Re: Standard ontological relations for our voc -leverating Obo relations

Hi Gary,
yes, both Barry Smith and Nicola Guarino make use of this fundamental 
distinction between 'continuant' and 'occurrent' ('endurant' and 
'perdurant' in DOLCE) which roots in the classic works of Peter Simons, 
and maybe dates back at the time of Heraclitus and Parmenides :-)

Now, if we are developing and ontology, the problem is whether we are 
going to embrace a foundational layer or not, and if yes (which is 
advisable in my opinion) which one.

Or maybe we are content with a vocabulary, that just requires 'soft' 
lexical relationships, and we don't need categories at all.

Cordiali Saluti, Best Regards,

Guido Vetere
Manager & Research Coordinator, IBM Center for Advanced Studies Rome
-----------------------
IBM Italia S.p.A.
via Sciangai 53, 00144 Rome, 
Italy
-----------------------
mail:     gvetere@it.ibm.com
phone: +39 06 59662137
mobile: +39 335 7454658





Gary Berg-Cross <gbergcross@gmail.com> 
27/04/2009 17.05

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Re: Standard ontological relations for our voc -leverating Obo  relations






Guido,
 
Here is a quick response to your remarks  - we may want to dialog on this 
to reach an understanding and get back to the group.
 
>It seems that OBO relations are defined over 'continuants' (i.e., 
roughly, objects) and 'occurrents' (processes) but I don't find a 
'foundational ontology' where these two classes are defined (maybe I miss 
something?)
 
In the OCO Foundry ontologies there is a the top level division 
corresponding to the ways the entities exist in time. As I believe you 
know this follows Barry Smith's Snap vs. Span perspctives, but seems 
compatible with DOLCE.
 
So they have ?Continuants? endure through time. ?Occurrents? (processes) 
unfold through time in successive stages. 
 
Continuants are divided into physical things, on the one hand, and 
qualities and functions, on the other. The latter are dependent 
continuants: a quality such as the shape of a fly?s wing depends for its 
existence on, and endures through time in tandem with, the wing that is 
its bearer; a function, such as the function of an enzyme to catalyze 
reactions of a certain type, similarly endures through time in tandem with 
the enzyme itself and exists even when it is not being exercised in any 
instance of that reaction. 
You can see a basic discussion of this at:
www.openehr.org/wiki/download/attachments/196630/NBT_OBO.pdf?version=1 

On your 2nd remark
>I would suggest avoiding the mix of is_a with first-order relationships 
like 'part', since the former has a specific logical import (subclass of) 
which is natively axiomatized in any description logic like owl. 
 
My take on this is that while we start with a representational languages 
given relations we develope the ones we need using them and just be clear 
what the semantics of the various part relations are (proper part vs 
contained in).  That is, we aren't limited to the "natively axiomatized " 
ones as long as we provide sutible axioms.  
 
Gary Berg-Cross,Ph.D.
gbergcross@gmail.com      
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?GaryBergCross
SOCoP Executive Secretary
Principal, EM&I Semantic Technology
Potomac, MD
301-762-5441
On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 6:45 AM, Guido Vetere <gvetere@it.ibm.com> wrote:

Gary, 
two quick remarks: 

It seems that OBO relations are defined over 'continuants' (i.e., roughly, 
objects) and 'occurrents' (processes) but I don't find a 'foundational 
ontology' where these two classes are defined (maybe I miss something?) 

I would suggest avoiding the mix of is_a with first-order relationships 
like 'part', since the former has a specific logical import (subclass of) 
which is natively axiomatized in any description logic like owl. 

Cordiali Saluti, Best Regards,

Guido Vetere
Manager & Research Coordinator, IBM Center for Advanced Studies Rome
-----------------------
IBM Italia S.p.A.
via Sciangai 53, 00144 Rome, 
Italy
-----------------------
mail:     gvetere@it.ibm.com
phone: +39 06 59662137
mobile: +39 335 7454658



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