The category of networks of ontologies
This work provides a foundational framework for improving interoperability in semantic web applications, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing alignment semantics.
The paper addresses the challenge of interoperability in networks of ontologies due to varying semantics for alignments, by introducing an abstraction that enables the definition of closure and consistency independently of specific semantics, and demonstrates that these networks form categories with specific morphisms.
The semantic web has led to the deployment of ontologies on the web connected through various relations and, in particular, alignments of their vocabularies. There exists several semantics for alignments which make difficult interoperation between different interpretation of networks of ontologies. Here we present an abstraction of these semantics which allows for defining the notions of closure and consistency for networks of ontologies independently from the precise semantics. We also show that networks of ontologies with specific notions of morphisms define categories of networks of ontologies.