Coordinating and Integrating Faceted Classification with Rich Semantic Modeling
This work addresses the integration of classification systems for semantic modeling, which is incremental as it builds on existing thesauri and ontologies.
The paper tackles the problem of coordinating faceted classifications like the Art and Architecture Thesaurus with formal ontologies such as BFO2, proposing extensions to enable richer semantic modeling for topics in Technology and integration into a Human Activity and Infrastructure Foundry.
Faceted classifications define dimensions for the types of entities included. In effect, the facets provide an "ontological commitment". We compare a faceted thesaurus, the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), with ontologies derived from the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO2), which is an upper (or formal) ontology widely used to describe entities in biomedicine. We consider how the AAT and BFO2-based ontologies could be coordinated and integrated into a Human Activity and Infrastructure Foundry (HAIF). To extend the AAT to enable this coordination and integration, we describe how a wider range of relationships among its terms could be introduced. Using these extensions, we explore richer modeling of topics from AAT that deal with Technology. Finally, we consider how ontology-based frames and semantic role frames can be integrated to make rich semantic statements about changes in the world.