NISTIR 7509

An Ontological Modeling Platform

Vei-Chung Liang

Conrad Bock

XuanFang Zha

 
NISTIR 7509

An Ontological Modeling Platform 

Vei-Chung Liang 

Conrad Bock 

XuanFang Zha 

Manufacturing Systems Integration Division 

Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory 

June 2008

U.S. Department of Commerce 

Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

 James M. Turner, Deputy Director 
An Ontological Modeling Platform 

Vei-Chung Liang 

Conrad Bock 

XuanFang Zha 

June 11, 2008 

Abstract 

The Ontological Modeling Platform described in this paper is a class library for extended 

ontological operations, to support extension of ontology languages, composition of 

interconnected elements, and high-level product modeling services, such as specialization of 

product models. In this report, we explain the structure, implementation, and design decisions of 

the platform. The platform has an Application Programming Interface (API) architecture that 

enables it to be implemented on multiple off-the-shelf Ontology Web Language (OWL) APIs. It 

provides model spaces to distinguish and integrate modeling languages, models, and instances of 

models. Each model space can only instantiate classes defined from the immediate upper level 

model space. A tutorial is given to demonstrate how to construct a simple plate-fixing assembly 

by using the platform. 

1 Introduction 

An integrated and collaborative product design environment should enable engineers to 

interact and reach agreement by sharing and exchanging product information and knowledge. 

The information encoded in product models must be unambiguously understood by all 

participating parties (for example, engineers), independent of their perspectives, physical 

locations, and times of contribution. 

One approach to providing such product knowledge representations is based on 

ontologies. Ontologies emerged in applied artificial intelligence as a means for sharing 

knowledge. An ontology can be informally defined as a description of concepts and 

relationships that are used in a specific knowledge domain. Latest research in product modeling 

indicates such a trend towards semantic product data and knowledge modeling for better 

interoperability using the product ontologies, see related work in [Bock 2007b], especially the 

composite structure ontology for interconnected elements capturing relationships among parts 

within assemblies [Bock 2007a]. The semantic web has the potential for richer representations 

of product concepts and their relations on the web, and thus should provide us with more 

intelligent and collaborative product services. Today, we have quite impressive results on 

semantic modeling, manifested by standards that have been adopted, in particular the Resource 

Description Framework / Schema (RDF/S) and the Ontology Web Language (OWL) [W3C 

2007], development frameworks (e.g., Jena, Protégé, TopBraid Composer) [SourceForge 2007a, 

2007b; SMI 2007, TopQuadrant 2007], best practice and deployment recommendations [OMG 

2007], and many applications [Bock 2007a, 2007b]. 

1
In developing product ontologies, it is important to extend ontology languages when their 

capabilities are needed as part of the product modeling language. This enables reasoners to assist 

in product modeling problems, such as checking consistency of requirements and designs [Bock 

2007b]. For example, it is useful to specialize product models from existing ones. 

Specialization is already supported by ontology languages and their reasoners. To take 

advantage of this, product models should be introduced by extending the ontology language, 

rather than just using the ontology language to define an entirely separate product modeling 

framework. 

Extending an ontology language requires multiple layers of instantiation. Metamodeling 

techniques and model-driven architectures (MDA) [OMG 2007] use at least three layers (M2, 

M1, and M0): 

 The M2 layer manages vocabularies and provides corresponding rules to instruct how 

instantiation should be performed. 

 The M1 layer manages specific usages of vocabularies, for example, engineering 

designs. 

 The M0 layer manages intended or physical things and behaviors. 

The elements in each layer are instantiated from the layer above it (M1 from M2, M0 from M1), 

and the top two layers can support specialization within them. For example, an element for 

product models in general is specialized from the ontology language at M2. A particular product 

model, for example, a design for car, is instantiated from this at M1, where it can be specialized 

from other product models describing vehicles in general. An intended or actual car is 

instantiated at M0. 

The platform described in this paper is a class library for multi-layer ontological 

operations, as well as composition of interconnected elements [Bock 2007a], and high-level 

product modeling services [Bock 2007b]. The platform uses multiple off-the-shelf and 

customized APIs to support its operations. A composition conceptualization can be constructed 

from scratch through the existing composition base models and Java programming. Besides 

using the platform to create composition conceptualizations, the platform can be extended with 

new base models. The conceptualization in the platform captures an entire application, from 

modeling language to individual things. A conceptualization may contain several layers of 

model spaces. An MDA configuration for a conceptualization contains three model spaces (M2, 

M1, and M0 model spaces). The roles that the model spaces can play are determined by the 

specific conceptualization. 

The models and services supported by the platform require specialized capabilities that 

are not available in some modeling implementations: 

1) Polymorphism between properties and classes. An instance of a property can be coerced 

to become an instance of a class. At the time of the implementation, only the Jena API 

has full support for this feature [SourceForge 2007a]. Protégé-OWL 3.2 does not support 

such feature [SMI 2007]. 

2) Reification of the RDF/S statements. RDF subject, object, and predicate triples about an 

OWL statement can be retrieved from a given OWL statement. At the time of the 

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implementation, only the Jena API has full support for this feature. The OWL API does 

not support such a feature [SourceForge 2007b]. 

3) Organization of multiple model spaces. Instantiation policies can be defined for a stack 

of model spaces. None of the APIs mentioned above provide the operations for 

organizing multiple model space policies. 

The ontological modeling platform described in this paper supports all the above features. 

The rest of the paper is as follows. Section 2 introduces the ontological modeling 

platform including its logical structure, API structure, and implementation architecture. Section 

3 provides a quick tutorial for constructing a composition conceptualization from scratch through 

the existing composition base models and Java programming. Section 4 describes a scenario to 

extend the platform with new base models and an extension example to include new base 

models. Section 5 proposes a three model space conceptualization framework and describes its 

implementation details. Section 6 gives a summary and concluding remarks for the paper. 

2 Ontological Modeling Platform 

The platform is a class library for the extended ontological operations described in the 

previous section. This section introduces the ontological modeling platform including its logical 

structure, API structure, and implementation architecture. 

2.1 Logical Structure 

The logical architecture of the platform is shown in Figure 1, consisting of 

conceptualizations, model spaces, and base models. Conceptualizations are frameworks for 

defining model spaces. They are used in the platform to define modeling languages, models, and 

instances of models. The model spaces are numbered following the Object Management 

Group’s (OMG) Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) [OMG 2007] conventions. An element in 

M1 model space is defined as an instance of classes in the M2 model space. The M1 elements 

are further treated as classes for M0 elements. Thus, an M0 element is an instance of an M1 

element. 

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Figure 1: Architecture of Composition API 

The mapping from metalayers to engineering design and manufacturing can be clearly 

identified. The M2 model space defines the basic constructs (ontology) for describing 

engineering design concepts in M1 model space. For example, the M1 model space uses M2 

constructs to define engineering designs such as a car assembly or configuration. An M0 model 

space contains product instances (for example, a specific car with a specific engine number, or 

an intended car as imagined by the designer) that are governed by the design elements in the M1 

model space. 

Rules and policies applied on an element in the current model space are defined from its 

upper model space. Rules governing M1 elements are defined in the M2 model space and rules 

governing M0 elements are defined in the M1 model space. 

Each model space may have different behaviors, because of each model space instance 

plays a different role inside a conceptualization. However, under the current implementation, 

these model spaces behave in the same way because no extension has been made to each of the 

model spaces (they are defined by the same model space class definition). Users can define 

different behaviors for different model spaces if desired. For example, a conceptualization with 

three model space is shown in Figure 1, only the M2 model space instance contains base models, 

such as Composition base model [Bock 2007a], Interproperty Constraint base model, and 

Ontological Product Model (OPM) base model [Bock 2007b], and the M0 model space cannot 

define its own classes. Another example is that all elements in M0 model space must be 

instances of elements in M1 model space. The current implementation does not distinguish the 

behavioral difference in the model space definition. It is the programmer’s responsibility to 

define the behaviors of the model space instances in the specific conceptualization. 

2.2 API Structure 

The relationship among APIs is depicted in Figure 2. The Jena API [SourceForge 2007a] 

is at the bottom and provides basic semantic operations to manipulate OWL/RDF models and 

documents [W3C 2007]. These semantic models can be either in memory or in a persistent 

storage. 

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The base model API is between the model space API layer and The Jena API. It provides 

extended ontological operations and policies for programmers to model interconnected elements 

[Bock 2007a], such as composition relationships, or other extensions with rules defined in the 

policies. For example, an instantiation of a connector in the composition API may require 

several checks before the created instance can be asserted in the model (for example. to create or 

load the ontology model, to retrieve class definitions, to instantiate individuals accordingly). 

This API also uses an adapter design pattern [Gamma 1995] for the future extension so that other 

OWL APIs besides Jena can be used. 

The model space API manages the model spaces that constitute a conceptualization. For 

example, a typical three-model-space conceptualization may have composition operations to 

instantiate model spaces, and to define and instantiate elements in the spaces. In this API, 

method calls activate modeling policies registered for elements in the model space to identify 

parts and connections in model spaces, and check for proper contextualization. 

The conceptualization API is used to manage model spaces, for example, to create them. 

A conceptualization can have many model spaces, but in the examples of this paper, only three 

are needed, one for each metalayer described in Sections 1 and 2.1. 

Figure 2: API Relationships 

2.3 Implementation Organization 

The platform uses multiple packages to organize the architecture (see Figure 3). 

Currently, these packages are implemented in Java and are only for the Jena API. Porting the 

implementation to other semantic web APIs, such as the OWL API, is a topic for future work. 

The packages include: 

gov.nist.comp.builder: This package provides several base model builder interfaces for 

constructing and saving the base models with various construction options (for example, 

construct models by importing or by direct construction). 

gov.nist.comp.builder.impl.jena: The package provides Jena implementation of the builder 

interfaces. 

gov.nist.comp.model: This package provides interfaces that define various base models as 

Java types (for example, Composition base model, inter-property constraint, and OPM 

base model). These java types define strings that represent the Uniform Resource 

Identifiers (URIs) for the elements used in base models. 

gov.nist.comp.model.jena: This package provides Java classes for the base model Jena 

implementation. These base model classes also contain prefix tables and policy tables. 

5
The prefix table stores the prefixes that are used in the base model schema. The policy 

table stores policies that can instruct model space to properly construct, modify, and 

destroy classes and properties. 

gov.nist.comp.model.app: This package provides a conceptualization abstract class and 

several concrete conceptualization classes that demonstrate how to describe applicationspecific conceptualization. In this document, we use a plate-fixing assembly as an 

example. See Section 3 below. 

gov.nist.comp.modelspace.jena: The package provides a model space class defining the 

behavior on a model space. 

gov.nist.comp.policy: This package provides policy interfaces.

gov.nist.comp.policy.jena: This package provides the Jena implementation of the policy 

interfaces defined in the gov.nist.comp.policy package. Only few elements from base 

models need predefined policies. Other elements can just use the ordinary OWL/Jena 

operations.

gov.nist.comp.vocabulary: This package provides vocabulary constants generated from Jena’s 

schemagen. The generated constants allow the programmers to have quick access to the 

elements defined in the base models. 

gov.nist.comp.Main: This package provides a Preferences class that allows the platform to 

store bootstrap information. 

These packages are designed to support the following engineering information modeling and 

meta-modeling tasks: 

Instantiate, import, or construct conceptualizations. 

Within the conceptualization, specify and construct model spaces and meta-model spaces. 

Within each model space, define, create and instantiate classes and individuals to 

describe a model using composition extension or inter-property constraints. 

Define composition extension policies and other constraints that are used to govern 

elements in base models. 

Serialize and de-serialize OWL models. 

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Figure 3: Ontological Modeling Platform Packages 

3 A Tutorial for Constructing Conceptualizations 

This quick tutorial depicts how one can use the existing composition base models to 

construct a conceptualization from scratch through Java programming. The example we used is 

the plate-fixing assembly, in which two plates are held in a fixed relative position with a fastener. 

Source code for a complete example can be found in Plate2Conceptualization.java, in the 

gov.nist.comp.model.app package. It is highly recommended to go over the tutorial with the 

complete example in order to understand the constructing mechanism. A more detailed 

explanation of possible extensions will be described later in this document. 

To run the tutorial from the package is straightforward: 

1. Unzip the package to a folder that is different from your eclipse workspace. 

2. Start eclipse. 

3. Right click on the package explorer panel and select “import...” from the context 

menu. 

4. Choose “Existing Projects into Workspace” as your import source type and click 

next. 

5. Find the folder containing the unzipped package as your root directory and select 

the project Interproperty2. 

6. Click finish to start import. 

You can also use the archive file directly to perform the import. Once you import the 

project, you can add all the jar files from Jena’s lib subdirectory or you can create a handle for 

these jar files. Please refer to the eclipse manual [Eclipse 2007]. 

7
3.1 Planning a Conceptualization 

The example goes through the following common practice in engineering information 

modeling: 

1. Decide a namespace URI and a prefix for the conceptualization. In this tutorial, the 

namespace URI for the plate assembly is file://comp/plate#. Note that the hash sign is 

used because it is a common practice in the Semantic Web community to define a 

namespace. The prefix for this conceptualization is “plate.” The URI prefix is crucial 

information because Jena XML serialization needs to use the prefix information to 

convert a common URI to a legal XML name1

. 

2. Decide what kind of conceptualization is going to be used. Conceptualization can be 

configured with many model spaces. A typical configuration is a three model space 

conceptualization. The tutorial conceptualization is a three model space 

conceptualization. That is, it contains M2, M1, and M0 model spaces. 

3. Decide what base models are going to be included in the M2 model space. In this 

tutorial, only composition base model is going to be included. 

4. Decide what elements are going to be constructed in the M1 model space. In this 

tutorial, a plate class, a plate assembly class, two part-properties for two plate roles 

(hasPlate1, hasPlate2), a medium level property-that-connects (FIXES), and a plate 

connector need to be defined. 

5. Decide what elements are going to be constructed in the M0 model space. In this 

tutorial, two plate individuals, a plate assembly individual, and their corresponding 

properties need to be instantiated. 

3.2 Creating Conceptualization According to the Plan 

A simple conceptualization can now be constructed with the following actions according 

to the plan. 

1. (Carrying out Decision 1) The prefix and namespace URI will be used in the action item 

6 when we instantiate our plate assembly conceptualization instance. 

2. (Carrying out Decision 2) The conceptualization for a particular design is realized 

through specialization. That is we define a java class that specializes a pre-defined 

conceptualization template. Inside the gov.nist.comp.model.app package, there is a 

ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization that can be used for this tutorial. Thus, we define a new 

Java class called Plate2Conceptualization for the plate assembly. 

3. (Carrying out Decision 3) Since the ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization is an abstract class, 

three abstract methods have to be implemented. The constructM2Space is implemented to 

describe what base models are going to be included. 

 

1 The OWL community recommends using hash sign “#” at the end of a namespace string and thus 

file://comp/complm#Connector becomes an identifier. However, such an identifier is not legal in XML. The JENA 

API replaces such a namespace with an auto-generated prefix (for example. j.0 or j.1) to avoid the XML serialization 

error. To avoid the hard-to-understood auto-generated prefix, a prefix is required in the current implementation. 

8
ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization

#m2ModelSpace : JenaModelSpace

Plate2Conceptualization

+constructM2Space():void

1. Get base Model Location

2. Call m2ModelSpace.addBaseModel() 

method

+constructM2Space():void

Figure 4: Constructing M2 Model Space

Figure 4 demonstrates how base model can be added by calling the addBaseModel method. 

Note that the m2ModelSpace attribute is inherited from the ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization

class that refers to the M2 model space in this conceptualization. Three arguments for the 

addBaseModel method are a base model class, the base model importing URI, and base 

model schema location. A composition base model class contains the policies that 

composition model carries. The policies can thus be registered to the model space 

through its carrying class. The base model importing URI defines the URL that is going 

to be used for the base modeling importing. The schema location specifies the physical 

location of the base model OWL file. 

dBaseModel method. 

Note that the m2ModelSpace attribute is inherited from the ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization

class that refers to the M2 model space in this conceptualization. Three arguments for the 

addBaseModel method are a base model class, the base model importing URI, and base 

model schema location. A composition base model class contains the policies that 

composition model carries. The policies can thus be registered to the model space 

through its carrying class. The base model importing URI defines the URL that is going 

to be used for the base modeling importing. The schema location specifies the physical 

location of the base model OWL file. 

4. (Carrying out Decision 4) The inherited constructM1Space method is implemented to 

describe what elements are going to be used in the M1 model space (See Figure 5). The 

m1ModelSpace inherited data member refers to the M1 model space in this 

conceptualization. 

4. (Carrying out Decision 4) The inherited constructM1Space method is implemented to 

describe what elements are going to be used in the M1 model space (See 

A Plate class is created by calling the createCurrentLevelClass method. In Jena, all 

resources should be created by using their full names. Thus, we have to use the baseURI

of m1ModelSpace and use the Java String concatenation operation ‘+’ or StringBuffer to 

construct full names. Note that the baseURI is a public field of JenaModelSpace, which is 

different and independent from the baseURI of the conceptualization. A conceptualization 

will have its own baseURI. The createCurrentLevelClass method call is used to create not only 

the part OWL class, Plate, but also the assembly OWL class, Plate-Fixing. 

A Plate class is created by calling the createCurrentLevelClass method. In Jena, all 

resources should be created by using their full names. Thus, we have to use the baseURI

of m1ModelSpace and use the Java String concatenation operation ‘+’ or StringBuffer to 

construct full names. Note that the baseURI is a public field of JenaModelSpace, which is 

different and independent from the baseURI of the conceptualization. A conceptualization 

will have its own baseURI. The createCurrentLevelClass method call is used to create not only 

the part OWL class, Plate, but also the assembly OWL class, Plate-Fixing. 

Figure 5). The 

m1ModelSpace inherited data member refers to the M1 model space in this 

conceptualization. 

protected void constructM1Space(){ 

 //create the plate class

OntClass plate = m1ModelSpace.createCurrentLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + 

"Plate"); 

OntClass plate = m1ModelSpace.createCurrentLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + 

"Plate"); 

OntClass plateFixing = 

m1ModelSpace.createCurrentLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "Plate-Fixing"); 

OntClass plateFixing = 

m1ModelSpace.createCurrentLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "Plate-Fixing"); 

 

//because we know that hasPlate1 is also a property. we can make it as a 

property

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OntProperty hasPlate1 = m1ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass( 

PartPart.PART_PROPERTY.getURI(), 

m1ModelSpace.baseURI + “hasPlate1").asProperty(); 

 hasPlate1.addDomain(plateFixing); 

 hasPlate1.addRange(plate); 

OntProperty hasPlate2 = m1ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass( 

PartPart.PART_PROPERTY.getURI(), 

m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "hasPlate2").asProperty(); 

 hasPlate2.addDomain(plateFixing); 

 hasPlate2.addRange(plate); 

 

Individual fastenerC = m1ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass( 

PartPart.LM_CONNECTOR.getURI(), 

m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "FastenersConnector"); 

m1ModelSpace.addProperty( 

plateFixing, PartPart.HAS_CONNECTOR, fastenerC); 

 

OntProperty fixs = m1ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass( 

m2ModelSpace.getUpperLevelClass( 

OPM.BEHAVIOR_PROPERTY.getURI()).getURI(), 

 m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "Fixes").asProperty(); 

 fixs.addDomain(plate); 

 fixs.addRange(plate); 

 

m1ModelSpace.addProperty( 

fastenerC, PartPart.PROPERTY_THAT_CONNECTS, fixs); 

 

List<OntProperty> domainPath = new ArrayList<OntProperty>(); 

domainPath.add(hasPlate1); 

 

Iterator<OntProperty> ir = domainPath.iterator(); 

RDFList rList = m1ModelSpace.getOntModel().createList(); 

while(ir.hasNext()){ 

 rList = rList.cons(ir.next()); 

} 

 

m1ModelSpace.addProperty( 

fastenerC, PartPart.DOMAIN_END_OF_CONNECTOR, rList); 

 

List<OntProperty> rangePath = new ArrayList<OntProperty>(); 

rangePath.add(hasPlate2); 

ir = rangePath.iterator(); 

RDFList dList = m1ModelSpace.getOntModel().createList(); 

while(ir.hasNext()) dList = dList.cons(ir.next()); 

m1ModelSpace.addProperty( 

fastenerC, PartPart.RANGE_END_OF_CONNECTOR,dList); 

} 

Figure 5: Constructing M1 Model Space 

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Two part-properties, hasPlate1 and hasPlate2, are created by calling the 

instantiateFromUpperLevelClass method. The difference between the createCurrentLevelClass

and instantiateFromUpperLevelClass is that the former uses OWL class to be the upper level 

class and the latter requires explicit specification of the name of the upper level class. 

The createCurrentLevelClass is equivalent to instantiateFromUpperLevelClass with 

OWL.Class.getURI() as the first argument. The instantiateFromUpperLevelClass takes two 

arguments: one is the upper level class full name and the other is the individual full name. 

The full name of the upper level class can be accessed by using the Composition class. 

Composition class is created by Jena’s schemagen tool. Every element that is defined in 

the OWL schema file fed into the schemagen will become either a static instance of 

OntClass or OntProperty defined in the output class file. Thus, the full name of the partproperty can be retrieved by calling Composition.PART_PROPERTY.getURI(). 

Note that the method will return an Individual of type PART_PROPERTY but hasPlate1

and hasPlate2 should be manipulated as an OntProperty. Thus, we call asProperty() to convert 

Individual instance to OntProperty instance.2

 

With all the classes and properties defined, we can now create a connector to 

regulate the connection. A FastenersConnector can be created as a medium level connector 

by using the instantiateFromUpperLevelClass method. Once the connector is created, we can 

use the addProperty method to associate the connector with the assembly. The addProperty

takes three arguments: the domain, the property, and the range. In order to make the 

plate assembly to have a FastenrsConnector, the property in the argument list will be 

Composition.HAS_CONNECTOR. 

Three values of a connector have to be assigned for FastenersConnector. They are: 

 a PROEPRTY_THAT_CONNECT, 

 a DOMAIN_END_OF_CONNECTOR, and 

 a RANGE_END_OF_CONNECTOR. 

The PROPERTY_THAT_CONNECT in this example is a medium level [Bock 2007a] 

PROPERTY_CLASS instance, Fixs. Because of the policy mechanism, this Fixs will also be 

defined as a subtype of Statement automatically and the programmer does not have to 

worry about it. This Fixs can be treated as a property by using the asProperty() method. 

Since it is an OntProperty instance, setDomain and setRange can be used to set the domain and 

range types. With Fixs defined, the addProperty method can be used to add it as the value 

for the PROPERTY_THAT_CONNECT for the FastnersConnector. 

The values of the DOMAIN_END_OF_CONNECTOR and 

RANGE_END_OF_CONNECTOR properties have to be assigned by programmer in the 

current implementation. Since their values have to be of type RDFList, instances of 

RDFList have to be constructed first. One uses the m1ModelSpace’s getOntModel() to get an 

OntModel reference and use it to call createList() to create an RDFList instance. 

A Java ArrayList can be first constructed to establish the proper order for each path. 

An iterator of the list can be used to assign elements inside the ArrayList to the RDFList. 

This is accomplished by using the RDFList’s cons method. Finally, addProperty method is 

used again to associate these RDFList instances to the FastenersConnector. 

 

2 Individual and OntProperty are JENA classes that are used to represent OWL individual and property 

respectively. The asProperty() is the JENA OWL type polymorphic mechanism which can convert an individual 

to a property. Other polymorphic mechanism includes asClass(), asIndividual(), etc. Please see another note for 

detail. 

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5. (Carrying out Decision 5) The inherited constructM0Space is implemented to describe 

what elements are going to be in the M0 model space. In this implementation, 

m0ModelSpace is used to refer to the M0 model space (see Figure 6). 

Three individuals, two plates and one assembly, can be created by calling the 

instantiateFromUpperLevelClass of the m0ModelSpace instance. Note that full name string, 

m1ModelSpace.baseURI + “Plate”, must be used to retrieve the class reference in the upper 

model space; and full name string, m0ModelSpace.baseURI + “Plate1Indiv”, must be used for 

the created individual in the current model space. 

By calling the addProperty, two plate individuals can be defined to belong to the 

assembly individual. Using the getUpperLevelProperty, one can retrieve a reference for the 

Fixs property defined in the M1 model space. Using this reference, two plate individuals 

can be connected together. Note that a reified statement will also be created 

automatically due to the policy specified for the PROPERTY_CLASS. 

protected void constructM0Space(){ 

Individual plateIndiv1 = 

m0ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "Plate", 

m0ModelSpace.baseURI+"Plate1Indiv"); 

Individual plateIndiv2 = 

m0ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "Plate", 

m0ModelSpace.baseURI+"Plate2Indiv"); 

Individual plateFixing1 = 

m0ModelSpace.instantiateFromUpperLevelClass(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "PlateFixing", m0ModelSpace.baseURI+"Rivet-Plate-FixingIndiv1"); 

 

//also get the fixes property reference point.

OntProperty fixesProperty = 

m0ModelSpace.getUpperLevelProperty(m1ModelSpace.baseURI + "Fixes"); 

 

 

m0ModelSpace.addProperty(plateFixing1, 

m0ModelSpace.getUpperLevelProperty(m1ModelSpace.baseURI+"hasPlate1"), 

plateIndiv1); 

m0ModelSpace.addProperty(plateFixing1, 

m0ModelSpace.getUpperLevelProperty(m1ModelSpace.baseURI+"hasPlate2"), 

plateIndiv2); 

 

m0ModelSpace.addProperty(plateIndiv1, fixesProperty , plateIndiv2); 

} 

Figure 6: Constructing M0 Model Space 

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6. (Carrying out Decision 1) To create conceptualization, one uses the conceptualization 

class constructor to instantiate an instance (See Figure 7). 

public static void main(String[] args){ 

Plate2Conceptualization pcon = 

new Plate2Conceptualization("file://comp/plate#", "plate"); 

 

//pcon.printConceptualization(false);

pcon.saveConceptualization("PlateModelSpace", true); 

pcon.saveConceptualizationInOneFile(null); 

} 

Figure 7: Instantiate Conceptualization 

The base namespace URI and namespace prefix are passed to the constructor. 

The constructor will generate the base URI for each model space by inserting “M2”, 

“M1”, and “M0” strings before the hash sign of the base URI. The prefixes for the model 

spaces are generated in the same fashion. 

In this code snippet, an instance of Plate2Conceptualization is created. The 

Plate2Conceptulaization is a subclass of ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization. A 

ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization is a special type of Conceptualization containing three model 

spaces. 

The printConceptualization method can be called to print out the OWL model on the 

screen or saveConecptualization method can be called to save all three model spaces to owl 

files. The “PlateModelSpace” is the base string that will be passed to the saveConecptualization

method to generate “PlateModelSpaceM2.owl”, “PlateModelSpaceM1.owl”, and 

“PlateModelSpaceM0.owl” files representing the corresponding model space. The output 

will be three OWL documents saved in the root execution directory. 

This simple tutorial explains how one can use the platform to construct a semantic engineering 

information model. The next section explains the design decisions made in more detail. 

4 An Extension Example of Including New Base Model 

Besides using the Ontological Modeling Platform to create composition 

conceptualizations, another scenario is to extend the platform with new base models. In this 

example, steps of how to add a new OPM base model are explained. Usually, a meta-model 

OWL file is ready to be integrated with the rest of the API. If the OWL file is not ready, 

programmers must create a builder class for constructing the schema. In this example, both 

approaches are explained. Similar to the previous tutorial, a plan of actions have to be defined 

first. 

4.1 Planning for Adding a New Base Model 

The plan for adding an OPM base model to the platform is the following: 

1. Check that the OPM OWL file is ready to be used. Sometimes, the OWL file is not 

validated or checked. A valid OWL file must be prepared for the rest of the tasks. One 

13
way to check or validate the OWL file is to dump the file to an OWL valuator. An online 

service provided by WonderWeb can be found on the Internet3

. 

Another way to validate OWL files is to use the Jena API’s tool to reprint the input 

OWL file. This will activate the checker. One can also use OWL editors to perform 

checking. Note that not all OWL editors are supporting the property-class concept [Bock 

2007a]. Currently, TopBraid composer supports such a capability [TopQuadrant 2007]. 

2. Create an OPM base model interface that will hold all the URIs defined in the OWL 

file. These URI strings become handy for the rest of the tasks. 

3. Create a Jena OPM base model class that implements the OPM base model interface. 

The implementation will allow the base model class to access the URI strings. This base 

model class will also hold the prefix table and policy table. 

4. Extend JenaPolicy class if necessary. The created policy class will be stored as in the 

previously created Jena OPM base model class’ static block. 

5. Create a base model builder4

. A base model builder is a Java class that can be used to 

create a base model from scratch. The idea is to manually script the construction process 

in the builder’s constructSchema method. 

6. Update the Preference class so that the program will be able to learn where the OPM base 

model owl file is located. Currently, it is stored at the bin/rdf directory. 

7. Use Jena’s schemagen to create a vocabulary file for OPM base model. This 

vocabulary file will also be handy for later tasks. 

4.2 Creating OPM Base Model Extension 

1. (Carrying out item 2) An OPM base model interface is created in the gov.nist.comp.model

package. Since this interface can also be implemented for Protégé 4.0, we use Java’s 

generic type [Bracha 2004] [Java 2007] to make it flexible enough for future extension. 

Figure 8 shows a snippet of the OPM base model definition. All strings are defined in the 

static nested interface NAMES5. All the other base model interfaces follow this style. 

Although this style somewhat cumbersome, it distinguishes programming constants and 

OWL-related constants. 

Three important string constants are also needed to be defined. They are 

IMPORT_URI, NAMESPACE, and PREFIX. All the base model interfaces require these three 

constants. The IMPORT_URI is used when one wants to import this base model schema to 

a model. Note that IMPORT_URI is defined as the same as the base URI only without a 

hash sign. The NAMESPACE is used to record the base URI of this base model. Once it is 

defined, it can be used to define other elements of this base model. The PREFIX defines 

the xmlns prefix of the base model. It will only be used when one wants to register the 

prefix to the model. 

 

3 http://phoebus.cs.man.ac.uk:9999/OWL/Validator

4

 Note that the base model builder is not used anywhere else in the current implementation. One can consider this 

step as an exercise. 

5 http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/java/javaOO/nested.html 

14
public interface OPMBaseModel<T> extends BaseModel<T> { 

public static interface NAMES { 

public static String IMPORT_URI = "file://comp/compopm"; 

 

public static String NAMESPACE = "file://comp/compopm#"; 

public static String PREFIX = "compopm"; 

 

public static String BEHAVIOR_C = NAMESPACE + "Behavior"; 

public static String BEHAVIOR_PROPERTY_PC = NAMESPACE + 

 “BehaviorProperty"; 

 

public static String REQUIREMENT_C = NAMESPACE + "Requirement"; 

public static String REQUIRED_P = NAMESPACE + "required"; 

 

public static String REQUIRED_BY_P = NAMESPACE + "requiredBy"; 

public static String ON_ARTIFACT_P = NAMESPACE + "onArtifact"; 

 

public static String REQUIRED_BEHAVIOR_P = NAMESPACE + 

"requiredBehavior"; 

public static String REQUIRED_FORM_P = NAMESPACE + "requiredForm"; 

 

public static String FUNCTIONAL_REQUIREMENT_PROPERTY_C = NAMESPACE + 

"FunctionalRequirementProperty"; 

public static String REQUIREMENT_ON_ARTIFACT_PROPERTY_C = NAMESPACE + 

"RequirementOnArtifactProperty"; 

public static String REQUIREMENT_WITH_ENVIRONMENT_PROPERTY_C = 

NAMESPACE + "RequirementWithEnvironmentProperty"; 

 

public static String FORM_C = NAMESPACE + "Form"; 

public static String GEOMETRY_C = NAMESPACE + "Geometry"; 

public static String MATERIAL_C = NAMESPACE + "Material"; 

 

public static String ASSEMBLY_PROPERTY_P = NAMESPACE + 

"AssemblyProperty"; 

 

public static String RELATION_END_C = NAMESPACE + "RelationEnd"; 

 

public static String ARTIFACT_C = NAMESPACE + "Artifact"; 

 

public static String FUNCTION_C = NAMESPACE + "Function"; 

}} 

Figure 8: Fragment of OPM Base Model 

15
A naming convention for string identifiers is used: 

_C: OWL class 

_P: OWL property 

_PC: property-class 

For example, if the string is referring to an OWL class, a ‘_C’ will be attached to the end 

of the identifier. For example, BEHAVIOR_C refers to a Behavior OWL class. 

2. (Carrying out item 3) A Jena OPM base model class is defined in the 

gov.nist.comp.model.jena package. It will extend JenaBaseModel class and implement the 

OPMBaseModel<OntModel>. Note that an OntModel type is supplied as a type argument to 

the OPMBaseModel. In the first static block in Figure 9, we added used prefixes to the 

table. Note that the MF prefix is used for referring to the property-class used in a 

medium and full level of the composition base model [Bock 2007a]. Since no policy is 

defined for this base model yet, the second static block remains blank. 

3. (Carrying out item 5) Before create a Jena OPM base model builder, an OPM base 

model builder interface is defined in the gov.nist.comp.builder package. This interface is an 

extension of BaseModelBuilder interface. It is overriding the return type of getBaseModel

method to an OPMBaseModel. 

A Jena OPM base model builder implementing OPMBaseModelBuilder is defined in 

the gov.nist.comp.builder.impl.jena package. There are two methods that need to be 

implemented inside the JenaOPMBaseModelBuilder. One is importSchema and the other is 

constructSchema. The importSchema will create a model with an imports statement. The 

constructSchema will construct the model from scratch. Please refer to the source code for 

more details. 

public class JenaOPMBaseModel extends JenaBaseModel implements

 OPMBaseModel <OntModel>{ 

public static String POLICY_FILE = "JenaOPMBaseModel.rules"; 

public JenaOPMBaseModel(OntModel m){ 

 this.ontModel = m ; 

 } 

 

public static HashMap<String, String> prefixTable = 

new HashMap<String, String>(); 

public static HashMap<String, JenaPolicy> vocabularyPolicies = 

new HashMap <String, JenaPolicy>(); 

static{ 

 prefixTable.put(PartPartBaseModel.NAMES.MF_NAMESPACE_PREFIX, 

 PartPartBaseModel.NAMES.MF_NAMESPACE); 

 prefixTable.put(OPMBaseModel.NAMES.PREFIX, 

 OPMBaseModel.NAMES.NAMESPACE); 

 } 

 

static { 

 } 

}

Figure 9: Jena OPM Base Model 

16
4. (Carrying out item 6) New properties have to be defined in the Preference class pointing 

to the location of the compopm.owl file. This can be done by creating new property 

handles, OPM_SCHEMA_FILE and OPM_SCHEMA_FILE_VALUE, in the Preference class (see 

Figure 10). 

public static final String OPM_SCHEMA_FILE = "opm.schema"; 

public static final String SCHEMA_FOLDER = "schema.folder"; 

//default values for the schema file location keys

private static final String INTERPROPERTY_SCHEMA_FILE_VALUE = 

"InterpropertyConstraint.owl"; 

private static final String INHERIT_PARTPART_SCHEMA_FILE_VALUE = 

"inherit_partpart.owl"; 

private static final String OPM_SCHEMA_FILE_VALUE = "compopm.owl"; 

Figure 10:Property Definitions in Preference Class

 

The value can be assigned to the handle by the following line in the Preference’s initialize

method: 

preferences.setProperty(OPM_SCHEMA_FILE, OPM_SCHEMA_FILE_VALUE); 

Figure 11: Using setProperty in Preference initialize Method 

5. (Carrying out item 7) The compopm.owl file can be passed to the Jena’s schemagen by 

using the following command: run jena.schemagen -i compopm.owl –a file://comp/compopm -c 

opmowlSchemagen.rdf –o OPM.java. An OPM vocabulary file will be created. The compopm.owl

and opmowlSchemagen.rdf have to be put in the same directory as the run.bat is located; 

usually it is in the Jena root directory. 

Once these actions are taken, one can modify the conceptualization class to include the 

new base model by calling addBaseModel in the JenaModelSpace. 

5 Three Model Space Conceptualization Framework 

The conceptualization in the Ontological Modeling Platform captures an entire 

application, from modeling language to individual things. A conceptualization may contain 

several layers of model spaces6

. A typical configuration for a conceptualization contains three 

model spaces. That is, M2, M1, and M0 model spaces. Each of these model spaces has different 

responsibilities. For example, M2 model space manages vocabularies and provides 

corresponding rules to instruct how instantiation should take place. M1 model space manages 

specific usages of vocabularies, for example, engineering designs. The M0 model space 

manages intended or physical things. 

However, under the current implementation, these three model spaces are all instantiated 

from the same model space class. The roles that the model spaces play are determined by the 

 

6

 We consider the conceptualization as a framework because it predefines how to reuse the model spaces and lowlevel API to create programs for various engineering applications. 

17
specific conceptualization. Thus, instead of the three model space conceptualization, one can 

create a two model space conceptualization or even a four model space conceptualization as long 

as their responsibilities and roles are defined clearly in the conceptualization. 

5.1 Conceptualization Class 

The conceptualization in the Composite Platform captures an entire application, from 

modeling language to individual things. Besides configuration operations such as creating model 

spaces, it also contains all the engineering design operations such as create connections and 

destroying connections, and checking for consistency. 

5.1.1 Construct Model Spaces in Conceptualization 

Usually, there will be three model space instances defined in a conceptualization that 

represents M2, M1, and M0 model space. In the ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization class, three 

protected data members are created so that its subclasses can reuse these data members (see 

Figure 12). These model space references will be instantiated by calling the JenaModelSpace’s

constructor in the ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization’s constructor. Currently, the JenaModelSpace

constructor will construct an in-memory model, which might be changed to a persistent storage 

in the future implementation. 

protected JenaModelSpace m2ModelSpace = null; 

protected JenaModelSpace m1ModelSpace = null; 

protected JenaModelSpace m0ModelSpace = null; 

Figure 12 Three Model Space Instances Defined in a Conceptualization class 

The Plate2Conceptualization must implement the abstract constructM2Space method to 

customize the M2 model space. In this snippet, the method sends a message to m2ModelSpace

instance and asks it to add a base model by importing its schema from a local file. In the current 

practice, M2 model space contains only the base models, that is, the meta-models. These metamodels are pre-defined in OWL files. Thus, the constructM2Space method just needs to call the 

JenaModelSpace’s addBaseModel method to import these pre-defined schemas to the model space. 

The addBaseModel method takes a Java base model class and two URI strings as its 

arguments. The Java base model class is used to retrieve a prefix table and a vocabulary policy 

table. These two tables are added to the M2 model space so that M2 model space will have the 

proper prefixes registered and it will understand how to instantiate a given class. The prefix 

table defines the prefixes that have been used in a base model. In the composition model, we 

have complm, complmf, compf, and compmf. Jena will not auto detect these prefixes even if they are 

specified in the XML entity statement. A static predefined prefix table is accessible from 

JenaCompositionBaseModel; thus, we can just use it directly. The vocabulary policy table will be 

explained in the next section. 

The other two strings specify the import URI and the location of the local schema. Note 

here that the CompositionBaseModel has predefined the import URI for the composition schema file. 

The value is a pseudo URI (file://comp). Since it is a pseudo URI, the second piece of 

information, the local location of the schema file, must be supplied to the addBaseModel method. 

This information has been predefined in a Java property file. The property file, compgen.properties, 

is located in root execution directory. One can also change the content of the property file with a 

text editor. Various schema files come with the Composition API. In the current 

18
implementation, we are using the NO_INHERIT_COMPOSITION_SCHEMA_FILE, which means that it 

contains a composition model without inheriting and importing from the inter-property constraint 

model. 

5.1.2 Serialize Models to Files 

The current implementation allows one to dump the RDF/XML serialization on the screen 

or save to the file. One can call the printConceptualization in the ThreeModelSpaceConceptualization to 

obtain serialization on the screen. The method has a boolean flag which allows one to printout the 

whole model or just the base model. 

Other methods such as saveConceptualization and saveConceptualizationInOneFile provide various 

options on saving to files. The saveConceptualization has a parameter that will generate either four 

files or three files for the model spaces and conceptualization itself. The 

saveConceptualizationInOneFile will generate a lumped file containing all elements from all three 

model spaces. 

5.2 M2 Model Space 

Importing base models M2 model space contains base models and their corresponding 

vocabularies and semantic constraints. A base model is a set of predefined vocabularies that 

describe the most abstract modeling concepts and contextualization. For example, the concept of 

connection can be included in a composition base model and the concept of constraint can be 

included in an inter-property constraint base model. Usually, concepts defined in the base model 

are not instances but subtypes of the OWL class. Doing so allows the concepts can be 

instantiated at the M0 model space. 

Vocabulary constraints It is designed that base models containing class definitions can 

only be loaded from files or database through the import mechanism defined by the underlying 

semantic language implementation, such as The Jena API or OWL API. The semantic and 

vocabulary constraints are associated with the base model. Their references should be 

established properly inside the base model so that the base model can refer to these constraints 

whenever needed. 

No instantiation operations M2 model space should not provide any instantiation 

services. That is, one cannot instantiate any instances in the M2 model space. The instantiation 

must be realized in the lower model spaces. 

No definition operations M2 model space should not allow any further definition 

operations. It should not allow a program to redefine and add new definitions to this model 

space. It is a read-only model space. 

5.3 M1 Model Space 

Importing base models M1 model space uses M2 model space as its base model, so that 

no importing mechanism except model library importing will be called in place. However, the 

serialization of the M1 model space must ensure that the M2 model space is properly included as 

an imported model7

. 

 

7

 Currently, the subModel operations in JENA do not include an imports statement. 

19
Vocabulary constraints M1 model space does not create new vocabulary constraints, it 

only obtains vocabulary constraints from the upper model space. Constraints are obtained only 

when such constraints are available when instantiating a specific class from the upper model 

space. That is, if a class defined in the M2 model space has no further constraints, no constraints 

will be recorded in the M1 model space. 

Instantiation operations M1 model space can only instantiate classes defined in the M2 

model space. M1 model space must ensure the vocabulary and semantic constraints associated 

with these classes are properly enforced on the instantiated resources. Some constraints will also 

be recorded at the M1 level, so that when the M1 resources are instantiated in the M0 model 

space, these recorded constraints can be enforced again. 

Property-value assignment Tuples capturing properties defined in the M2 model space 

can be created at the M1 level. For example, one can specify a design concept plate-assembly to 

have a plate-connector by assigning hasConnector with plate-assembly as domain value and 

plate-connector as range value. 

Redefine and define new concepts Unlike the M2 model space, M1 model space allows 

programs to define new concepts as instances of classes or properties from its upper level model 

space, namely, the M2 model space. For example, one can create a property and assign its 

domain and range types to the property. Although not defined explicitly, the OWL concepts 

such as Class and Property are considered also upper level concepts that can be instantiated in 

the M1 model space. Thus, one can create a new design concept as an instance of an OWL Class. 

5.4 M0 Model Space 

Importing base models M0 model space used M1 model space as its base model, so that 

no importing mechanism except instance library importing will be called in place. However, the 

serialization of the M0 model space must ensure that the M1 model space is properly included as 

an imported model. 

 

Vocabulary constraints Similar to M1 model space, the M0 model space does not create 

new vocabulary constraints but only obtains vocabulary constraints from the upper model space. 

The difference in the M0 model space, it is not necessary to record the obtained constraints. 

These constraints are kept in the M1 model space and are accessed when instantiation takes place. 

Instantiation operations M0 model space can only instantiate classes defined in the M1 

model space. M0 model space must ensure the vocabulary and semantic constraints associated 

with these classes are properly enforced on the instantiated resources. 

Property-value assignment Tuples capturing properties defined in the M1 model space 

can be created at the M0 level. For example, one can specify a plate-assembly-1 instance to have 

a part instance by assigning hasPart1 with plate-assembly-1 as domain value and part instance as 

range value. 

20
 No definition operations M0 model space should not provide any definition operations. 

That is, one cannot create new classes or define new properties in the M0 model space. 

5.5 Policy 

Instance creation is not a straightforward task. Different instances may require extra care. 

For example, in the medium level of the composition extension, an instance of a property-class 

must be a type of Composition.PROPERTY_CLASS and also a subtype of RDF.Statement. In order to 

allow JenaModelSpace to handle the variety of instantiation, these variations are encapsulated in the 

so-called Policy class. 

A policy can apply extra constraints on the processed elements. For example, it can 

define additional actions that need to be taken for certain resource instantiation. In general, for 

the current work, we can think of two kinds of policies. One is the action policy that will take 

actions on the model such as adding new statements. The other is a consistency checking policy 

that will try to validate and return a derivation path for a given resource. 

5.5.1 Policy Definition 

Any base model that needs special consideration must implement the Policy interface. For 

The Jena API, there is a JenaPolicy class. The JenaPolicy is a class without implementation but it is 

not an abstract class. The reason it is designed in this way is that it allows programmers to 

specialize only a portion of the methods for a base model. 

Current implementation defines policy at the base model level. For the composition 

extension, a JenaPartyPartPolicy class defines the policies for all the elements in the composition 

extension. For OPM there is a JenaOPMPolicy class defined. One may be able to extend this to 

allow the policy to work on a finer level, that is, to register only certain elements for their own 

policies in their corresponding base model classes. This is not implemented in the current 

composition platform. 

5.5.2 Policy Registration 

The policies are registered through a static block in the base model classes. For example, 

in the JenaCompositionBaseModel class, the JenaCompositionPolicy is registered for the property-class 

(see Figure 13). 

static { 

 

vocabularyPolicies.put( 

CompositionBaseModel.NAMES.MF_PROPERTY_CLASS_PC, 

JenaCompositionPolicy.getInstance()); 

} 

Figure 13: Vocabulary Policy 

Later on, the policy table will be passed on to the model space’s policy table. Thus, in the 

JenaModelSpace, addPrefixAndPolicyFromBaseModel will be called when addBaseModel is called. Note 

that since currently we only allow M2 model space to add base model, we can only register the 

policies to the M2 model space. This design restriction is not really implemented but is a 

guideline. One may break this restriction by calling the addBaseModel from other model space. 

These policies reside in the vocabulary policy table and can be accessed from the model 

space that defines them. For example, the JenaPropertyClassPolicy is defined to support adding the 

21
additional RDF.Statement during its instantiation. This policy is stored in the M2 model space 

during the addBaseModel operation. The policy will be activated when it is needed. 

5.5.3 Policy Activation 

public Individual instantiateFromUpperLevelClass( 

String upperClassURI, String individualURI){ 

 

Individual returnValue = null; 

JenaPolicy policy = this.upperModelSpace.getPolicy(upperClassURI); 

 

if(policy != null){ 

 Individual[] idv = new Individual[1]; 

 

 policy.createIndividual(this, upperClassURI, individualURI, idv); 

 

 this.addPolicy(individualURI, policy); 

 

 returnValue = idv[0]; 

} else { 

 returnValue = ontModel.getIndividual(individualURI); 

 

OntClass returnClass = ontModel.getOntClass(upperClassURI); 

if(returnValue == null && returnClass !=null) 

 

returnValue = 

ontModel.createIndividual(individualURI, returnClass); 

 } 

return returnValue; 

} 

Figure 14: Activating Policy in Instantiation Method 

In Figure 14, if the policy of a given upper class URI can be found in the vocabulary policy 

table, the model space will use the policy method to construct the instance. Otherwise, it will just 

use the ordinary Jena OWL API to construct the resource. Currently, only two methods, 

instantiateFromUpperLevelClass and createCurrentLevelSubClass, perform policy activation. 

6 Conclusion 

In this report, we describe the structure, implementation, and design decisions for creating 

an ontological modeling platform for product modeling. It supports extended ontological 

operations for composition of interconnected elements and high-level product modeling services. 

The platform adapted a multiple API architecture that allows further extensions on various 

available OWL APIs (for example, the Jena or OWL API). The logical structure provides the 

concept of model space to separate design concepts at different design stages. Each model space 

can only instantiate new instances of classes defined from the immediate upper level model 

space. A tutorial has also been given to demonstrate how one can construct a simple plate 

assembly by using the platform. 

22
23

7 Acknowledgements 

The authors would like to thank the funding support from U.S. National Institute of Standards 

and Technology/U.S. National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associateships Program 

from 2005 to 2007. 

Disclaimer 

Commercial equipment and materials or software might be identified to adequately specify certain procedures. In no case does 

such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does 

it imply that the materials or equipment identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose. 

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