The document describes the Fishery Ontology Service (FOS) exploratory project which aims to build a core ontology for the fishery domain to support semantic interoperability. The ontology is being built by conceptually re-engineering, integrating and merging existing fishery terminologies, thesauri, reference tables and other resources. Foundational ontologies like DOLCE are being used to guide the development process and help integrate fishery conceptual schemas.

2. Fishery Ontology Service Exploratory Project Aldo Gangemi* Domenico M. Pisanelli* Daniele Cerboneschi* Frehiwot Fisseha (FAO-GILW) Ian Pettman (OneFish/FAO) *CNR-ISTC Laboratory for Applied Ontology http://ontology.ip.rm.cnr.it

4. Aim of the project To build a preliminary version of a core ontology for the fishery domain. The ontology will support semantic interoperability among existing fishery information systems and will enhance information extraction and text marking, envisaging a fishery semantic web.

5. Methods The ontology is being built through the conceptual re-engineering, integration and merging of existing fishery terminologies, thesauri, reference tables, DTDs, and topic trees. Integration and merging are shown to benefit from the methods and tools of formal ontology.

6. Ontological engineering OntoDevelop Component Data <- dbs <- docs <- forms <- disaggr data Logical Language EXPRESSED ACC TO DB artifact Terminology Format REFERENCE MetaData TARGET-OF <- agreed models PRODUCT Aggregated data <- selected docs <- parts of docs <- catalogs <- views <- matchings <- novel patterns External app API PARTICIPANT INSTRUMENT Ontology exploitation USED-FOR REFERENCE INVOLVES Methodology NLP technique Ontology component Ontologies INSTR PRODUCT INSTRUMENT Ontological procedure Tool TARGET-OF

9. FOS sources the oneFish topic trees (about 1,800 topics), made up of hierarchical topics with brief summaries, identity codes and attached knowledge objects (documents, web sites, various metadata); the AGROVOC thesaurus (about 500 fishery-related descriptors), with thesaurus relations ( narrower term , related term , used for ) among descriptors, lexical relations among terms, terminological multilingual equivalents, and glosses ( scope notes ) for some of them; the ASFA thesaurus, similar to AGROVOC, consisting in about 10,000 descriptors; the FIGIS reference tables , with 100 to 200 top-level concepts, with a max depth of 4, and about 30,000 'objects' (mixed concepts and individuals), relations (specialised for each top category, but scarcely instantiated) and multilingual support. the FIGIS DTDs , with 823 elements and a rich attribute structure

12. Basic activities in FOS Catalog building PRECEDES PRECEDES PRECEDES Ontology Merging Wrapping Terminology Re-engineering Formatting Union Mapping Interfacing Exploitation Matching Discovery Consistency checking Formalization Conceptual Integration Analysis Importing Descriptors Terms Relations Scope notes Subjects Identifiers Codes DB specific links Concepts Relations Axioms Rules Lexicalization Annotations

13. The world of conceptual modeling continent country material_place name extension name population entity relationship attribute (1,2) (m,n)

14. The world of relational tables continent-table country-table material-place-table

15. Ontological layers

16. Foundation Ontology FOS core FOS integrated FOS merged FIGIS Reference Tables ASFA FIGIS DTD ONE FISH AGROVOC

19. Ontology learning from RT relationships TARGET°PLAYED-BY°MEMBER PLACE PLAYED-BY°MEMBER Aquatic organism PLACE TARGET Aquatic resource Habitat Environment Aquaculture FOS Core Freshwater organism RT RT RT Freshwater ecology Inland water environment Freshwater aquaculture ASFA (draft domain ontology from reengineered descriptors)

22. A view from FCO

23. DOLCE Top-Level

29. DOLCE Top-Level

30. Quality regions in FOS

32. Descriptions and Situations Template (context-based view)

33. Descriptions and Situations Template 0,n Functional Role Endurant Region Parameter T-COMP D-TOPOLOGY T-TOPOLOGY LOCATION-OF REQUISITE-FOR Course S-Description K PARTICIPANT-IN MODALITY-ON 1,n REFERENCES 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n Situation Perdurant T-PART 0,n PLAYED-BY 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n SEQUENCES 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 0,n VALUED-BY 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n

34. Roles and descriptions

35. Roles and descriptions (2) 0,n PLAYED-BY *COMMODITY FISH 0,n 0,n 0,n *COMMODITY FISH 0,n 0,n 0,n Aquatic Organism 0,n PLAYED-BY *FISHERY ARTICLE 0,n 0,n 0,n *FISHERY ARTICLE 0,n 0,n 0,n Fishery Product F Commodity OR

36. Fishery D&S Schema ex. PCP 0,n SEQUENCES 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n Impact Situation Routes, Action sequences, Routines, etc. 0,n VALUED-BY 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n PLAYED-BY 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 0,n METHOD-OF 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 1,n 0,n 0,n 0,n 0,n ENVISAGES 0,n 0,n 0,n Persons, Aquatic organisms, Gears, Vessels, Fishery grounds, Water areas, etc. Crew, Aquatic resources, Zones, Artifact roles, etc. Exploitation indicator, Budget, Amounts needed, etc. Season, Crew numerosity, Exploitation data, Monetary values, etc. Quality Region Fishery Situation Fishery Activities and Phenomena Fishery Objects Fishery Technique Fishery Schedule Fishery Role Fishery Parameter Aquaculture, Aggressive behaviour, Frog culture, Ice fishing Underwater exploitation, Overfishing Catching method, Two boat operated purse seine