  The European Materials and Modelling Ontology (EMMO) has recently been
advanced in the computational molecular engineering and multiscale modelling
communities as a top-level ontology, aiming to support semantic
interoperability and data integration solutions, e.g., for research data
infrastructures. The present work explores how top-level ontologies that are
based on the same paradigm - the same set of fundamental postulates - as the
EMMO can be applied to models of physical systems and their use in
computational engineering practice. This paradigm, which combines mereology (in
its extension as mereotopology) and semiotics (following Peirce's approach), is
here referred to as mereosemiotics. Multiple conceivable ways of implementing
mereosemiotics are compared, and the design space consisting of the possible
types of top-level ontologies following this paradigm is characterized.
