Proposed Office Furniture Ontology
Below is a proposed ontology for office furniture; it is for the Acme Enterprise case. Ontology is a “shared and common understanding that reaches across people and application systems.”[1] It is a proposed hierarchical ontology that I created. It is basically a hierarchical taxonomy of office furniture terms. Each node in this hierarchy represents an office furniture concept. The links represent relations between these concepts. Currently, each link is generalization relationship, it is “a-kind-of,” or an “is-a” relationship (e.g., Leather chairs are a kind of Chair). This is a semantic network.[2]
The ontology below is based on ontologies that I collected from Vendor Portals, Shopping Portals, and Shopbot services. The Web sites I assembled this ontology from consist of:
1. Officemax.com (Office Portal)
2. Staples.com (Office Portal)
3. BizChair.com (Shopbot)
4. Google.com (Search Tool)
5. Shopping.yahoo.com (Shopbot)
6. Office.com (Shopbot)
The final ontology below is a Union of these individual ontologies. Selecting the XML schema (e.g., XML Schema, Name Space, RDF, RDFS, DAML+OIL, UDDI, WSDL) to best store this ontology remains to be determined.
The ontology has a relationship to the Acme Enterprise Catalog. In terms of the ER diagram created by the Systems Integration/Requirements group. The hierarchical ontology can be represented in a modified Product Category Entity. You need a Category_ID attribute, Parent_Category_ID field (these two attributes show the parent-child relation) and a Description attribute. A number of RDBMS (e.g., Oracle) support these tree-structure relationships, even thought they cannot be represented in relational algebra. However, there is no disambiguation of the word senses in an RDBMS. Each tuple in the Product_Category (I would say the Product Ontology Table) would have a relationship to the appropriate tuples in the Customer Catalog entity. Still, we may want to work out how to represent this ontology in XML and then store in an RDBMS.
The leaf of this ontology tree has an SKU number. I assume this to be the Catalog_ID in the System Integration’s group Customer Catalog entity. Each concept in the taxonomy is thus associated office furniture products as their leafs. Each product SKU number in turn has two associated values. These are:
a) Office Product Price
b) Time Frame for Delivery
i) Shipping to Customer Site
ii) Deliver to Acme Store
There other possible and very useful values for each SKU number (i.e., Office product). Examples of these values are listed below. However, they are not used in the programming example, in order to have a simpler ontology:
- Descriptions of Product Features
- Time Frame of Delivery (Store or Shipping)
- Shipping Costs
- Geographic Location of Closest Store for Pick-up
- Return Policy
Office Product Data Sources.
There are six (6) potential data sources for office furniture products. We expect that only one or two will be used in the Acme Enterprise program. The two leading candidates are:
- Shopping Portals and Shopbots. Portals include shopping.altavista.com; shopping.yahoo.com; activebuyersguide.com, and aol.com/shopping. Shopbots include mysimon.com, office.com, pricegrabber.com, RUSure.com. Use WebShifter II to implement the ontology, disambiquate the terms, and generate Boolean queries.
- Acme Enterprise Catalog (Create catalog in an RDBMS). The RDBMS schema should allow for multiple Acme Stores. Ideally, we can get Webshifter to generate the appropriate SQL queries for the RDBMS catalog.
The other three (3) candidate data will most likely will not be implemented in the Acme Enterprise program and just discussed in the research paper.
- UDDI Registry - Create a dummy data structure or find an existing UDDI registry to use – embed the ontology into the UDDI Registry. Consider the use of DAML+OIL. We should create UDDI business, service, binding and service specification information to integrate the needed semantic knowledge across Suppliers, Acme Enterprises and the Customers.
- Consider implement RDBMS catalogs for existing and potential suppliers
- EbXML Registry, might create a dummy data structure in the Research paper.
UDDI Registry Structure
Acme Enterprise can deploy a Global Business Registry (e.g., with IBM or HP) or create a Private UDDI Registry. The taxonomy can allow unrestricted references to it (unchecked) or it may chose to validate the references (checked). A checked taxonomy must have an associated validation service. A UDDI business Registry would have four structural elements:
- White Pages: Define Acme Enterprise in the businessEntity elements.
- Yellow Pages: Create business descriptions of the Purchase Office Furniture services in a UDDI Business Registry. This is the businessService entity. The set of businessService entities will be further categorized by the ontology below (e.g., office chairs). Currently UDDI already supports taxonomies such as the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), the Universal Standard Products and Service Classification (UNSPSC), Dun & Bradstreetsn Data Universal Number System, the Thomas Register, and the ISO 3166 geographic taxonomy.
- GreenPages: Within each instance of the businessService for Purchase Office Furniture there lives one or more technical Web service descriptions. These contain the information that allows an application program to connect to and communicate with a remote Web service. This information is described in the bindingTemplate entity.
- Green Pages: The bindingTemplate has a reference to a tModel entity, these references are keys that can be used to access specification information about the Purchase Office Furniture service, such has the name, publishing organization, and URL pointers to the actual service specifications. To publish the (unchecked) Office Furniture taxonomy it is necessary to publish a tModel for it along with a UDDI operator, the tModel has a URL reference to the actual taxonomy. A checked Office Furniture taxonomy is more complex to publish.
Office Furniture Ontology
Bookcases
Wooden Bookcases
Metal Bookcases
Shelving and Storage
Shelving
Storage Cabinet
Bulletin Boards
Chairs/Office Seating
Leather Chairs
Executive High-Back Chairs
Executive Fabric Office Chairs
Executive Leather Chairs
Managerial Mid-Back Chairs
Office Chairs
Conference Chairs
Computer Chairs
Home Office Chairs
Mesh Office Chairs
Task Chairs
Student Chairs
Steel Frame Chairs
Ergonomic Chairs
Orthopedic Seating
Task Chairs
Guest & Lobby Chairs
Side chairs
Folding Chairs
Stacking Chairs
Drafting Chairs
Executive/Management Chairs
Guest/Side Chairs
Reception Furniture
Chair / Stool Arm Sets
Stools
Chair Accessories
Chairmats
Casters
Floormats
Printer Stand Casters
Backrests
Floormats
Backrests
Chair Support Cushions
Chair / Stool Casters
Chairmats
Stacking Chair Carts
Coat Racks
Supports, Cushions & Casters
Carts & Machine/Printer Stands
Computer/Machine Carts
Printer & Machine Stands
Project Stands
Fax Stands
TV/VCR Stands
Printer Carts
LAN Desks
Audio Visual Carts
Warehouse & Mailroom Carts
Breakroom Carts
Credenzas & Hutches
Wood Veneer Credenzas
Metal Credenzas
Desks
Executive Office
Modular Office Systems
Desks with Hutches
"L" "U" & Corner Desks
Computer Workcenters
Mobile Desks
Student Desks
WorkCenters
Metal Desks
Mobile Desks
Metal Furniture Ensembles
Desk Center Drawers
Utility Drawers
Wood Veneer Desks
Wood Veneer Furniture Ensembles
Desks Accessories & Collections
Executive Desk Collections
Business Office Systems
Desks
Furniture Pads & Protectors
Mobile Desks & Cart
Bookends & Book Racks
Card Files & Holders
Desk Accessory Sets
Desk Pads
Desktop Organizers
Desktop Sorters & Files - Metal
Desktop Sorters & Files - Plastic
Drawer Organizers
Letter Trays
Literature Holders
Picture & Certificate Frames
Wall Files
Office Décor
Letter Trays
Literature Holders
Picture & Certificate Frames
Wall Files
Filing Cabinets
(Filing Cabinets / Mobile Files)
Mobile Files
Mobile File Carts
Open Files / Over Files
Lateral File Cabinets
Wood Veneer File Cabinets
Vertical File Cabinets
Stoarge Cabinets
Fire Proof File Cabinets
Specialty Filing
Home/Executive File Cabinets
Lateral File Cabinets
Home/Executive File Cabinets
Vertical File Cabinets
Lateral File Cabinets
Open Files / Over Files
Fireproof Files/Insulated Files/Safes
Insulated Files
Security Safes
Portable Security Chests
Safes
Filing Accessories
File Rails
File Lock
File Cabinet Accessories
Locks & Accessories
Footrests
Adjustable Footrests
Stationary Footrests
Garment Racks and Hangers
(Garment Racks & Hangers)
Garment Hooks
Garment / Coat Racks
Garment Hangers
Lamps, Light Bulbs & Lighting
Lamps
Desk Lamps
Table Lamps
Floor Lamps
Light Bulbs
Panel & Under-Cabinet Lamps
Literature Racks
(Literature Racks & Literature Sorters)
Literature Sorters
Wall Racks
Floor Racks
Desk Top Racks
Wall Racks
Office Furnishings & Decor
Cushions & Back Supports
Coat Racks
Hangers
Footrests
Picture & Certificate Frames
Motivational
Clocks
Waste Baskets
Coordinating Desk Sets
Door Stops & Door Accessories
Frames
Maps, Magnifiers & Flags
Office Art
Panel Systems/Business Office Systems
Modular Office Systems
Panel & Under-Cabinet Lamps
Panel Accessories
Panel System Hardware
Panel Systems
Shelving & Storage Systems
Literature Racks & Sorters
Shelving
Storage Cabinets
Tables
Folding Tables
Banquet Tables
Coffee & End Tables
Conference Tables
Meeting Room Tables
Shop & Utility Tables
Conference Tables
Drafting Tables
Drawing Table
Reception Table
Utility/Breakroom Tables
Carts & Printer Stands
Tables & Drafting
Lamps & Light Bulbs
Office Furnishings & Decor
Desk Accessories
Workstations Equip
(Workstations & Accessories)
Metal/Wood Veneer Workstations &
Accessories
Metal Workstations
Wood Veneer Workstations & Accessories
Plastic / Resinite Workstation & Accessories
Metal Workstation Fan
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[1] OIL: An Ontology Infrastructure for the Semantic Web,” IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2001 p. 38
[2] The Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Avron Barr & Edward A. Feigenbaum, William Kaufmann, Inc. Loas Altos, CA. 1981 pgs. 180-181