UML (Unified Modelling Language) und OWL (Web Ontology Language) are both modelling languages with a visual syntax that have developed independently from each other but both with the idea to allow conceptualisation of real world phenomena.
UML -> Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
OWL -> Description Logic (DL)
There are used in different contexts by different persons. UML is used for specifying, visualizing and documenting software systems. OWL is a description logic based ontology language used in knowledge representation (KR)
UML is based on close world assumption. The close word assumption states that what is not currently known to be true is false.
The counterpart is open world assumption (this is what OWL is based on), which asserts that a system’s knowledge is incomplete, so that if a statement cannot be inferred from what is represented in the system, it cannot be inferred to be false.
In UML are classes (objects) are grouped in packages. In OWL are URIs used to identify all objects. These URIs are then grouped in namespaces.
OO programming, you create the superclass first and then you derive subclasses from it. In the semantic web, you make the subclasses first, then you stick them together into a superclass.
What can UML that OWL does not can ? and what can OWL that UML does not can ?
Can we use OWL in SW engineering ?
Where do we need ontology in SW engineering ?
Is OWL not to complicated for a normal human ?
Others topics:
- OWL versus RDF
- OWL tooling
- RDF tripple store
- OWL compared with DSL
Some References:
[1] Guarino_1998_Formal_Ontology_and_Information_Systems.pdf
[2] Barry_Smith_2003_Blackwell_Guide_to_the_Philosophy_of_Computing_and_Information.pdf
[3] Brockmans_2004_A_Model_Driven_Approach_for_Building_OWL_DL_and_OWL_Full_Ontologies.pdf
[4] Brockmans_2004_Visual_Modeling_of_OWL_DL_Ontologies_Using_UML.pdf
[5] Brockmans_A_Metamodel_and_UML_Profile_for_Rule-extended_OWL_DL_Ontologies.pdf
[6] Guarino_1998_Formal_Ontology_and_Information_Systems.pdf
[7] Guus_Schreiber_2005_Lecture_part_2_on_Ontology_design_patterns.ppt
[8] Hart_2004_OWL_full_and_UML_2.0_compared.pdf
[9] Koide_OWL_vs_Object_Oriented_Programming.pdf
[10] Nils_J_Nilsson_1983_Logical_Foundations_of_Artificial_Intelligence.pdf
[11] Nils_J_Nilsson_1991_Logic_and_artificial_intelligence.pdf
[12] OMG_2009_Ontology_Definition_Metamodel_v1.pdf
[13] Xue_2008_Comparative_study_OWL_UML.pdf
Links
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-rdf-uml/
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~melnik/rdf/uml/
http://swik.net/Ontology+UML
