| This thesis presents the development and application of a suite of software tools for constructing knowledge to be used in knowledge based systems or the Semantic Web. The Inferential Modeling Technique, which is a technique for modeling the static and dynamic knowledge elements of a problem domain, provided the basis for the tools. A survey of existing knowledge modeling tools revealed weaknesses in the following four areas: (1) support for an ontological engineering methodology or technique, (2) support for dynamic knowledge modeling, (3) support for dynamic knowledge testing, and (4) support for ontology management. Two new tools were developed to address these four areas of weakness. Both tools were based on the Inferential Modeling Technique. The Class Editor was created to address the area of ontology management. The Class Editor enables users to model static knowledge using a UML class diagram like visualization and provides ontology management support through the back-end ontology management system Distributed Framework for Knowledge Evolution (DFKE). To address the areas of ontological engineering methodology, dynamic ontology modeling, and ontology testing, a Protege plug-in called Dyna was created. Dyna helps users define task behaviour, a component of dynamic knowledge, in a formalized language, and create test cases, which enable verification of the knowledge model. Dyna also supports knowledge sharing and reuse because it can convert the dynamic knowledge models into the XML and OWL file formats, enabling the models to be shared and re-used. Both the Class Editor and Dyna are applied for constructing an ontological model in the domain of selecting a remediation technology for petroleum contaminated sites. |
