Bases de données à base ontologique. Principe et mise en oeuvre

A new database model called Ontology-Based Database (OBDB) that has two main characteristics, it allows to manage both ontologies and data and permits to associate each data with the ontological concept which defines its meaning.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new database model called Ontology-Based Database (OBDB) that has two main characteristics. First, it allows to manage both ontologies and data. Second, it permits to associate each data with the ontological concept which defines its meaning. Our approach addresses ontologies expressed as models, i.e. sets of objects that may be accessed from a root object, and that consists of classes and properties. Target data are those data that are instances of ontology classes and that fulfil a strong typing assumption: each instance shall belong to exactly one base class, defined as the lower bound (for the subsumption relationship) of the classes the instance belongs to, and it shall be described only by properties that are applicable to its base class. We first propose an OBDB architecture model, called OntoDB. Then we outline its implementation using the PostgreSQL DBMS, the PLIB ontology model and the EXPRESS language.