2005b) ‘Providing Ontology Support for Social Simulation.pdfVIP

Providing Ontology Support for Social Simulation 1 1 1 Edoardo Pignotti , Pete Edwards , Alun Preece , Gary Polhill2 , Nick Gotts2 1 Dept. of Computing Science University of Aberdeen Aberdeen, AB24 3UE, Scotland Email: { epignott, pedwards, apreece }@csd.abdn.ac.uk 2 The Macaulay Institute Craigiebuckler Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, UK Email:{g.polhill, n.gotts}@macaulay.ac.uk Abstract. Semantic Web technologies facilitate tasks such as collaboration, shared experimentation, and annotation of resources and have particular strength in capturing qualitative scientific arguments. In this paper we explore the design of an ontology for a social simulation tool called FEARLUS-G. This lead to a description of the tools used during the ontology engineering, and how the ontology was integrated in the FEARLUS-G service architecture. Overview In this paper we explore the use of Semantic Web technologies through the design of an ontology for a social simulation tool (Polhill, J., et. al., 200 1). This work was carried out as part of the FEARLUS-G1 proj ect (Pignotti, E., et. al., 2005) which allows large scale simulation experiments to be distributed over the Grid (Foster, et. al., 200 1) FEARLUS-G also includes infrastructure to support management of meta-data; at the core of this is an ontology which facilitates sharing and re-use of resources among land-use scientists. We begin by providing a brief introduction to Semantic Web technologies and their potential role within eSocial Science. Next, we discuss some software tools and outline how these were used during the FEARLUS-G proj ect to construct an ontology. We conclude with an explanation of how this ontology was embedded within the FEARLUS-G service architecture to enhance the scientific process.