www.cs.uu.nl Ontologies for Probabilistic Networks

Abstract. Building a probabilistic network for a real-life domain of application is a hard and time-consuming process, which is generally performed with the help of domain experts. As the scope and, hence, the size and complexity of networks are increasing, the need for proper documentation of the elicited domain knowledge becomes apparent. To study the usefulness of ontologies for this purpose, we constructed an ontology for the domain of oesophageal cancer, based upon a real-life probabilistic network for the staging of cancer of the oesophagus and the knowledge elicited for its construction. In this paper, we describe the various components of our ontology and outline the benefits of using ontologies in engineering probabilistic networks.