Abox
In Computer Science, an Abox is an "assertion component"—a fact associated with a terminological vocabulary within a knowledge base.
The terms Abox and Tbox are used to describe two different types of statements in ontologies. 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.
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. In contrast, Abox statements are much more dynamic in nature and tend to be stored as instance data within transactional systems within relational databases.
See also
- Tbox
- metadata
- Web Ontology Language
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Abox". Image Credit.
