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B: “SNAP and SPAN: towards dynamic spatial ontology
- Spat Cogn Comput
"... We propose a modular ontology of the dynamic features of reality. This amounts, on the one hand, to a purely spatial ontology supporting snapshot views of the world at successive instants of time and, on the other hand, to a purely spatiotemporal ontology of change and process. We argue that dynamic ..."
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Cited by 115 (12 self)
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We propose a modular ontology of the dynamic features of reality. This amounts, on the one hand, to a purely spatial ontology supporting snapshot views of the world at successive instants of time and, on the other hand, to a purely spatiotemporal ontology of change and process. We argue that dynamic spatial ontology must combine these two distinct types of inventory of the entities and relationships in reality, and we provide characterizations of spatiotemporal reasoning in the light of the interconnections between them.
Biodynamic Ontology: Applying BFO in the Biomedical Domain
- Stud. Health Technol. Inform
, 2004
"... Abstract. We propose a modular formal ontology of the biomedical domain with two components, one for biological objects, corresponding broadly to anatomy, and one for biological processes, corresponding broadly to physiology. The result constitutes what might be described as a joint venture between ..."
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Cited by 80 (10 self)
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Abstract. We propose a modular formal ontology of the biomedical domain with two components, one for biological objects, corresponding broadly to anatomy, and one for biological processes, corresponding broadly to physiology. The result constitutes what might be described as a joint venture between two perspectives – of
Beyond Concepts: Ontology as Reality Representation
, 2004
"... There is an assumption commonly embraced by ontological engineers, an assumption which has its roots in the discipline of knowledge representation, to the effect that it is concepts which form the subject-matter of ontology. The term `concept ' is hereby rarely precisely defined, and the int ..."
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Cited by 73 (14 self)
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There is an assumption commonly embraced by ontological engineers, an assumption which has its roots in the discipline of knowledge representation, to the effect that it is concepts which form the subject-matter of ontology. The term `concept ' is hereby rarely precisely defined, and the intended role of concepts within ontology is itself subject to a variety of conflicting (and sometimes intrinsically incoherent) interpretations. It seems, however, to be widely accepted that concepts are in some sense the products of human cognition.
Towards a reference terminology for ontology research and development in the biomedical domain
- Proc. of KR-MED 2006
, 2006
"... Ontology is a burgeoning field, involving researchers ..."
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Cited by 32 (8 self)
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Ontology is a burgeoning field, involving researchers
The Cornucopia of FormalOntological Relations
- Dialectica
, 2004
"... The paper presents a new method for generating typologies of formal-ontological relations. The guiding idea is that formal relations are those sorts of relations which hold between entities which are constituents of distinct ontologies. We provide examples of ontologies (in the spirit of Zemach’s cl ..."
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Cited by 26 (10 self)
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The paper presents a new method for generating typologies of formal-ontological relations. The guiding idea is that formal relations are those sorts of relations which hold between entities which are constituents of distinct ontologies. We provide examples of ontologies (in the spirit of Zemach’s classic “Four Ontologies ” of 1970), and show how these can be used to give a rich typology of formal relations in a way which also throws light on the opposition between threeand four-dimensionalism. There are many candidate formal-ontological relations, for instance: identity and difference, parthood and overlap, inherence and dependence, participation and location. Our task in what follows is to provide a principle for generating the complete family of such relations. This will mean providing an account of what formal-ontological relations are, and of how they differ from relations of other types (for instance from static material relations such as lies on and fits into, from material relational events such as kisses and thumps, from comparative relations such as is taller than and is further from Witwatersrand than, and from family relations such as is the brother of and is consanguineous with). The starting point for our endeavours is a philosophical position which we call realist perspectivalism (Grenon 2003a; Smith and Brogaard 2003). This consists in the view that any given domain of reality can be viewed from a number of different ontological perspectives, all of which can have equal claim to veridicality. Compare the way in which medical science is divided into anatomy and physiology: the former tells us about the structures of the human
T: Granularity, scale and collectivity: when size does and does not matter
- J Biomed Inform
"... Abstract: Bridging levels of "granularity" and "scale" are frequently cited as key problems for biomedical informatics. However, detailed accounts of what is meant by these terms are sparse in the literature. We argue for distinguishing two notions: "size range", which ..."
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Cited by 23 (2 self)
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Abstract: Bridging levels of "granularity" and "scale" are frequently cited as key problems for biomedical informatics. However, detailed accounts of what is meant by these terms are sparse in the literature. We argue for distinguishing two notions: "size range", which deals with physical size, and "collectivity", which deals with aggregations of individuals into collections which have emergent properties and effects. We further distinguish these notions from "specialisation", "degree of detail", "density" and "connectivity." We argue that the notion of "collectivity" -molecules in water, cells in tissues, people in crowds, stars in galaxies -has been neglected but is a key to representing biological notions, that it is a pervasive notion across size ranges -micro, macro, cosmological, etc -and that it provides an account of a number of troublesome issues including the most important cases of when the part-whole relation is, or is not, transitive. Although examples are taken from biomedicine, we believe these notions to have wider application.
A taxonomy of types of granularity
- In 2006 IEEE International Conference on Granular Computing
, 2006
"... Abstract — Multiple different understandings and uses exist of what granularity is and how to implement it, where the former influences success of the latter with regards to storing granular data and using granularity for reasoning over the data or information. We propose a taxonomy of types of gran ..."
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Cited by 21 (10 self)
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Abstract — Multiple different understandings and uses exist of what granularity is and how to implement it, where the former influences success of the latter with regards to storing granular data and using granularity for reasoning over the data or information. We propose a taxonomy of types of granularity and discuss for each leaf type how the entities or instances relate within its granular level. Such unambiguous distinctions can guide a conceptual modeler to better distinguish between the types of granularity and the software developer to improve on implementations of granularity. I.
GOL: Towards an Axiomatized Upper-Level Ontology
- IMISE, LEIPZIG
, 2001
"... Every domain-specific ontology must use as a framework some upper-level ontology which describes the most general domain-independent categories of reality. In the present paper we sketch a new type of upper-level ontology, and we outline an associated knowledge modelling language called GOL – for: G ..."
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Cited by 18 (2 self)
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Every domain-specific ontology must use as a framework some upper-level ontology which describes the most general domain-independent categories of reality. In the present paper we sketch a new type of upper-level ontology, and we outline an associated knowledge modelling language called GOL – for: General Ontological Language. It turns out that the upper-level ontology underlying well-known standard modelling languages such as KIF, F-Logic and CycL is restricted to the ontology of sets. In a set theory which allows Urelements, however, there will be ontological relations between these Urelements which the set-theoretic machinery cannot capture. In contrast to standard modelling and representation formalisms, GOL provides a machinery for representing and analysing such ontologically basic relations. GOL is thus a genuine extension of KIF and of similar languages. In GOL entities are divided into sets and Urelements, the latter being divided in their turn into individuals and universals. Foremost among the individuals are things or substances, tropes or moments, and situoids: entities containing facts as components.
Functional Anatomy: A Taxonomic Proposal
- Acta Biotheoretica
, 2005
"... Abstract. It is argued that medical science requires a classificatory system that (a) puts functions in the taxonomic center and (b) does justice ontologically to the difference between the processes which are the realizations of functions and the objects which are their bearers. We propose formulae ..."
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Cited by 17 (2 self)
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Abstract. It is argued that medical science requires a classificatory system that (a) puts functions in the taxonomic center and (b) does justice ontologically to the difference between the processes which are the realizations of functions and the objects which are their bearers. We propose formulae for constructing such a system and describe some of its benefits. The arguments are general enough to be of interest to all the life sciences. 1 Traditional Anatomy and Functional Anatomy The idea to be outlined in this paper is that there is an as yet unexplored taxonomical approach within the life sciences, in particular within medicine, which we call pure functional anatomy. Pure functional anatomy is complementary to the purely structural approach to anatomy exemplified by the Foundational Model of Anatomy (Cornelius and Mejino, 2003), while at the same time remaining distinct from pure physiology. Physicians as well as medical scientists are of course already working with a large amount of more or less implicit knowledge of functional anatomy. Our proposal is that this knowledge be made explicit and that it be carefully systematized
Stratified Rough Sets And Vagueness
- Spatial Information Theory. Cognitive and Computational Foundations of Geographic Information Science. International Conference COSIT’03
, 2003
"... The relationship between less detailed and more detailed versions of data is one of the major issues in processing geographic information. Fundamental to much work in model-oriented generalization, also called semantic generalization, is the notion of an equivalence relation. Given an equivalence re ..."
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Cited by 12 (1 self)
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The relationship between less detailed and more detailed versions of data is one of the major issues in processing geographic information. Fundamental to much work in model-oriented generalization, also called semantic generalization, is the notion of an equivalence relation. Given an equivalence relation on a set, the techniques of rough set theory can be applied to give generalized descriptions of subsets of the original set. The notion of equivalence relation, or partition, has recently been significantly extended by the introduction of the notion of a granular partition. A granular partition provides what may be thought of as a hierarchical family of partial equivalence relations. In this paper we show how the mechanisms for making rough descriptions with respect to an equivalence relation can be extended to give rough descriptions with respect to a granular partition. In order to do this, we also show how some of the theory of granular partitions can be reformulated; this clarifies the connections between equivalence relations and granular partitions. With the help of this correspondence we then can show how the notion of hierarchical systems of partial equivalence classes relates to partitions of partial sets, i.e., partitions of sets in which not all members are known. This gives us new insight into the relationships between roughness and vagueness. 1
