What is meant by "Ontology"

Ontology is a partial formal model describing general world knowledge (general/upper/top-level ontology) or some domain of interest (domain specific ontology). It consists of a specific vocabulary used to describe a certain reality, plus a set of explicit assumptions regarding the intended meaning of the vocabulary words. The vocabulary words are used for referring to ontology concepts, its properties and relations. The assumptions have usually the form of first-order logic theory and they constrain the interpretation and well-formed use of these words. Usually the ontology concepts are organized in a hierarchy taking into account the subsumption relation. The assumptions express other relationships between concepts.

The development of ontologies and their integration in systems lead to a shared understanding of a specific domain by defining common vocabulary and making domain assumptions explicit. However ontology creation is a difficult and time-consuming process.

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