Formalizing ontological commitments using Modal Logic.

Problem title: ontological commitment in Modal Logics

Contact: Yan Tang

Problem Description: Applications (such as semantic decision support systems, especially SDT) commit to an ontology through ontological commitments (also called application axiomatizations). As many different applications may commit to the same ontology, one may ask what is the semantic relationship (similarity/difference) between these applications. You will formalize this relationship using Modal Logic, which allows logical reasoning cross situations. The notions of ontology and ontological commitment are described and formalized (in first-order-logic) in chapter 3. Please have a look and don't hesitate to contact us if you have any question.

Research Category 1 (not required for internships):

Research issues : Modal logic, formalization of concept/ ontological commitments, proof theory, etc.

skills: logic, DOGMA, ontologies.

further readings:

1) M. Fitting, Basic Modal Logic, Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, Volume 1, Logical Foundations, 1993.

2) E. Clarke and O. Grumberg and D. Peled, Model Checking, The MIT Press, 1999.

Research Category 2 (required for internships):

Research issues: commitment visulaization based on Modal Logics, logics and verification,

skills:Java Eclipse Plugin development

further readings:

1) M. Fitting, Basic Modal Logic, Handbook of Logic in Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming, Volume 1, Logical Foundations, 1993.

2) Modal Logic by John McCarthy

3) Introduction of Modal Logic by Anthony A. Aaby

4) 1. T. R. Gruber. A translation approach to portable ontologies. Knowledge Acqui-sition, 5(2):199-220, 1993. 2.

5) T. R. Gruber. Toward principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge sharing. Workshop on Formal Ontology, Padova, Italy, 1992.