A. Introduction:
In big corporations such as aerospace and car industries or even Bankss there is a batch of technological informations that has to be stored in big databases. Forming a construct out of such complicated informations and associating them in some manner is the basic thought behind Ontology. It fundamentally is the scientific discipline of categorising informations ( W3 Website ) . Tim Berners-Lee from W3 Group states that making web sites is great plenty but bring forthing semantic web pages that contain more than inactive web content. Meaningful and semantic web content means to make links and informations that can be easy searched and explored by other people and web sites. ( Tim Berners-Lee, 2007 )
TheGreekphilosopherAristotleand his students were the first to utilize this scientific discipline of Ontology ( Formal Ontology Website ) . Classs do non be on their ain but are created to do more easy categorizations. The human existences categorize the information available, so that we can associate cases in one class with an case in another which enables us to retrieve things better.
The importance of meaningful informations is really critical for integrating of heterogenous application in organisations. The deficiency of making semantic content by the employees of the organisation is attributed to miss of understanding the information construction, easiness of usage, and engineering apprehension ( Conroy, 2007 ) . He adds that people think Ontology as a really formal logical procedure and a complex process but it is the creative activity of metadata for informations and information storage in an organisation.
B. Growth of Ontology for Database Design
The growing of distributed databases in an administration is turning with the increased focal point on growing, specialised packages, need for competitory advantage and globalisation. Ontology databases have grown to categorise informations and to supply a mechanism to associate complex databases between assorted systems in an organisaton. Ontology should be focused to supply a brief, accurate and clear description of the database theoretical accounts and the database constructs should be related to the sphere involvement. Ontologies are designed to be reused and shared by different systems and procedures.
Ben Necib and Freytag ( 2004 ) province that meaningful informations for information use has to be generated by meta theoretical accounts, unity restraints and semantic regulations which can be applied to get the better of issues that are created by growing of informations in local databases, growing of distributed databases across the administration and the alteration in format in the internal systems in an administration. They add that the capablenesss of the question processing in a information centric administration is done through modifying database questions into other semantic signifiers that are easy run in lesser clip and with lesser resources.
Gruber ( 1993 ) defines ontology as “ an expressed specification of a conceptualisation ” and many other research workers like Gaurino ( 1995 ) add that conceptualisation is a really obscure term in the definition by Gruber. Gaurino ( 1995 ) explains that ontology can be developed with many existent instance scenarios and unite the bing informations constructs and cases in an administration.
In instance of a bio-technology or medical house that are many back uping systems dwelling of assorted informations beginnings, diverseness of informations in footings of chemicals used, cistrons, diseases, research, physician information are all variously kept in separate databases ( Critchlow, 1998 ) . Silvescu ( 2001 ) add that these bio-technology houses should utilize advanced informations pooling with a through apprehension of their database designs and happen similarity in their diverse databases that can all be assimilated and integrated.
C. Relational Database Model ( RDBMS ) and Object Oriented Database Management Systems ( OODBMS )
The Relational Database Management System ( RDBMS ) was invented by IBM in 1970. ( Database System Website ) The case in points for this were hierarchal and the web theoretical accounts. Ted Codd laid down the regulations for relational databases and standardization. ( Channel Web Website, “Ted Codd, Chris Date” )
RDBMS has a simple design and fundamentally provinces that all informations must be stored in tabular arraies. Users cancreate and entree informations easy. Once a database is created, more classs can be added without altering the bing database. The RDBMS systems have certain restrictions like non holding adequate storage country to hive away sound and picture. And it can non run with linguistic communications other than SQL. ( AspFree Website )
The Object Oriented Database Management Systems ( OODBMS ) were designed for managing large and complex informations that relational databases were happening hard to keep. OODBMS combined object orientated constructs of package technology into the database engineering ( ODBMS Group Website ) . The four chief constructs of object oriented programming viz. heritage, informations encapsulation, object individuality, and polymorphism. Previously defined objects are reused and inherited ; this is the chief aim of heritage.
With the lifting challenge of the cyberspace and millons of users on the web today it became more of a necessity to construct object-oriented databases. It is better known as OODBMS in short, and was created in order tohandle large and complex information which an RDBMS could non. This was an promotion over relational databases and bigger and more complex dealingss and tabular arraies are inherited, informations encapsulated and therefore easy created.
Inheritance allows the coder to develop replies to complex jobs by making new objects by widening antecedently defined objects therefore doing reusability possible. Data encapsulation on the other manus hides the internal province of the objects. They can be accessed merely by their methods and non internal provinces. There are wholly three types of encapsulated objects viz. full encapsulation, write encapsulation and partial encapsulation. ( Search Oracle Web site )
Object individuality all objects in of the database to be independent. Polymorphism and dynamic binding means you can specify operations for one object portion the specification of the operation with all other objects in the database.
D. Advantages and Disadvantages of RDBMS and OODBMS
The development of apparently incorporate application for a big corporation that has heterogenous environments in different location and holding linked and separate applications, the consolidation and coverage of informations can be really hard. The cost and clip required to incorporate big and complex relational databases can be high and the clip required to map different tabular arraies and dealingss in a RDBMS requires good apprehension of the complex database scheme and the database design.
Main disadvantage of RDBMS is that there is a decreased apprehension and representation of existent concern objects and there is an uncomplete usage of concern restraints and unity rules. RDBMS supports same sort of information construction and there are reduced operations possible. ( ODBMS Website – Disadvantages of OODBMS )
The OODBMS has its ain portion of advantages and disadvantages. The chief advantage of OODBMS over RDBMS is that it is non excessively hard and clip devouring to make immense database theoretical accounts because the tabular arraies, belongingss, scheme templets are inherited form the parent tabular arraies. It is comparatively cheap in development and lesser clip is taken to map the objects in the database deign. The public presentation in immense and complex system can be improved. ( Versant Website )
OODBMS defined operations are non dependent on one peculiar database application running at a certain point of clip. Data types can be extended so as to include images, digital and audio/video, plus multi-media operations as good. Reusability, stableness, and dependability are the cardinal words here. Besides users can make their ain methods of entree to informations. OODBMS engineering has forayed into an country which RDBMS could n’t. The Fieldss of Medicine, multimedia, and high-energy natural philosophies are merely some of the industries utilizing object-oriented databases.
The biggest drawback of OODBMS is that lacks a common information theoretical account. It is still considered to be in developmental phases and hence it has no proper criterions either. OODBMS does non back up ad hoc questioning which defeats the intent of heritage and encapsulation. The designing and execution of OODBMS is really complex and requires particular accomplishments and resources. There is a deficiency of support for the security of the database and there is a deficiency of support for the positions. There are locking issues at the object degree in OODMS and this sometimes affects the public presentation. ( OODMS Concepts – Isabelle Bichindaritz, Washington University )
E. ADVANTAGES OF ONTOLOGY OVER RDBMS AND ODBMS
Ontology based systems make cognition offprint from the application codification and application inside informations. These systems portion the same information between different applications and are to be applied for heterogenous environments ( Das, 2007 ) . The ontology systems are evolved from Relational Database theoretical accounts and the database scheme has been optimized for the assorted birthplace questions. Some of the questions do non necessitate scanning the whole database and simple questions can be run easy from a stored format.
Ontology is compared to telephones by Bennett ( 2006: P 15 ) who province that ontology databases perform the same undertaking to back up the exchange of information. The value of an ontology database hence depends on the quality of the shared information over the web as many heterogenous applications are running the same shared informations pool ( Bennett and C. Fellbaum, 2006 ) . This ensures that there is a consecutive forward way for new users and certification for the acquisition shall be easy achieved and accessed.
Davies ( 2005: P 12 ) sates that ontology are besides used in legal and judicial system and aid in the structuring of cognition that are spread across volumes of books, and diaries. The cognition needs to be formalized into a proper construction to develop cognition on legal issues and make direction tools that promote cognition.
* Valente ( 1995 ) specify the LFU ( Functional Ontology for Law based on universe cognition, originative cognition, reactive cognition and duty cognition
* Van Kralingen ( 1995: p 1127-54 ) defines FBO ( Frame-Based Ontology of Law that is based on Acts of the Apostless, actions, application and concept definitions ;
* Breuker et al. , ( 2002 ) who defines the LRI ( Core Legal Ontology that is based on agents, physical entities, objects, abstract categories, communicative Acts of the Apostless and procedures
Benett ( 2006: P 17 ) besides defines ontology as tool to supplement the information exchange across class and subject boundaries. Benett ( 2006: 18 ) adds on and says that Ontology is based on “principle of terminological moderation” which is aimed to remain every bit near as the footings used by the audience. This is of import because the existent terminal users of the ontology system will hold a demand for these footings and these footings are used to make full the spreads in the database to make a hierarchy of complete information demands.
Colomb ( 2007: P 112 ) provinces that to hold a complete apprehension of the ontology methods and usage in all applications in an organisation, an analysis should dwell of all inside informations used in the application spread cross the assorted applications and spheres. Some of the illustrations of ontology methods are the Object Management Group ( OMG ) and Ontology Development Meta theoretical account ( ODM ) . These methods are systems technology criterions that have been approved by W3 council and are templets used by chiefly bio-technology and technology houses that have really complex designs and methods for calculation.
Meinard ( 2002: P 14 ) adds that the purpose of ontology in a complex system holding heterogenous application is to acquire a clear image of the universe features and creates a relation between the cardinal entities where all databases are linked and inter related. The constituents of the databases are composed of parts and whether there are cardinal entities which are composed of the database scheme and tabular arraies across heterogenous databases.
F. CONCLUSION
Ontology is widely researched in the field of computing machine scientific discipline today. It has become omnipresent in the field of cognition technology. Knowledge workers are seeking to integrate its use with relational databases like Oracle by supplying interfaces utilizing markup linguistic communications like XML, HTML etc. XML can be configured in a peculiar taxonomy provided by ontology.
Another fluctuation would be by the use of web services such as a Java Web Service. They make usage of an recognized criterion or protocol like SOAP, WSDL or one time once more XML. This has the advantage that it can work on all late developed web engineerings
and besides they are independent of platforms.
The importance of meaningful informations is really critical for integrating of heterogenous application in organisations. The deficiency of making semantic content by the employees of the organisation is attributed to miss of understanding the information construction. Ontology in a manner is similar to taxonomy, and will assist a batch in Web 2.0 which is the current engineering of the World Wide Web. It provides a vocabulary on some peculiar sphere with significances of footings and the relation between them. Ontology is now besides used in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, e-commerce, systems technology, library scientific disciplines, endeavor book taging, wellness attention, Bio-informatics and most significantly in instruction. It is besides used in the freshly emerging field of engineering called as the Semantic Web. Bio-ontologies are a new field in which molecular databases are linked.
Ontology based systems make cognition offprint from the application codification and application inside informations. Well known applications utilizing Ontology engines include SAPPHIRE orSituational Awareness and Preparedness for Public Health Incidences and Reasoning Engineswhich helps in state of affairss that affectpublic wellness. Semantic interoperability is a major aim in a general IT system development and a necessary ingredient for Artificial Intelligent systems seeking improved cognition sharing and reuse.
