On the Semantic Engineering of Scientific Hypotheses as Linked Data

The term ‘hypothesis’ is part of the Linked Science Core Vocabulary (LSC) as one of the core elements for making scientific assets explicit and linked in the web of data. Hypotheses are generally understood as propositions for explaining observed phenomena, but eliciting and linking hypotheses can be a challenge. In this paper, we elaborate on a semantic view on hypotheses and their linkage, by striving for minimal ontological commitments. We address the engineering of hypotheses as linked data, and build upon LSC by extending it in order to accommodate terms necessary in model-based sciences such as Computational Science. Then we instantiate the extended LSC by eliciting and linking hypotheses from a published research in Computational Hemodynamics.

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