Ontology
From AMWA
An ontology is a data model that represents a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the objects within that domain.
Ontologies are used in artificial intelligence, the semantic web, software engineering, biomedical informatics and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. Ontologies generally describe:
- Individuals: the basic or "ground level" objects
- Classes: sets, collections, or types of objects
- Attributes: properties, features, characteristics, or parameters that objects can have and share
- Relations: ways that objects can be related to one another
- Events: the changing of attributes or relations
