Formalizing the Evolution Process

Giorgos Flouris (1)
George Konstantinidis (1,2)

(1) Institute of Computer Science, FO.R.T.H., Heraklion, Greece
{gconstan,fgeo,christop,antoniou}@ics.forth.gr
(2) Department of Computer Science, University of Crete, Greece
{fgeo,gconstan}@ics.forth.gr

Abstract
This work focuses on identifying and formalizing the process 
underlying the development of an evolution algorithm. The main 
argument elaborated in this work is that the development of an 
algorithm dealing with the incorporation of new knowledge in a 
logical structure (such as an ontology) is based on a pattern 
consisting of discrete and well-defined steps which can be 
formalized, described and studied independently. After a short 
literature review on the current state-of-the-art in the field 
of ontology evolution, we describe the aforementioned pattern 
and propose a formalization of it; this allows us to develop a 
generic "algorithmic pattern" which can be made specific and be 
applied to different representation languages or application 
scenarios, and lead to specific ontology evolution algorithms 
applicable to specific contexts. We then apply our formalization 
to the problem of updating RDF-based ontologies and develop an 
algorithm for this case.