Knowledge Patterns
  This paper describes a new technique, called "knowledge patterns", for
helping construct axiom-rich, formal ontologies, based on identifying and
explicitly representing recurring patterns of knowledge (theory schemata) in
the ontology, and then stating how those patterns map onto domain-specific
concepts in the ontology. From a modeling perspective, knowledge patterns
provide an important insight into the structure of a formal ontology: rather
than viewing a formal ontology simply as a list of terms and axioms, knowledge
patterns views it as a collection of abstract, modular theories (the "knowledge
patterns") plus a collection of modeling decisions stating how different
aspects of the world can be modeled using those theories. Knowledge patterns
make both those abstract theories and their mappings to the domain of interest
explicit, thus making modeling decisions clear, and avoiding some of the
ontological confusion that can otherwise arise. In addition, from a
computational perspective, knowledge patterns provide a simple and
computationally efficient mechanism for facilitating knowledge reuse. We
describe the technique and an application built using them, and then critique
its strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that this technique enables us to
better explicate both the structure and modeling decisions made when
constructing a formal axiom-rich ontology.
