Semantic Integration in the Information Flow Framework

TL;DR

The paper discusses the development of the Information Flow Framework (IFF), a category-theoretic approach to semantic integration within the Standard Upper Ontology, emphasizing its structural architecture and institutional applications.

Contribution

It introduces the IFF's architecture and demonstrates how semantic integration is naturally expressed as colimits of theories within this framework.

Findings

IFF provides a structured, category-theoretic foundation for semantic integration.

Semantic integration is achieved via colimits of theories in the IFF.

The IFF supports axiomatization of institutions and their morphisms.

Abstract

The Information Flow Framework (IFF) is a descriptive category metatheory currently under development, which is being offered as the structural aspect of the Standard Upper Ontology (SUO). The architecture of the IFF is composed of metalevels, namespaces and meta-ontologies. The main application of the IFF is institutional: the notion of institutions and their morphisms are being axiomatized in the upper metalevels of the IFF, and the lower metalevel of the IFF has axiomatized various institutions in which semantic integration has a natural expression as the colimit of theories.