Re: Time to request PAR extension
All,
The Information Flow Framework (IFF) project is in the process of specifying
a theoretical framework for representing and managing ontologies. This
theoretical framework is concentrated around the concept of a "structured
institution". As stated on the institutions homepage
http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/users/goguen/projs/inst.html,
the concept of an institution formalizes, represents, implements and
translates the notion of "a logic". The literature on institutions now
comprises hundreds of papers. The concept of a "structured institution" is
pictured in the architecture diagram (Figure 1) on the IFF Ontology (meta)
Ontology (IFF-ONT) introduction webpage
http://suo.ieee.org/
IFF/metalevel/lower/ontology/ontology/version20021205.htm,
and is theoretically discussed in the associated "Category Theory of
Ontologies" document. The IFF framework and methodology for aligning,
merging, and maintaining ontologies is evident in the IFF-ONT documents and
further explained in the paper
"Semantic Integration in the IFF".
ISWC'03 Semantic Integration
Workshop. Sanibel Island, Florida, USA, 2003.
http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-82/SI_paper_09.pdf.
I would guess that the IFF is about halfway (50%) finished with its
specification.
Robert E. Kent
rekent@ontologos.org