 50th Birthday of Jean-Yves Béziau, Volume II, Editors: Arnold Koslow and Arthur Buchsbaum, Springer, 2015

PDF