Following the concept of VPI, the information model of
the regarded domain has been formulated. The information
model is directly generated from results of expert interviews
and data sources used in the context of the analysis. It is
modeled as an ontology and is therefore used as an explicit
specification of the vocabulary and the valid constraints of the
specific domain. Furthermore, description logic based
reasoning becomes possible, so that constraint violations or
unspecified but implicitly valid information can be extracted.
In the following example, the dependencies between
module parameters are regarded (see Fig. 4). The information
model used for this restricted example consists of two base
concepts, namely Module and Parameter. A module is further
described by some meta-attributes like its name. Furthermore,
the relation between Module and Parameter is specified. A
module consists of parameters, whereby a parameter is related
to one or more modules as either input or output. Besides,
parameters are related, if an input parameter affects an output
parameter when being changed. The first inter-relation is
described by introducing the relation isParameterOf and its
inverse form hasParameter. Similarly, the second interrelation
is described by the relations isDependentOf and
isRelatedTo. Using these relations, the additionally defined
concepts ModuleParameter, InputParameter and
OutputParameter can be derived for the domain.