Middle Architecture Criteria

TL;DR

This paper seeks to establish clear, rigorous criteria for identifying mid-level ontologies by defining the necessary and sufficient conditions for collections of ontologies to form a mid-level architecture, addressing a key ambiguity in ontology integration.

Contribution

It provides a formal characterization of what constitutes a mid-level architecture in ontologies, moving beyond the ambiguous criteria based on individual ontologies.

Findings

Proposes necessary and sufficient conditions for mid-level architectures.

Clarifies the distinction between top-, mid-, and domain-level ontologies.

Addresses the ambiguity in current criteria for mid-level ontologies.

Abstract

Mid-level ontologies are used to integrate terminologies and data across disparate domains. There are, however, no clear, defensible criteria for determining whether a given ontology should count as mid-level, because we lack a rigorous characterization of what the middle level of generality is supposed to contain. Attempts to provide such a characterization have failed, we believe, because they have focused on the goal of specifying what is characteristic of those single ontologies that have been advanced as mid-level ontologies. Unfortunately, single ontologies of this sort are generally a mixture of top- and mid-level, and sometimes even of domain-level terms. To gain clarity, we aim to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for a collection of one or more ontologies to inhabit what we call a mid-level architecture.