Title: Managing multiple ontologies in a virtual breeding environment context

Authors: Dora Simoes, Hugo Ferreira, Antonio Lucas Soares

Addresses: ISCA-UA, Apartado 58, 3811-902 Aveiro, Portugal. ' INESC Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias 378, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal. ' FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Abstract: This paper proposes a new method to manage the use of ontologies in the context of Virtual Organisations Breeding Environments (VBEs). The research focuses on the dissolution phase of a Virtual Enterprise (VE), where ontology decomposition techniques are used to enrich the ontology library. First, an overview of the process used and the Ontology Library System (OLS) adopted are described. Then, the ontologies| ranking and classification method are described, explaining a set of metrics inspired by social network approaches. Finally, the composition method used to construct a global ontology and the decomposition algorithm implemented to segment an ontology are presented.

Keywords: virtual organisations breeding environment; multiple ontologies; virtual enterprises; decomposition algorithms; ontology library system; ranking; classification; metrics; social networks; ontology composition; services management; operations management; knowledge management; KM; collaborative networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2010.031953

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2010 Vol.6 No.3, pp.230 - 256

Published online: 03 Mar 2010 *

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