A Comparison of Upper Ontologies

Abstract

Upper Ontologies are quickly becoming a key technology for inte- grating heterogeneous knowledge coming from different sources. In this techni- cal report we analyse 7 Upper Ontologies, namely BFO, Cyc, DOLCE, GFO, PROTON, Sowa’s ontology, and SUMO, according to a set of standard software engineering criteria, and we synthesise our analysis in form of a comparative ta- ble. A summary of some existing comparisons drawn among subsets of the 7 Upper Ontologies that we deal with in this document, is also provided.

Comparisons

Pease’s comparison of DOLCE and SUMO

  • DOLCE is an “ontology of particulars”; it does have universals (classes and properties), but the claim is that they are only employed in the service of describing particulars. In contrast, SUMO could be described as an ontology of both particulars and universals. It has a hierarchy of properties as well as classes
  • With respect to SUMO, DOLCE does not include such items as a hierarchy of process types, physical objects, organisms, units and measures, and event roles.

    • SUMO has a hierarchy of properties as well as classes

Onto-Med’s comparison of GFO, DOLCE, and Sowa’s ontology

In DOLCE, levels of reality are not introduced explicitly, while in GFO the authors explicitly distinguish three levels of reality.


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