1. IDEAS
Chris Partridge
6/27/2019

2. Taxonomy & Classification
Derived from Linguistics
Not as formal as it could be
E.g. Glider is a form of a plane
Microlight is a form of a glider
Microlight is not a plane
Typically don’t have relationships
Customer and Company exist but Customer is not related to Company
6/27/2019

3. Ontology Ontology Been around for many years Is formal
Current interest came out of AI in 1990’s
Knowledge Representation
Philosophical Ontology (Mealy 1967)
Is formal
Eg Glider is a form of a plane
Microlight is a form of a glider
Microlight is a plane
Does include relationships
Customer has a relationship with Company
Customer is actually a relationship
6/27/2019

4. Philosophical Ontology
A philosophical ontology:
Use philosophical ontology because it is the discipline that focuses on developing precise pictures of the world – and it has been working on this for over 2,500 years.
An ontology is those things in the world (business domain) whose existence a theory (an application) commits to.
In a development, without a clear picture of the ontology, the application cannot clearly reflect the business domain.
Philosophical ontology enables us to clearly and explicitly model the application’s ontology – and reflect this in the application.
6/27/2019

5. Philosophical Ontology - Technical
A philosophical ontology:
Not only subscribes to the philosophical notion of an ontology
But also is informed by philosophical research – e.g.:
Contains a top ontology – with the categories of existence and their identity criteria.
Explicitly makes metaphysical choices. E.g.
Four dimensionalism (vs. three dimensionalism)
Extensionalism (vs. intensionalism)
6/27/2019

6. Current Development Approach
Technology Locked Zone
Computation Dependent Zone
Technology Dependent Zone
Legacy
System
Logical
Model
(PIM)
Physical
Model
(PSM) No
System
Specifies the Computational Design
Specifies the Physical Design
Greenfield
Zone
Mapping
System Architecture
6/27/2019

7. Development Approach Have added a business architecture dimension
Physical
Model
(PSM)
Logical
(PIM)
Business
Domain
Models No
System
Legacy
Service
Technology Locked Zone
Application Agnostic Zone
Application Dependent Zone
Computation Dependent Zone
Technology Dependent Zone
Greenfield
Zone
Computation Agnostic Zone (CIM)
Technology Agnostic Zone
Model Driven Architecture (MDA)
Business Architecture
System Architecture
Captures Business Domain Knowledge From Legacy Systems
Captures Business Service Knowledge From Legacy Systems
Specifies the Computational Design
Specifies the Physical Design
Describes The Business Domain/Ontology
Describes The Business Service Requirements (Epistemic and Performative)
Mapping
Have added a business architecture dimension
6/27/2019

8. Generalising / sophisticating patterns
Ways in which patterns can be made more sophisticated:
Generality. The degree by which the scope of the types in the improved model can be increased without the loss of information.
Simplicity. The degree by which the model can be made less complex.
Explanatory power. The ability of the improved model to give increased meaning.
Fruitfulness. The degree to which the improved model can meet currently unspecified requirements or is easily extendable to do so.
Objectivity. The ability of the model to provide a more objective (shared) understanding of the world : in particular, to index a thing to its mode of existence as opposed to its mode of representation and/or application.
Precision. The ability of the improved model to give a more precise picture of the business object.
6/27/2019

9. Analysis strategy A common framework across the business
Individual entities only appear once.
Do not need to have, for instance, company appearing once as a purchaser and again as a supplier. But need to be able to show if it is a purchaser, supplier or both.
Take advantage of high level re-usable patterns
Same pattern appearing in a number of areas.
6/27/2019

10. Generalisation – no loss of information
Original Types
Identify Super-Types
Original Types Redundant
Typically lower level patterns are combinations of more general patterns
Analysis process enables 42 to make most lower level patterns redundant – become a combination of business patterns which inherit foundation patterns
Pattern combination facility enables the construction of new, sometimes vastly different, patterns from combinations of the general patterns
NO LOSS OF INFORMATION
6/27/2019

11. Power of pattern combination
Narrower
Wider
Scope/Functionality
Level of Generality
Lower
Higher
Traditional patterns
Combination enabled patterns
Too
complex
Pattern combination has the potential for generating a substantial number of new patterns.
Key is two-fold:
enabling pattern combination
identifying fruitful general patterns
Number of general types 1 5 10 20
100
200 N
Potential number of lower level types 26
1013
1,048,555
1.27*1030
1.61*1060
2N-N-1
6/27/2019

12. Benefits of Ontology
Ontology gives developers a sound understanding of the business domain
Less likely to exercise poor judgement
Ontology provides a scientific specification from which developers can code directly
Quicker development
Development reflects requirements
Ontology delivers semantic interoperability
Data is not open to interpretation or misunderstanding
6/27/2019