Supporting OWL-Style Reasoning over UML-Style Models via Endogenous OWL Overlays

By: Shilpi Gupta, Mohammad Sadeghi, Monalisha Ojha, Colin Atkinson

Abstract

Unified Modeling Language (UML)-style class diagrams are widely used for conceptual and system modelling because they provide compact and familiar visual representations of domain structure. However, the built-in reasoning support provided by UML tools is generally modest. The Web Ontology Language (OWL), in contrast, is optimised for supporting well- defined logical inference but is less well suited to authoring compact, engineering-oriented model representations comparable to UML-style diagrams. To address these respective weaknesses, we propose endogenous OWL overlays as a lightweight bridge from an authoritative UML-style model to standards-based OWL reasoning services. An overlay is a rule-derived OWL view computed over a triple/fact-based representation of the authoritative model snapshot used by the overlay rules. The host concrete syntax is LML, a UML-style multi-level modelling notation, and the overlay targets selected OWL-style services rather than full UML coverage. Because the overlay is recomputed on demand and consumed by standard OWL tools, the source model remains the source of truth and the derived view stays directly traceable to the modelling declarations that produced it. The approach handles both the model’s declared structure and selected modelling idioms that arise naturally in UML-style modelling, using a small set of local OWL axioms only where needed. Using four representative scenarios, we demonstrate subproperty closure, role-membership inference, derived associations, and the detection of logically unsatisfiable classes without maintaining a separately synchronised OWL artefact.

Keywords

Endogenous OWL overlays, UML-style models, LML, OWL/RDFS reasoning, Powertype-aware reasoning, Role inference

Cite as:

Shilpi Gupta, Mohammad Sadeghi, Monalisha Ojha, Colin Atkinson, “Supporting OWL-Style Reasoning over UML-Style Models via Endogenous OWL Overlays”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 25, no. 3 ( 2026), pp. 3:71-84, doi:10.5381/jot.2026.25.3.a6.