The European Materials and Modeling Ontology (EMMO) — a multidisciplinary effort — is now available under a Creative Commons license. The intent behind the ontology was to develop a standard representational framework (the ontology) based on physical sciences, materials modeling knowledge, analytical philosophy and information and communication technologies.
Interactions between materials modeling stakeholders were complex and often only a partial description of the modeling approach was available. The fact that each community had its terminology posed a challenge as multi-scale materials modeling requires multidisciplinarity and interactions between different models. Subsequently, the European Materials Modeling Council (EMMC) was established. It aimed to establish a common terminology (definition of concepts and vocabulary) in materials modeling, which will lead to greatly simplified and efficient communications.
The EMMO is the result of a multidisciplinary effort within the EMMC, aimed at the development of a standard representational ontology framework based on current materials modeling and characterization knowledge. It has grown from the bottom (i.e. scientific application field) to the top (i.e. conceptualization), staying focused on the original scope while at the same time maintaining a general approach.
The ontological framework has been built around concepts such as elementary particles, wave-particle dualism, and finiteness of space and time intervals coming from the perspective for experimental physics. The mid and upper layers of the ontology have been developed for the functional aspects of these low-level concepts. Additionally, to help users with little or no philosophical background understand the high-level concepts.
The EMMO is designed to represent the complex multi-scale nature of chemicals and materials. Additionally, it is designed to symbolize multiple perspectives and all types of models, represented in line with a previously established standard for materials modeling terminology and classification (CWA 17284). The properties of materials are strictly related to measurements, in line with ISO standards. Furthermore, the quantum mechanics representations cover the two major interpretations: Copenhagen and de Broglie-Bohm. All relations in the ontology are based on just four primitives: taxonomy (is-a relations), set-theory (membership), mereotopology (parthood and connections), and semiotics (representations, properties).
EMMO is ready to drive the integration of heterogeneous data sources, interoperability of modeling, integrated digital marketplaces and digitalization of R&D. It is already being applied in a number of European projects.
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