science

TOVE Project

TOVE Project is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand TOVE Project rather than just read about it. In short: The TOVE project ("Toronto Virtual Enterprise") is a project to develop an ontological framework for enterprise integration (EI) based on and suited for enterprise modeling. In the beginning of the 1990s it was initiated by Mark S.

Key takeaways

TOVE Project belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect TOVE Project to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of TOVE Project from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The TOVE project ("Toronto Virtual Enterprise") is a project to develop an ontological framework for enterprise integration (EI) based on and suited for enterprise modeling. In the beginning of the 1990s it was initiated by Mark S. Fox and others at the University of Toronto.

Overview The original goal of the project was fourfold:

Create a shared representation or ontology of the enterprise that each agent in the distributed enterprise can jointly understand and use Define the meaning of each description or semantics Implement the semantics in a set of axioms that will enable TOVE to automatically deduce the answer to many "common sense" questions about the enterprise, and Define a symbology for depicting a concept in a graphical context Eventually the ongoing project aims to develop a set of integrated ontologies for the modelling of both commercial and public enterprises. The model according to Ted Williams (2000) is "multi-level, spanning conceptual, generic and applications layers. The generic and applications layers all also stratified and composed of micro theories spanning, for example, activities, time, resources, constraints, etc. At the generic level. Critical to the TOVE effort is enabling the easy instantiation of the model for a particular enterprise TOVE models will be automatically created as a by product of the enterprise design function". At the turn of the millennium TOVE has been used to model a computer manufacturer and an aerospace engineering firm. The TOVE enterprise models is presented by Fox et al. (1995) as second generation knowledge engineering approach. A first generation knowledge engineering approach "is extracting rules from experts, while second generation is ontology engineering: They develop comprehensive ontologies for all the aspects of an organization they find necessary (necessity is decided based on competency requirements to the model, i.e., what are the questions the model will have to answer, either by ordinary look-up or by deduction). The background of TOVE is clearly knowledge engineering and to some degree Computer Integrated Manufacturing".

References

Further reading M.S. Fox, "The TOVE Project: A Common-sense Model of the Enterprise", Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems ed. F. Belli and F. J. Radermacher, Lecture Notes in Computer Science:604, 1992, p. 25-34.

External links

Project page

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with TOVE Project

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what TOVE Project claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to TOVE Project before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about TOVE Project ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of TOVE Project

In research: TOVE Project appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses TOVE Project in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: TOVE Project is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Enterprise modelling, Ontology (information science), so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for TOVE Project outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study TOVE Project in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what TOVE Project means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain TOVE Project out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is TOVE Project in simple terms?

Why does TOVE Project matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study TOVE Project?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on TOVE Project.