The role of foundational ontologies for conceptual modeling and domain ontology representation

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the development and use of domain ontologies, strongly motivated by the semantic Web initiative. However, as we demonstrate in this paper, an approach for ontology representation uniquely based on the modeling languages adopted in the semantic Web is insufficient to address a number of semantic interoperability problems that arise in concrete application scenarios. The main objective of this paper is to advocate in favor of an approach for conceptual modeling, in general, and domain ontology representation, in particular, in which lightweight modeling languages such as OWL and standard UML are complemented by modeling languages and methodologies based on theoretically principled foundational ontologies