Direct and Inverse Translators between FLogic and Ontolingua in the context of ODE and the (KA)2 initiative: a case of study

Abstract

This paper focuses on our experiences on translating ontologies from one ontology implementation language, F Logic, into another one, Ontolingua, in the framework of Methontology and ODE. Rather than building "ad hoc" translators between languages and to carry out the translation at the implementation level, our option consists of translating from ODE intermedíate representations, which are at the knowledge level. So, we have built direct translators from ODE intermedíate representations to Ontolingua and F Logic, and we have also built reverse translators from these two languages to ODE intermedíate representations. Expressiveness of the target languages is the main feature to analyze when generating automatically ontologies from ODE intermedíate representations. In this paper, we just analyze the expressiveness of Ontolingua and FLogic for creating classes, instances, relations, functions and axioms, which are essential components in ontologies. The motivation for this analysis can befound in the (KA)2 initiative and can be easily extended to any other domains and languages.