Fuzzy Ontology Representation using OWL 2

TL;DR

This paper proposes a methodology to represent fuzzy ontologies within OWL 2 using annotation properties, enabling handling of vague information without extending existing Semantic Web languages.

Contribution

It introduces a concrete approach for representing fuzzy ontologies in OWL 2, including syntactic guidelines and prototype implementations.

Findings

A formalized methodology for fuzzy ontology representation in OWL 2.

Successful prototype implementations demonstrating feasibility.

Enhanced capability to handle vagueness in Semantic Web applications.

Abstract

The need to deal with vague information in Semantic Web languages is rising in importance and, thus, calls for a standard way to represent such information. We may address this issue by either extending current Semantic Web languages to cope with vagueness, or by providing a procedure to represent such information within current standard languages and tools. In this work, we follow the latter approach, by identifying the syntactic differences that a fuzzy ontology language has to cope with, and by proposing a concrete methodology to represent fuzzy ontologies using OWL 2 annotation properties. We also report on the prototypical implementations.