A Study on Ontology Evolution Management
本体演化管理研究

Since Tim Berners Lee, current W3C chairman, first proposed the Semantic Web, it is becoming the hot topic of computer information processing area. Ontologies are set to play a key role in the "Semantic Web", as they provide a reusable piece of knowledge about a specific domain. However, those pieces of knowledge are not static, but evolve over time- Domain changes, adaptations to different tasks, or changes in the conceptualization require modifications of ontology- As ontology development becomes a more ubiquitous and collaborative process, ontology versioning and evloation becomes an important area of ontology research. The paper first analyzes the causes and the consequences of ontologies evolution. Then the key technologies of ontology evolution management are discussed. Ontologies identification and the definition of ontology change mechanisms are our focuses. Finally we propose the future work of ontology evolution management.