ABSTRACT
Overview Both realist ontologies and work domain analysis (WDA) models attempt to provide an accurate picture of objects, attributes/properties, processes, and relations as they exist in the world. Many of the relations, entities, and processes developed during work domain modeling may be more precisely defined within a formal ontological framework, because ontologies provide a rigorous theoretical foundation for understanding various sorts of categorical decompositions (e.g., subsumption relations between classes and part-to-whole relations). This chapter explores the theoretical and practical (i.e., design-oriented) interactions between ontological models
Contents Overview ..........................................................................................................301 Introduction ......................................................................................................302 What Is Work Domain Analysis (WDA)? .........................................................303 What Is Ontology? ........................................................................................... 304 Combining Ontology and WDA ..................................................................... 308
The Abstraction-Decomposition Space (ADS) ......................................309 Sample Ontologically Driven ADS Model ........................................................ 314 Conclusions and Further Research .................................................................... 317 References ......................................................................................................... 317
and work domain models, especially as they apply to the abstraction/decomposition space (ADS). In this context, we will examine the effectiveness of ontologies to better understand some of the kinds of formal relations found in the ADS. The chapter will also provide an analysis of the system of a home, in order to (1) compare and contrast the similarities and differences between ontological and WDA approaches and (2) show how ontologies can, in turn, provide improved theoretical and methodological underpinnings for WDA.
