In this way, structuring knowledge in a domain-independent manner can improve the readability, reusability, and interoperability of knowledge in the target world. Development of the sustainability science ontology 1. Constituents of ontology The main contribution of this paper is to propose a reference model for structuring SS knowledge and to introduce a mapping Selleckchem 17DMAG tool based on that model. For this, an analysis of the quality of ontology is not essential, and, so, we only briefly explain the conceptualization of terms needed for structuring the SS ontology. An ontology consists of concepts and relationships that

are needed to describe the target world. One of the main components of an ontology is a hierarchy of concepts representing things existing in the target world that are determined to be important and organized by identifying is-a relationships between them. Figure 3 shows a small section of the SS ontology. In the example, an is-a relationship

declares that Destruction of regional environment is a kind of Problem. In the is-a relationship, the generalized concept (e.g., Problem) is called a super concept and the specialized concept (e.g., Destruction of regional environment) is called a sub concept. Thus, an is-a hierarchy describes the categorization of the concepts. For instance, Problem is subdivided into sub concepts selleck inhibitor such as Destruction of regional environment and Global environmental problem. Furthermore, Destruction of regional environment is subdivided into Air pollution, Water pollution, and so on. Fig. 3 A small example from the sustainability science (SS) ontology The introduction of other relationships refines the definition of the concepts. For example,

part-of relationships, which are also called has-part relationships, and TGF-beta/Smad inhibitor attribute-of relationships are used to show the concept’s parts and attributes, respectively. These relationships can be used to explicate the is-a relationships that give the categorization. For example, in contrast to Case 1, Case 2 in Fig. 3 Alanine-glyoxylate transaminase explicates that the categorization of Problem is determined by the place of occurrence, which is represented using an attribute-of relationship for Destruction of regional environment and Global environmental problem. One difference between Air pollution and Water pollution is the target, which is also represented using an attribute-of relationship. In this example, place of occurrence and target are examples of a relationship, called a role. These relationships and roles are described as slots in Hozo. When there is an is-a relationship between two concepts, the sub concept inherits the part-of and attribute-of slots from its super concept. In Fig. 3, definitions of Destruction of regional environment (e.g.