Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 22:00:57 GMT Server: Apache/1.1.1 Content-type: text/html Content-length: 2989 Last-modified: Mon, 06 May 1996 13:34:33 GMT
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Abstract
An ontological mediator is an intelligent agent capable of facilitating communication between other agents who use the same communication protocols, but use their common language in different ways. Different knowlege agents employ different ontologies, or ways of taxonomizing and constraining their domains. When two agents are using different ontologies, communication cannot occur unless the agents can agree on the meaning of words and phrases. Often, they cannot, or they do not have the capability to hold such a conversation. A mediator is actively involved in understanding the content of the messages sent between communicating agents, and will use knowledge in its domain of mediation to determine where conflicts arise, learn the meanings of new words, translate expressions appropriately, and expand the ontologies of both communicating agents. Our research project is exploring various issues in ontologies, knowledge sharing, vocabulary acquisition, and distributed databases, and we are building an ontological mediator.
Ontological Mediation is a new project in the SNePS Research Group in the Department of Computer Science at the State University of New York at Buffalo. It is supported in part by Rome Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under USAF contract F30602-93-C-0177. The views and conclusions are the authors' and should not be interpreted as the official opinion or conclusions of the US Government, the USAF, Rome Laboratory, or ARPA.