Ontology negotiation between scientific archives

Describes an approach to ontology negotiation between information agents. Ontologies are declarative (data-driven) expressions of an agent's "world": the objects, operations, facts and rules that constitute the logical space within which an agent performs. Ontology negotiation enables agents to cooperate in performing a task, even if they are based on different ontologies. The process allows agents to discover ontology conflicts and then, though incremental interpretation, clarification and explanation, establish a common basis for communication with each other.