Error detection in Specifications based on Ontologies

The problem of conceptual errors in the early stages of a software development is of a great concern for the engineering community. The side effects of these errors are pernicious because they reflect a misunderstanding of the application domain resulting in undesirable behaviour of the software system. They are not easily detected since they may be mathematically elegant but inappropriate to the domain. The field of Ontologies, which forge agreements on the use of terminology for particular domains is, potentially, a prospective solution to the problem. We present a method which is capable of detecting such errors in specifications by utilising ontologies as a supplement to the normal checking procedure.