Towards the Use of an Upper Ontology for U.S. Government and Military Domains: An Evaluation

Momentum is gaining to develop a Semantic Web to allow people and machines to share the meaning (semantics) of data and ultimately of applications. Key to the vision of a Semantic Web is the ability to capture data and application semantics in ontologies and map these ontologies together via related concepts. One approach for mapping disparate ontologies is to use a standard upper ontology. In determining how Semantic Web technologies might be applied to United States (U.S.) Government domains, we consider whether the use of standard upper ontologies makes sense in these environments. This paper attempts to examine current candidate standard upper ontologies and assess their applicability for a U.S. Government or U.S. Military domain. We evaluate the state of the art and applicability of upper ontologies through the lens of potential application in these domains. The evaluation includes consideration of the ontology purpose, ontological content decisions, licensing restrictions, structural differences, and maturity. We conclude with some recommendations and predictions.