PMD Core Ontology: Achieving semantic interoperability in materials science.

Knowledge representation in the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) domain is a vast and multi-faceted challenge: Overlap, ambiguity, and inconsistency in terminology are common. Invariant (consistent) and variant (context-specific) knowledge are difficult to align cross-domain. Generic top-level semantic terminology often is too abstract, while MSE domain terminology often is too specific. In this paper, an approach how to maintain a comprehensive MSE-centric terminology composing a mid-level ontology–the Platform MaterialDigital Core Ontology (PMDco)–via MSE community-based curation procedures is presented. The illustrated findings show how the PMDco bridges semantic gaps between high-level, MSE-specific, and other science domain semantics. Additionally, it demonstrates how the PMDco lowers development and integration thresholds. Moreover, the research highlights how to fuel it with real-world data sources ranging from manually conducted experiments and simulations with continuously automated industrial applications. • The PMD Core Ontology (PMDco) bridges semantic gaps in Materials Science and Engineering, enabling data interoperability. • The PMDco supports the FAIR principles and enables materials and process data conversion into machine-processable format. • Community-driven curation ensures PMDco's usability and evolution, with applications in domain-specific ontology development. • The PMDco serves as a valuable resource, fostering scientific discovery, innovation, and sustainable research practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]