Abox
Encyclopedia
In Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, an ABox is an "assertion component"—a fact associated with a terminological vocabulary within a knowledge base
Knowledge base
A knowledge base is a special kind of database for knowledge management. A Knowledge Base provides a means for information to be collected, organised, shared, searched and utilised.-Types:...

.

The terms ABox and TBox
Tbox
In Computer Science, a TBox is a "terminological component"—a conceptualization associated with a set of facts, known as an ABox.The terms ABox and TBox are used to describe two different types of statements in ontologies. TBox statements describe a conceptualization, a set of concepts and...

are used to describe two different types of statements in ontologies
Ontology (computer science)
In computer science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that domain and may be used to describe the domain.In theory, an ontology is...

. TBox statements describe a system in terms of controlled vocabularies, for example, a set of classes and properties. ABox are TBox-compliant statements about that vocabulary.

TBox statements are sometimes associated with object-oriented classes and ABox statements associated with instances of those classes.

Together ABox and TBox statements make up a knowledge base
Knowledge base
A knowledge base is a special kind of database for knowledge management. A Knowledge Base provides a means for information to be collected, organised, shared, searched and utilised.-Types:...

.

Examples of ABox and TBox statements

ABox statements typically have the form:

A is an instance of B
or
John is a Person

This should be contrasted with TBox statements or (statements) about terminology such as:

All Students are Persons
or
There are two types of Persons: Students and Teachers

TBox statements tend to be more permanent within a knowledge base and tend to be stored in a data model or a metadata registry
Metadata registry
A metadata registry is a central location in an organization where metadata definitions are stored and maintained in a controlled method.-Use of Metadata Registries:...

. In contrast, ABox statements are much more dynamic in nature and tend to be stored as instance data within transactional systems within databases.

See also

  • TBox
    Tbox
    In Computer Science, a TBox is a "terminological component"—a conceptualization associated with a set of facts, known as an ABox.The terms ABox and TBox are used to describe two different types of statements in ontologies. TBox statements describe a conceptualization, a set of concepts and...

  • Description Logic#Modeling in Description Logics
  • metadata
    Metadata
    The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

  • Web Ontology Language
    Web Ontology Language
    The Web Ontology Language is a family of knowledge representation languages for authoring ontologies.The languages are characterised by formal semantics and RDF/XML-based serializations for the Semantic Web...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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