Ontological Reengineering for Reuse

This paper presents the concept of Ontological Reengineering as the process of retrieving and transforming a conceptual model of an existing and implemented ontology into a new, more correct and more complete conceptual model which is reimplemented. Three activities have been identified in this process: reverse engineering, restructuring and forward engineering. The aim of Reverse Engineering is to output a possible conceptual model on the basis of the code in which the ontology is implemented. The goal of Restructuring is to reorganize this initial conceptual model into a new conceptual model, which is built bearing in mind the use of the restructured ontology by the ontology/application that reuses it. Finally, the objective of Forward Engineering is output a new implementation of the ontology. The paper also discusses how the ontological reengineering process has been applied to the Standard-Units ontology [18], which is included in a Chemical-Elements [12] ontology. These two ontologies will be included in a Monatomic-Ions and Environmental-Pollutants ontologies.