Daniel Kless

PhD Student

Department of Information Systems
The University of Melbourne
Room 2.34, ICT Building, 111 Barry St, Carlton, VIC, Australia

Phone: +61 3 8344 1555
Email: d.klessstudent.unimelb.edu.au

Jump down this page to: Research Interests : Thesis : Publications : Background : Awards

 

Research Interests

Core areas

Formal ontology, thesaurus, Vocabularies, Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), Information Organization, Knowledge representation, Semantics

Related areas

Library and Information Studies, Information Science, Computer Science (CS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Semantic Web, Content Management, Information Management, Knowledge Management (KM), Model-driven enginering (MDE), Information Architecture (AI), Information Systems (IS), Information retrieval, Indexing, Tagging, Metadata, Metamodeling, Data modeling, Conceptual modeling

Thesis

Title

Ontological evaluation and reengineering of thesauri

Abstract

The thesis aims at providing guidance and testing the feasibility of reengineering a thesaurus as a terminology into an ontology. For this purpose differences and commonalities of formal ontologies and thesauri are analyzed as well as their respective advantages and disadvantages. Further, methodical approaches to qualitative good modelling of complex domain ontologies are synthesized from literature. Thesauri are analyzed from the viewpoint of the international thesaurus standard ISO 25964 and related standards. The AGROVOC thesaurus is used as a test case for ontological analysis and reengineering.

My thesis approaches ontologies from a commensense realism perspective. I claim that a method for ontological reengineering of thesauri requires

1. Distinction of concepts into fundamental ontological entities (universals, individuals, categories, properties, etc.)
2. Alignment of its categories to a disjoint set of upper-level categories
3. Refinement and formal specfication of its relationships
4. Correction of its subsumption relations according to metaproperties such as essentiality, identity, unity, or existential dependence

The thesis extends the often deluted comparative understanding of thesauri (as a type of terminology) and ontologies. It also contributes a literature-founded framework for developing qualitatively good ontologies. Finally, arguments for deciding, whether or not to reengineer a thesaurus to an onotology are provided. They can equally support decisions for either type of semantic model.

Supervisors

Dr Simon Milton, Dr Edmund Kazmierczak

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Publications

Papers

• Kless, D., Milton, S., Kazmierczak E. Structure and Relationships in Ontologies and Thesauri: Differences and Similarities. To be submitted for the special issue Ontologies and Terminologies: Continuum or Dichotomy of the Applied Ontology journal (scheduled 2012)
• Kless, D. & Milton, S., 2010. Towards Quality Measures for Evaluating Thesauri. In S. Sánchez-Alonso & I. N. Athanasiadis, eds. Metadata and Semantic Research. Communications in Computer and Information Science. 4th International Conference, MTSR 2010.  Alcalá de Henares, Spain: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 312-319.
• Kless, D. & Milton, S., 2010. Comparison of thesauri and ontologies from a semiotic perspective. In Proceedings of the Sixth Australasian Ontology Workshop. Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology. Advances in Ontologes.  Adelaide, Australia: Australian Computer Society, pp. 35-44.
• Kless, D., 2008. Erstellung eines allgemeinen Standards zur Wissensorganisation: Nutzen, Möglichkeiten, Herausforderungen, Wege. In J. Sieglerschmidt & P. Ohly, eds. Fortschritte in der Wissensorganisation, Band 11. Wissensspeicherung in digitalen Räumen. Nachhaltigkeit, Verfügbarkeit, semantische Interoperabilität.  Konstanz, Germany: Ergon-Verlag, pp. 147-153.

Presentations

• Kless, D., Lindenthal, J., Milton, S., Kazmierczak E. Interoperability of knowledge organization systems with and through ontologies. UDC seminar, the Hague, 19-20 Sep 2011.
• Will it really be Ontologies that bring semantics into search engines?, Fourth HCSNet Next-Generation Search Workshop (NGS09), 16-17 April 2009, Blue Mountains (near Sydney), Australia
• Erstellung eines allgemeinen Standards zur Wissensorganisation, International Society of Knowledge Organization (ISKO), German chapter, February 2008, Konstanz, Germany
• From a thesaurus standard to a general knowledge organization standard?!, Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS) workshop, September 2007, Budapest, Hungary

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Background

Professional

• Elaboration of a business idea about the personalization of news and information on the Internet (January 2008 until December 2008)
• Project Engineer at the Knowledge Management department of Airbus, Bremen, Germany (employed through Pumacy Technologies AG, May 2006 until March 2008)
• Internship at the Knowledge Management department of the Parexel GmbH, Berlin, Germany (October 2003 until January 2004)
• Internship at the Marketing department at Patni Computer Systems Ltd., Bombay / Mumbai, India (September 01 until December 2001)

Educational

• PhD at the Department of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Australia (since February 2009, prospectively until July 2012)
• Graduate Certificate in Advanced Learning and Leadership, University of Melbourne, Australia (September 2010 until August 2011)
• Master of Science in Information Science in the program Content and Knowledge Engineering of the Utrecht University (Universiteit van Utrecht), the Netherlands (February 2004 until March 2006)
• German Diploma (~Bachelor of Science) in Information Science in the program International Media and Computing at the University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW) Berlin, Germany (October 1999 until September 2003)
  

Professional memberships and social engagement

• Member of the German Standardization Body (DIN), section for Librarianship and Documentation / NABD 9 for the Revision of the international thesaurus standard (ISO 25964 "Thesauri and Interoperability with other Vocabularies", since May 2007)
• Students representative in the Research & Industry Committee and President of the postgraduate research students group (ISRPG) at the Department of Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Australia (since March 2009)
• Organizer and guide of bushwalking trips, Melbourne University Mountaineering Club (MUMC, in 2010/2011)
• Head of the 98’ High School alumni network (June 2007 until October 2008)
• Active alumni member of the "Friedrich-Ebert" Foundation alumni network, officer for mailing list administration (August 2006 until January 2009)
• Students representative at the Academic Senate of the University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW) Berlin - the university's highest decision-making committee, Berlin, Germany (April 2001 - March 2003)
• Students Board member at the the University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW) Berlin, officer for "International Affairs and High school development" (October 1999 - January 2001)

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Awards

• PhD scholarship by the Australian government and the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne (since February 2009)
• “Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung” Scholarship recognizing academic excellence and community work (July 2000 until April 2006)

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