Writing an ontology

A MOL (=Machine Ontology Language) builts on the basic types of a high level programming language such as MATLAB. The fundamental features can be listed as follows:

• All MOL classes with attributes have individuals of class "struct" as in MATLAB or C.
• All MOL classes with no attributes can be subclasses of either of the basic MATLAB/C types such as "double", "char", "uint8",... and also "cell".
• To avoid the need of a special editor to work on MOL files, a simple and visually pleasing notation is used to define classes/subclasses and their attributes:
  • ">>..>" is used to declare a new class (max 3 words all in lower case). Subclass is indicated by a higher number of ">" signs and its superclass is the firs declaration above with a smaller number of ">" signs.
  • "@attrib : class" is the format of declaring an attribute and its class. "class" can be any declared class or a basic MATLAB/C type as defined above.
  • "@@attrib : MATLAB expressing of 'attrib'" or "@@..: MATLAB expresstion of '..'" can be sued to define an attribute constraint or a constraint on the body of the object. The MATLAB expression can contain a user defined m-function if needed.
  • ":" sign after a class declaration starting with ">>..>" can be followed by a sup class name.
  • "--" sign after a class declaration starting with ">>..>" can be followed by piece of MATLAB code or an M-function that defines a generic sample (=individual) of that class.

After applying the "Read & Debug" button and making necessary corrections, if there are error messages, the lists of classes and properties used can be displayed:

Clicking on any of them may display further windows with details of classes

The basic MATLAB/C classes can also be listed:

Note that there are 6 types of "embedded objects" that can be used in sEnglish sentences:

• Mathematical symbols and equations placed between $...$ or $$....$$. For HTML display they are converted to MathML.
• MATLAB code appearing between "..."
• Pure numbers such as 2, 467, -45.29, 34.12e-6 etc. that have no physical dimensions.
• Physical quantities such as ~3m , ~345m/s etc. These must start with ~ to indicate that they are physical quantities with dimensions.
• Images that are included in the LaTex of HMTL documents. The format of their use is as in HTML: for simplicity. For inclusion in LaTEx this is converted to a suitable figure environment.
• Quotes of text: these are between single quotes such as 'curvature' , 'Cosmos', etc.

  Example sEnglish sentences using embedded objects are:

  Use a factor of 2 in the computation of ~340m/s airflow with method 'Silvester' as displayed in the figure using formula $V=Av^2$.

  Execute code "M=1:for k=1:N, M=M*N;end".

  etc.

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  (c) SysBrain Ltd, 2008.