This report on the MODEM project is in three sections: 1) An executive summary that explains the motivation for the MODEM work. 2) An introduction to the real world analysis that was done as part of the MODEM work, which gives a deeper understanding of the ideas that underlie it and provides examples of their use. 3) A detailed technical IDEAS analysis explaining the IDEAS MODEM model. The detailed technical analysis focuses on the modelling of behaviour. It aims to re-engineer the UML behaviour model, which has no real world semantics, into an ontological foundation for the modelling of behaviour.

Each of the sections builds upon the previous section and is aimed at a different audience. The first section is aimed at management who need to understand the basis for the MODEM work. The second section is aimed at users who need to understand the issues that the MODEM work raises without delving into the technical details of the IDEAS model. The third and final section provides the detailed IDEAS analysis for the technical experts.

Presentation of the report 'An Analysis of Services' prepared for the UK MoD.

This describes a forensic approach to developing a common understanding of Service across business and IT.

The goal of this report is to provide an in-depth common conceptual understanding of services end-to-end across the enterprise – one that encompasses business, IT and technical services and gives a picture of what, in essence, a service is. Prepared for the UK MoD in 2010.

Responsive, agile, collaborative planning and execution is a key requirement for the development of a successful Network Enabled Capability (NEC), whether at the national or international level. This paper makes the case that it is not possible to achieve this agility without solving the semantic interoperability problem. The semantic issues facing NATO’s Network Enabled Capability (NNEC) are also faced by its members in their national NECs. There are currently many proposed strategies attempting to address these issues. Finding the one that will provide the hoped for integration and at the same time only cause minimal changes to existing infrastructure is a major challenge. In this situation it is vital to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of a strategy. This paper presents the findings from a project tasked with both identifying a strategy and demonstrating its effectiveness - the Joint Tactical Air Defence Integration System (JTADIS) project. This project was funded by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and undertaken by QinetiQ – the semantic analysis was undertaken by BORO Solutions.

There is a well understood requirement for semantic interoperability within NATO and an emerging strategy to address it. One of the strategy’s key components – the ‘semantic description’ – requires further clarification. What is less well recognised is that this ‘semantic description’ can also be viewed as a component of a wider strategic requirement for semantic modernisation. This paper describes how the semantic modernisation techniques of layering and harvesting provide a strong foundation for the production of semantic descriptions. It describes two projects that illustrate how these techniques are being used to do this. Finally, it reflects upon how this could help to refine the current NATO NEC (NNEC) semantic interoperability strategy.

In common with many other government defence departments, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has realised that it has a plethora of legacy systems that were procured as domain specific with little emphasis given to integration requirements. In particular, it realised that the lack of integration between a significant number of the legacy air defence command and control (AD-C2) systems meant it could not deliver the increased agility needed for joint force AD and that current approaches to integration were unlikely to resolve the problem. They realised that they needed a new approach that demonstrably worked. This paper describes a programme initiated by the MoD to address this problem through the formulation of a novel solution and its demonstration in the tactical AD-C2 environment using a sample of these existing legacy systems. It describes the ontological solution deployed to resolve the 'hard' semantic interoperability challenge. It outlines the physical and semantic architecture that was developed to support this approach and describes the implemented planning and collaborative execution (PACE-based) and semantic interoperability engine (SIE) solution.

Addresses two topics.
Firstly, the issue in current systems engineering practice: is the nested hierarchy of system of systems complex enough?
Secondly, it looks at two systems engineering (IT) issues ontology can help to solve:

• Semantic interoperability
• Semantic legacy modernisation – inheriting complexity

Describes the development of the BORO-IDEAS based MODEM, a semantic metamodel for MODAF.

The focus of this presentation is on two topical areas in particular:

1. have a discussion on system components ... and,
2. have a discussion on the requirements for engineering modelling languages, and the shortcomings of what is available.

I will focus on the first item; system components. Hence the title: ‘Components as a litmus test for your ontology: in particular, your ontological architecture’
I explain why components are a useful litmus test for the quality of your ontological architecture.

Introduction: A presentation of the background for the work concerning MODEM, its origins as part of the IDEAS group effort and the reasons behind starting the work as an effort funded by the Swedish Armed Forces. Discussions around the goal of harmonization and the difficulties presented by having multiple, different, national frameworks.

The starting point: MODAF in its current form: A brief introduction of the MODAF meta-model as well as the IDEAS foundation model and the reasons for modifying MODAF based on a UML profile based meta-model to a non-UML meta-model based on the IDEAS foundation model.

Semantic technology, the road ahead: The semantic basis for IDEAS is presented and how this can improve the utility of framework usage. Examples from the reengineering work are presented as well as how a semantic approach cleared up various areas within the MODAF meta-model.

MODEM, what was done, patterns and examples: The work that resulted in MODEM is presented. The use of semantic patterns is presented as a crucial part of the MODEM reengineering effort. Some of these patterns are presented as well as exemplified. Some examples of MODEM used to model the standard search and rescue example used extensively in framework development are also presented.

Relationship between this effort and other IDEAS foundation based models: The US DoD architecture framework DoDAF 2 DMM has also used the IDEAS foundation model as a basis for development and similarities as well as differences are presented.

Conclusions: Conclusions as well as future directions of this work effort are presented.

Describes the MODEM framework under development - the building of a Semantic Foundation for EA by reengineering the MODAF™ Meta-Model Based on the IDEAS Foundation Model.

This book is motivated by the belief that “a better understanding of ontology, epistemology, and teleology” is essential for enabling Modelling and Simulation (M&S) systems to reach the next level of ‘intelligence’. This chapter focuses on one broad category of M&S systems where the connection is more concrete; ones where building an ontology – and, we shall suggest, an epistemology – as an integrated part of their design will enable them to reach the next level of ‘intelligence’. Within the M&S community, this use of ontology is at an early stage; so there is not yet a clear picture of what this will look like. In particular, there is little or no guidance on the kind of ontological architecture that is needed to bring the expected benefits. This chapter aims to provide guidance by outlining some major concerns that shape the ontology and the options for resolving them. The hope is that paying attention to these concerns during design will lead to a better quality architecture, and so enable more ‘intelligent’ systems. It is also hoped that understanding these concerns will lead to a better understanding of the role of ontology in M&S.

In various disciplines, when working on larger projects there is a tradition of thinking in terms of an architecture (E.g. Enterprise / Systems / Software Architecture).

Firstly a meta-methodological point; this suggests a good methodology for approaching large ontology projects should have an architectural component.

Here architecture is used in a loose sense, there is extensive discussion on what exactly an architecture is, which is not directly relevant to the points made. Agreeing it used in a loose sense avoids this – however interesting a rabbit hole it seems.
The points are illustrated the points with examples from the development and application of top ontologies such as BORO, IDEAS and MODEM.

The aim of this tutorial is to provide a context for BORO in terms of a number of standards that it has influenced.

A small number of top ontologies have been developed over the last decade or two. They are now starting to be implemented in IT systems.
This talk will argue that they have the potential to play a significant part in IT; and that exploiting this depends upon a better understanding of their scope and how they can be deployed.
It will argue that their scope potentially extends across a significant proportion of the IT market and that this claim is best understood in the historical context of previous information revolutions.
Hopefully this will facilitate a better understanding of why top ontologies can be useful and how they can be deployed.

This is the first part of an introduction to a series of tutorials that aim to provide a practical introduction for researchers and practitioners to potential for the use of foundational ontologies in industrial applications, based upon an actual application. These tutorials will be based upon industrial work currently being done using the BORO foundational methodology; an ontology-based systems (and data) re-engineering and modernisation approach. This first part provides an introduction to ontology, particularly foundational ontologies. The second part of the introduction introduces the BORO ontology.
The subsequent tutorials will use this introductory tutorial as a basis, they will walk through a number of illustrative examples of how the BORO methodology has been used to re-engineer data in an industrial context.