Visual modeling of ontology views for e-sciences using Xsemantic nets

Abstract

Ontologies are the foundation of the Semantic Web (SW) and one of the keys necessary to its success. Conversely, e-Science domains are usually characterized by heterogeneous semi-structured data models and formats. In recent years, building ontologies are gaining momentum in the e-Science domains to provide explanatory semantics in an agreed, yet shared encodings. Conversely, ontology views hold the promise of; (a) provide a manageable portion of a larger ontology for the localized applications and users, (b) enable precise extraction of sub-onlogies of a larger ontology that commits to the main ontology, (c) enable localized customization and usage of the portion of a larger ontology and (d) enable interoperability between large ontology bases and applications. Therefore, it is interesting to look at ontology views and their desired applications in the context of e-Sciences, as there exists no agreed upon standard, methodology or formalism to specify, define and materialize such ontology views. Thus, in this paper, we elaborate on our own research direction towards proposing a meaningful ontology view formalism and its associated semantics for the e-Science domain.