DISEL: A Language for Specifying DIS-Based Ontologies

Abstract

We present the main syntactical constructs of DISEL language, which is designed as a language for specifying DIS-based ontologies. The adoption of this language would enable the creation of shareable ontologies for the development of ontology-based systems. We give the main constructs of the language and we illustrate the specification of the main components of a DISEL ontology using a simplified example of a weather ontology. DIS formalism, on which the proposed language is based, enables the modelling of an ontology in a bottom-up approach. The syntax of DISEL language is based on XML, which eases the translation of its ontologies to other ontology languages. We also introduce DISEL Editor tool, which has several capabilities such as editing and visualising ontologies. It can guide the specifier in providing the essential elements of the ontology, then it automatically produces the full DISEL ontology specification.