Towards an Ontological Foundations for Services Science: the Legal Perspective.

A Formal Ontological Perspective on the Behaviors and Functions of Technical Artifacts.

Towards the Ontological Representation of Functional Basis in DOLCE.

Euclidean and Mereological Qualitative Spaces: a Study of SCC and DCC.

Foundational choices in DOLCE.

Parthood Simpliciter vs. Temporary Parthood .

Towards an Ontological Foundations for Services Science.

A New Ontological Perspective for Social Services.

The Impact of Technology in Organizational Communication.

Evaluating Procedural Alternatives: a case study in e-Voting.

Artefacts and Roles: Modelling Strategies in a Multiplicative Ontology.

Lexicon and Ontology Interplay in Senso Comune.

Enriching Ontologies with Linguistic Content: An Evaluation Framework.

Formalizing Temporal Constraints on Part-Whole relations.

The Attractiveness of Foundational Ontologies in Industry.

Abductive Reasoning, Interpretation and Collaborative Processes.

Preliminaries to a DOLCE Ontology of Organizations.

Integrating Agent-Oriented Modeling Languages Using a Foundational Ontology.

Using the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) as a Foundation for General Conceptual Modeling Languages.

Grounding Software Domain Ontologies in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO): The case of the ODE Software Process Ontology.

FrameWeb and S-FrameWeb: A Framework Based Methodology for Agile Web Engineering with Semantic Web Support.

Editorial of the Special Issue on Ontological Foundations for Conceptual Modeling.

Extended Editorial of the Special Issue on Vocabularies, Ontologies and Rules for The Enterprise.

Extended Editorial of the Special Issue on Ontologies and Business Process Modeling.

ECG provisioning system for telehomecare monitoring, Computer Applications in Health Care.

A Service Architecture for Sensor Data Provisioning for Context-Aware Mobile Applications.

A Requirements Engineering Experience Using Process Models. (in portuguese)

Quantificational Modal Operators and Their Semantics.

Formal Ontologies for Communicating Agents.

Coalitions in Action Logic.

Problemi filosofici emergenti dalla modellazione delle organizzazioni sociali.

Designing Organizations: Towards a Model.

Gli effetti dei sistemi informativi sui processi di comunicazione: un caso di studio.

Evaluating Procedural Alternatives. A Case Study in e-Voting.

Non Mediated Collective Intentions.

Full mereogeometries.

Ontological Modularity and Spatial Diversity.

How Formal Ontology can help Civil Engineers. Proceedings of the Workshop on Ontologies for Urban Development.

Foundations for a Core Ontology of Manufacturing.

Solving Bratman's Video Game Puzzle in Two Formalisms.

An Ontology of the Aspectual Classes of Actions.

Proceedings of the 11th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (Decalog 2007).

Proceedings of the 6th international and interdisciplinary conference (CONTEXT 2007): Modeling and Using Context..

The Categorization of Spatial Entities in Language and Cognition.

Categorizing Spatial Entities with Frontal Orientation: the Role of Function, Motion and Saliency in the Processing of the French Internal Localization Nouns avant/devant.

Setting the Background in Discourse.

Modal Aspects of Object Types and Part-Whole Relations and the de re/de dicto distinction.

On Ontology, ontologies, Conceptualizations, Modeling Languages, and (Meta)Models, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Databases and Information Systems IV.

An Ontological Account of Agent Oriented Goals.

On the Foundation for Roles in RM-ODP: Contributions from Conceptual Modelling.

COReS: Context-aware, Ontology-based Recommender system for Service recommendation.

A Language for Modeling Framework-based Web Information Systems.

S-FrameWeb: a Framework Based Design Method for Web Engineering with Semantic Web Support.

An Electrocardiogram (ECG) Domain Ontology.

Evolving a Software Configuration Ontology.

Proceedings of the Second Brazilian Workshop on Ontologies and Metamodels for Software and Data Engineering (WOMSDE'07).

Mereogeometry and Pictorial Morphology.

The Cognitive Matrix: an hybrid perspective on mind.

Ontology of Actions and Mental Entities.

On Blocking: The Rhetorical Aspects of Content-Level Discourse Relations and Their Semantics.

Ontology of Organizations and Security .

MOSTRO Del3: An Ontology of the Teleological Dimension in Organizations

MOSTRO Del4: Security reasoning analysis and roadmap

MOSTRO Del6: Whole Methodology Specification

MOSTRO Del7: Case study description

MOSTRO Del8: Methodology evaluation

Ontology of Agency. From Modal Logics to First-Order Theories.

Formal Ontology meets Industry.

The unexpected high practical value of medical ontologies.

Ontologies supporting continuity of care: The case of heart failure.

Modelling in the study of interaction of Hemopump device and artificial ventilation.

Right ventricular assistance by continuous flow device: A numerical simulation.

The Impact of Rotary Blood Pump in Conjuction with Mechanical Ventilation on Ventricular Energetic Parameters: Numerical Simulation.

Towards a logic of agency and actions with duration.

Qood grid: A metaontology-based framework for ontology evaluation and selection.

Ontology-based modelling of legal concepts.

From Collective Intentionality to Intentional Collectives: an Ontological Perspective.

Intenzioni Collettive Non Mediate.

Passi Preliminari verso una Dolce ontologia delle organizzazioni.

Pensieri e Rappresentazioni di Elisabetta Sacchi.

Special Issue on Applied Ontology.

Development of Modular Ontologies in CASL.

From Physical Artefacts to Products.

On the transitivity of functional parthood.

Adverbiaux de localisation comme introducteurs de topiques de discours.

Clinical Guidelines as Plans: An Ontological Theory.

Towards an ontology of agency and action: From STIT to OntoSTIT+.

Qualities in Possible Worlds.

Behaviour of a Technical Artifact: An Ontological Perspective in Engineering.

In Defence of a Trope-Based Ontology for Conceptual Modeling: An example with the foundations of Attributes, Weak Entities an Datatypes.

Who Cares about Axiomatization? Representation, Invariance, and Formal Ontologies.

Ontologia. Prefazione

In Defense of Ontological Foundations for Conceptual Modeling

Ontologies and description logics

Primi ingredienti di una DOLCE ontologia delle organizzazioni

How may a coalition do what it can possibly do?

Semantics and ontology in quantified modal logic

Verso un'ontologia degli artefatti

MOSTRO Del1: Organization and security modelling roadmap

MOSTRO Del2: Designing Organizations: Towards a Model

MOSTRO Del5: Methodology for organization and security analysis

The Dynamic Nature of Meaning.

Computers in Biology and Medicine, Special issue on Medical Ontologies.

CausatiOnt: Modeling Causation in AI&Law..

Agent Roles, Qua Individuals and The Counting Problem.

Ontology Design Patterns for Semantic Web Content.

A Constructive Framework for Legal Ontologies.

Towards an Ontology-based Distributed Architecture for Paid Content.

La langue classifie-t-elle les entites spatiales?.

Locating Adverbials in Discourse.

Applied Ontology: Focusing on Content.

Subordinating and Coordinating Discourse Relations.

AI and Law.

Proceedings of LOAIT Workshop - Legal Ontologies and Artificial Intelligence Techniques.

Proceedings of the Special Track on Regulatory Ontologies in Web Semantics (SWWS'05), held in conjunction with OnTheMove Federated Conferences (OTM'05)

Relational Roles and Qua-individuals. In Proceedings of the AAAI Fall Symposium on Roles, an interdisciplinary perspective

Abstract. This paper presents a preliminary proposal of an ontology of organizations based on DOLCE (Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering). An ontological analysis of organizations is the first, fundamental and ineliminable pillar on which to build a precise and rigourous enterprise modelling. An ontological analysis makes explicit the social structure that underlies every organizational settings. In particular, the paper tries to explain what are organizations, roles and norms, how they are interrelated, what it means for a norm to be valid in an organization and what it means for an agent to be affiliated to an organization.

Abstract. STIT is a logic of agency that has been proposed in the nineties in the domain of philosophy of action. It is the logic of constructions of the form ``agent a sees to it that F''. We believe that STIT theory may contribute to the logical analysis of multiagent systems. To support this claim, in this paper we show that there is a close relationship with more recent logics for multiagent systems. We focus on Pauly's Coalition Logic and the logic of the cstit operator, as described by Horty. After a brief presentation of Coalition Logic and an adapted discrete-time STIT framework, we introduce a translation from Coalition Logic to STIT, and prove that it is correct.

Abstract. Abstract. We characterize and compare four different ways of representing qualities in formal ontology. Our goal is to discuss their ontological commitments and their adequacy in applications. We also show how the frameworks here presented relate to other approaches in ontology (trope theory), in cognitive science (conceptual spaces), and in physics (International System of Units). The work we present focuses on ontological construction; we do not discuss issues specifically related to measurements, metrics and the like.

Abstract.We look at extensions of modal logic for representation and reasoning in the area of multi-agent systems. Building on dynamic logic and Henkin quantifiers, we study an unusual type of operators that present important features for capturing concurrency, independence, collaboration, and coordination between agents. The main goal of this paper is to study the semantics of these operators and to show how it can be adapted to capture different types of agents. The formalism allows a formal comparison of a variety of multi-agent systems.

Quantificational modal logic with sequential Kripke semantics. (prefinal version)

Abstract. We introduce quantificational modal operators as dynamic modalities with (extensions of) Henkin quantifiers as indices. The adoption of matrices of indices (with action identifiers, variables and/or quantified variables as entries) gives an expressive formalism which is here motivated with examples from the area of multi-agent systems. We study the formal properties of the resulting logic which, formally speaking, does not satisfy the normality condition. However, the logic admits a semantics in terms of (an extension of) Kripke structures. As a consequence, standard techniques for normal modal logic become available. We apply these to prove completeness and decidability, and to extend some standard frame results to this logic.

Abstract. This is a deliverable of the EU FP6 project Metokis. It concerns the logical and ontological foundation of so-called task taxonomies for knowledge content. Task taxonomies are graphs that create an ordering over sets of action types. Task taxonomies are mainly used in so-called workflow management systems. Knowledge content objects are (materialized) information objects that are tagged by means of metadata, and are the target elements of library management and the semantic web. In Metokis, the two concepts match for the scope of the project: building a demonstration platform that allows a formal definition of certain types (mainly digital) of knowledge content objects (news, clinical data, management documents, etc.), in conjunction with a formal definition of the action types (and their ordering) that involve that kind of knowledge content. The objective of this deliverable is to explain how task taxonomies and knowledge content objects can be designed with the help of formal ontology.

Abstract. This paper gives an upside-down view of the problem of collective intentionality by providing a treatment of the notion of intentional collective. Based on reviews of the relevant literature, we apply three formal-ontological tools of our choice (namely, DOLCE, D&S, and DDPO) to the definition of the notions of collection, agent, plan and collective, all underlying the concept of intentional collective. Although our results are preliminary, we believe that the proposed approach offers several advantages, among which its explicitness, modularity and formality. This makes it particularly suitable for a founded specification of typologies of collections and collectives, hence for contributing to both philosophic and scientific research on these topics.

Law and the Semantic Web Legal Ontologies, Methodologies, Legal Information Retrieval, and Applications

Representation, Presentation and conceptual schemas

Les entités spatiales dans la langue: étude descriptive, formelle et expérimentale de la catégorisation

Tense, Connectives and Discourse Structure. In Handbook of French Semantics.

Abstract. Although ontology has gained wide attention in the area of information systems, a criticism typical of the early days is still rehearsed here and there. Roughly, this criticism says: general ontologies are not suited for real applications. We believe this is the result of a misunderstanding of the role of genereal ontologies since, we claim, even foundational ontologies (the most general and formal ontologies) have a crucial role in building reausable, adaptable and transparent application systems. We support this view by showing how foundational ontologies can be used in the manufacturing control area. Our approach (partially presented here through an example) provides a domain-specific ontology which is explicitly designed for applications, theoretically organized by a foundational ontology, driven by the application field for all intents and purposes, suitable for communication across different applications.

Abstract. Formal ontology has proved to be an extremely useful tool for negotiating intended meaning, for building explicit, formal data sheets, and for the discovery of novel views on existing data structures. This paper describes an example of application of formal ontological methods to the creation of biomedical ontologies. Addressed here is the ambiguous notion of inflammation, which spans across multiple linguistic meanings, multiple layers of reality, and multiple details of granularity. We use UML class diagrams, description logics, and the DOLCE foundational ontology, augmented with the Description and Situation theory, in order to provide the representational and ontological primitives that are necessary for the development of detailed, flexible, and functional biomedical ontologies. An ontology design pattern is proposed as a modelling template for inflammations.

Abstract. Polysemy is the linguistic phenomenon by which a term has more than one meaning. It is not a negligible issue in information management, since an effective and unambiguous sharing of the semantic content of data among different databases or knowledge repositories is needed. The paper illustrates a case of polysemy (concerning inflammation), and puts it within the framework provided by the DOLCE+ foundational ontology. This solution enables us to formally represent several senses of inflammation, and their interrelationships. This we take as a demonstration of how ontologies play an essential role in providing precisely the conceptual foundations that are needed in order to make the intended meaning of natural language expressions available to all the (artificial or human) agents that could be involved in the semantic web.

Abstract. We present a general conceptualization of causal relations that pivots on the distinction between causality, a law-like relation between types of events, and causation, the actual causal relation that holds between individual events. This distinction finds its formal characterization and embedding within DOLCE, in terms of a number of dependences between (types of) quality changes. Finally an application of the presented theory to the classical example of "the broken window" is provided.

Abstract. The main goal of this paper is a preliminary characterization of the categories of the mental, able to fit and integrate the foundational ontology DOLCE (a Descriptive Ontology for Linguistic and Cognitive Engineering); we will call this core ontology COM (Computational Ontology of Mind). The idea of COM emerges from the need of a conceptual clarification from the standpoint of formal ontology of the entities that play a role in agent technologies for information systems. Based on philosophical tradition, we have singled out a central relation in the realm of the mental: aboutness. In our proposal aboutness connects a mental state with a mental object, at a certain time, and with respect to a given intentional agent. Thus, in the paper we will give a first analysis of these entities, mainly focused on mental objects and their characteristics. We are also specifying the basic features of mental states and intentional agents, exploiting ontological categories and relations implemented in DOLCE.

Abstract. This paper offers two main contributions. On the one hand, it establishes a general formal framework for developing a foundational ontology of socially constructed entities, in the broadest sense of this notion; on the other hand, it further contributes to understanding the ontological nature of roles. The key choice here is to put all social entities in the domain of discourse: besides social individuals, we also consider "reified" social concepts and roles, as well as their descriptions, i.e, the "social conventions" or "contexts" that define them. This allows us to formally characterize in a first-order theory the relationships among all these entities.

Abstract. UML class diagrams can be used as a language for expressing a conceptual model of a domain. In a series of papers we have been using the General Ontological Language (GOL) and its underlying upper level ontology, to evaluate the ontological correctness of a conceptual UML class model and to develop guidelines for how the constructs of the UML should be used in conceptual modeling. In this paper, we focus on the UML metaconcepts of classes and objects from an ontological point of view. We use a philosophically and psychologically well-founded theory of classifiers to propose a UML profile for Ontology Representation and Conceptual Modeling. Moreover, we propose a design pattern based on this profile to target a recurrent problem in role modeling discussed in the literature. Finally, we demonstrate the relevance of the tools proposed by applying them to solve recurrent problems in the practice of conceptual modeling.

Abstract. OntoClean is a methodology for validating the ontological adequacyof taxonomic relationships. It is based on highly general ontological notions drawnfrom philosophy, like essence, identity, and unity, which are used to characterize relevant aspects of the intended meaning of the properties, classes, and relationsthat make up an ontology. These aspects are represented by formal metaproperties,which impose several constraints on the taxonomic structure of an ontology. The analysis of these constraints helps in evaluating and validating the choices made.In this chapter we present an informal overview of the philosophical notions in-volved and their role in OntoClean, review some common ontological pitfalls, and walk through the example that has appeared in pieces in previous papers and hasbeen the basis of numerous tutorials and talks.

Abstract. Abstract: This paper gives an upside-down view of the problem of collective intentionality by providing a treatment of the notion of intentional collective. Based on reviews of the relevant literature, we apply two formal-ontological tools of our choice (namely, DOLCE and D&S) to the definition of the notions of collection, agent, plan and collective, all underlying the concept of intentional collective. Although our results are preliminary, we believe that the proposed approach offers several advantages, among which its explicitness, modularity and formality. This makes it particularly suitable for a founded specification of typologies of collections and collectives.

At the core of Core Ontologies

The COM Perspective on Intentional Agents

The Semantics of Ontologies

COME (Computational Ontology of Mental Entities)

Abstract. L'ontologia Ð "lo studio dell'essere in quanto essere", scriveva Aristotele Ð nasce ed è usualmente concepita come una disciplina strettamente filosofica, lontana dal mondo della tecnologia. Negli ultimi anni, tuttavia, l'esplosione delle comunicazioni in rete ha favorito un nuovo fenomeno: gli aspetti ontologici dell'informazionehanno acquistato un crescente valore strategico. Mediante una caratterizzazione ontologica dellÕinformazione, infatti, questa può essere reperita, isolata, organizzata e integrata in base a ciò che più conta: il suo contenuto. Questo breve articolo si propone di presentare in modo informale un aspetto fondamentale delle ricerche in questo campo, legato al problema della disambiguazione del significato.

Abstract. The OntoLearn system for automated ontology learning extracts relevant domain terms from a corpus of text, relates them to appropriate concepts in a general-purpose ontology, and detects taxonomic and other semantic relations among the concepts. The authors used it to automatically translate multiword terms from English to Italian.

Abstract. Lyee is not only a tool for generating code in a language, but also a methodology with a solid philosophical background and cognitive basis. We can even envisage the existence of a LyeeÕs "hypothetical world", as stated by its inventor, Fumio Negoro. In this paper we present an ontology of descriptions and situations designed with a cognitive approach and we investigate its relationships with the world of Lyee, its methodology and hypothetical assumptions.

Abstract. The "evidence-based medicine" (EBM) paradigm is centered on the concept of "best evidence" and clinical studies based on this approach are more likely to be considered by physicians in their practice. In this paper we describe an ontology representing the concepts involved in evidence-based medicine and meta-analysis and show how an ontological approach can be applied both for revisiting EBM conceptual foundations and for allowing a more effective knowledge-based information retrieval in literature.

Abstract. Despite its original intended use, which was very different, WORDNET is used more and more today as an ontology, where the hyponym relation between word senses is interpreted as a subsumption relation between concepts. In this article, we discuss the general problems related to the semantic interpretation of WORDNET taxonomy in light of rigorous ontological principles inspired by the philosophical tradition and introduce the DOLCE upper-level ontology, which is inspired by such principles but with a clear orientation toward language and cognition. We report the results of an experimental effort to align WORDNET's upper level with DOLCE. We suggest that such alignment could lead to an "ontologically sweetened" WORDNET, meant to be conceptually more rigorous, cognitively transparent, and efficiently exploitable in several applications.

Abstract. In this paper we present a progress report of the OntoWordNet project, a research program aimed at achieving a formal specification of WordNet. Within this program, we developed a hybrid bottom-up top-down methodology to automatically extract association relations from WordNet, and to interpret those associations in terms of a set of conceptual relations, formally defined in the DOLCE foundational ontology. Preliminary results provide us with the conviction that a research program aiming to obtain a consistent, modularized, and axiomatized ontology from WordNet can be completed in acceptable time with the support of semi-automatic techniques.

Abstract. The Semantic Web is a powerful vision that is getting to grips with the challenge of providing more human-oriented web services. Hence, reasoning with and across distributed, partially implicit assumptions (contextual knowledge), is a milestone. Ontologies are a primary means to deploy the Semantic Web vision, but few work has been done on them to manage the context-dependency of Web knowledge. In this paper we introduce an ontology for representing a variety of reified contexts and states of affairs, called D&S, currently implemented as a plug-in to the DOLCE foundational ontology, and its application to two cases: an ontology for communication situations and roles, and an ontology for peer-to-peer communication. The reified contexts represented in D&S have a rich structure, and are a middleware between full-fledged formal contexts and theories, and the often poor vocabularies implemented in Web ontologies.

Abstract. The increasing development of legal ontologies seems to offers atisfactory solutions to legal knowledge formalization, which in past experiences lead to a limited exploitation of legal expert systems for practical and commercial use. The paper describes some ontology-based tools that enable legal knowledge formalization. Jurwordnet is an extension to the legal domain of the Italian version of EuroWordNet. It is a content description model for legal information and a lexical resource for accessing multilingual and heterogeneous information sources. Its concepts are organised according to a "Core Legal Ontology" (CLO), based on DOLCE+, an extension of the DOLCE foundational ontology. Jurwordnet and CLO are also used to represent the assessment of legal regulatory compliance across different legal systems or between norms and cases. An example is discussed concerning compliance between EC directives and national legislations.

Abstract. In this paper we present a progress report of the OntoWordNet project, a research program aimed at achieving a formal specification of WordNet. Within this program, we developed a hybrid bottom-up top-down methodology to automatically extract association relations from WordNet, and to interpret those associations in terms ofa set of conceptual relations, formally defined in the DOLCE foundational ontology. Preliminary results provide us with the conviction that a research program aiming to obtain a consistent, modularized, and axiomatized ontology from WordNet can be completed in acceptable time with the support of semi-automatic techniques.

Abstract. The paper describes the Jur-Wordnet (Jur-IWN) project, whose objective is an ontology-based extension to the legal domain of the Italian version of EuroWordNet. It aims at providing both a content description model for legal information and a resource for accessing multilingual and heterogeneous information sources. Jur-IWN involves a double interpretation of the model, and of its features. Conceived as a lexical resource, terms are linked to each other throughout lexical relation, while, as a content description model, the concepts are organised according to stronger assumptions about the ontological nature of entities that populate the legal domain, and about their relationship. The crucial problem is to save the global consistency of the model: the lexical view needs a clear definition of the boundaries between common language and technical legal terminology, while the conceptualisation of the core entities needs to be linked in a coherent way to upper level categories. The upper-level ontology chosen for the project is DOLCE, with its extensions.

Abstract. We introduce a formal language for multi-agent systems based on new modal operators. The modal operators express concurrency at the syntactic level. Operators containing quantifiers describe the evolution of a system where each agent has knowledge of other agentsÕ attitude toward a goal but not of their actions. This result is obtained without introducing standard epistemic operators. The semantics presents a mixture of Tarskian and game-theoretical elements. We apply game-theory to interpret the quantified modalities and to determine which information is available to the agents as well as their reasoning capabilities.

Abstract. In this paper we introduce the DOLCE upper level ontology, the first module of a Foundational Ontologies Library being developed within the WonderWeb project. DOLCE is presented here in an intuitive way; the reader should refer to the project deliverable for a detailed axiomatization. A comparison with WordNet's top-level taxonomy of nouns is also provided, which shows how DOLCE, used in addition to the OntoClean methodology, helps isolating and understanding some major WordNet’s semantic limitations. We suggest that such analysis could hopefully lead to an “ontologically sweetened” WordNet, meant to be conceptually more rigorous, cognitively transparent, and efficiently exploitable in several applications.

Abstract. We are witnessing the unification of biology, since both biochemists and genetists now recognize a single universe of genes and proteins, and such unification is made possible also by the ever-increasing availability of the sequences of entire genomes. However, such a growing demand has to rely on a solid conceptual foundation in order to give a precise semantics to the terabytes available in different genome databases and eventually traveling over the networks.

Abstract.In this paper we propose an analysis and a rearrangement of WordNet's top-level taxonomy of nouns. We briefly review Word- Net and identify its main semantic limitations, in the light of the ontology evaluation principles lying at the core of the Onto- Clean methodology. Then we briefly present a first version of the OntoClean Top (OCT) ontology, and show how WordNet can be aligned with it. The result is a “cleaned-up” WordNet, which is meant to be conceptually more rigorous, cognitively transparent, and efficiently exploitable in several applications.

Abstract. Although is recognized that ontologies may help building better and more interoperable information systems, there is skepticism on the real impact they may have in the future. We believe that ontologies will succeed in the information system arena and no systems will ever be designed without an ontological approach. In this paper we demonstrate the effectiveness of the ontological approach by illustrating three case studies. We show how an ontological framework is able to support semantic interoperability in the domain of fishery, then we present the role of ontologies for managing clinical guidelines and finally we sketch up an ontological analysis aimed at the interoperability of genetics databases.

In R. Green, C.A. Bean, S. Hyon Myaeng (eds.), The Semantics of Relationships:  An Interdisciplinary Perspective, Kluwer, pp. 111-126

Abstract The intuitive simplicity of the so-called is-a (or subsumption) relationship has led to widespread ontological misuse. Where previous work has focused largely on the semantics of the relationship itself, we concentrate here on the ontological nature of its arguments, in order to tell whether a single is-a link is ontologically well-founded. For this purpose, we introduce some techniques based on the philosophical notions of identity, unity, and essence, which have been adapted to the needs of taxonomy design. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques by taking real examples of poorly structured taxonomies, and revealing cases of invalid generalization.

Il Ragionamento Controfattuale. Un modello e la sua applicazione al Ragionamento Pratico.

In V. Akman, P. Bouquet, R. Thomason, R.A. Young (a cura di): Modeling and Using Context, Proceedings of the Third International and Interdisciplinary Conference, CONTEXT 2001. Dundee, UK, Luglio 2001. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg.

Abstract. Taxonomies are an important part of conceptual modeling, they provide substantial structural information, and are typically the key element in integration efforts, however there has been little guidance as to what makes a proper taxonomy. We have taken several notions from the philosophical practice of Formal Ontology, and adapted them for use in Information Systems. These tools, identity, essence, unity, and dependence, provide a solid logical framework within which the properties that form a taxonomy can be analyzed. This analysis helps make intended meaning more explicit, improving human understanding and reducing the cost of integration.

Abstract. The main goal of this paper is to present a systematic methodology for selecting general ontological categories to be used for multiple practical purposes. After a brief overview of our basic assumptions concerning the way a useful top-level ontology should be linked to language and cognition, we present a set of primitive relations that we believe play a foundational role. On the basis of these relations, we define a few formal properties, which combined together help to understand and clarify the nature of many common ontological distinctions.

Abstract. In this paper we propose an analysis and an upgrade of WordNet’s top-level synset taxonomy. We briefly review WordNet and identify its main semantic limitations. Some principles from a forthcoming OntoClean methodology are applied to the ontological analysis of WordNet. A revised top-level taxonomy is proposed, which is meant to be more conceptually rigorous, cognitively transparent, and efficiently exploitable in several applications.

Abstract. In this paper we briefly describe the conceptual tools employed in a project aimed at representing and managing norm dynamics across different versions of banking regulations. We only give some hints of the ontological part of the project: formal ontology, conceptual integration, normative concept classification and comparison.

In R. Dieng, O. Corby (eds.), Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management: Methods, Models and Tools. 12th International Conference, EKAW2000. Springer Verlag, pp. 97-112

Abstract. A common problem of ontologies is that their taxonomic structure is often poor and confusing. This is typically exemplified by the unrestrained use of subsumption to accomplish a variety of tasks. In this paper we show how a formal ontology of unary properties can help using the subsumption relation in a disciplined way. This formal ontology is based on some metaproperties built around the fundamental philosophical notions of identity, unity, essence,and dependence. These meta-properties impose some constraints on the subsumption relation that clarify many misconceptions about taxonomies, facilitating their understanding, comparison and integration.

In R. Dieng, O. Corby (eds.), Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management: Methods, Models and Tools. 12th International Conference, EKAW2000. Springer Verlag

Abstract. Guidelines for clinical practice are being introduced in an extensive way in more and more different fields of medicine They have the potential to improve the quality and cost-efficiency of care in an increasingly complex health care delivery environment. Computerization may increase the effectiveness of both the information retrieval of guidelines and the management of guideline-based care. The scenario is evolving from stand-alone workstations to telematics applications that enable guidelines development and dissemination. However, such a knowledge sharing requires the definition of formal models for guidelines representation. The models should have a clear semantics in order to avoid ambiguities. The role of ontologies is that of making explicit the conceptualizations behind a model. In this paper we present our library of ontologies and point out its role for integrating existing guideline models and defining standard representations.

Abstract. Polysemy is a bottleneck for the demanding needs of semantic data management. We suggest the importance of a well-founded conceptual analysis for understanding some systematic structures underlying polysemy in the medical lexicon. We present some cases studies, which exploit the methods (ontological integration and general theories) and tools (description logics and ontology libraries) of the ONIONS methodology defined elsewhere by the authors. This paper addresses an aspect of the project we are involved in, which investigates the feasibility of building a large-scale ontology library of medicine that integrates the most important medical terminology banks.

Abstract. Guidelines for clinical practice are being introduced in an extensive way in more and more different fields of medicine They have the potential to improve the quality and cost-efficiency of care in an increasingly complex health care delivery environment. Computerization may increase the effectiveness of both the information retrieval of guidelines and the management of guideline-based care. The scenario is evolving from stand-alone workstations to telematics applications that enable guidelines development and dissemination. However, such a knowledge sharing requires the definition of formal models for guidelines representation. The models should have a clear semantics in order to avoid ambiguities. The role of ontologies is that of making explicit the conceptualizations behind a model. In this paper we present our library of ontologies and point out its role for integrating existing guideline models and defining standard representations.

Proceedings of the Joint European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Medical Decision Making AIMDM 99

Abstract. Paper-based terminology systems cannot satisfy anymore the new desiderata of healthcare information systems: the demand for re-use and sharing of patient data, their transmission and the need of semantic-based criteria for purposive statistical aggregation. The unambiguous communication of complex and detailed medical concepts is now a crucial feature of medical information systems. Ontologies can support a more effective data and knowledge sharing in medicine. In this paper we survey the ontological analysis performed on the top-levels of the most important medical terminology systems (an outcome of the ONIONS methodology) and we sketch out the ontological analysis performed on the UMLS Metathesaurus. We show the convenience of an ontological approach in dealing with the different conceptualizations behind medical terminologies and the polysemy of terms.

Abstract. The paper presents a review of the ONIONS project. ONIONS is committed to developing a large-scale ontology library for medical terminology. The developed methodology exploits a description logic-based design for the modules in the library and makes extended use of generic theories, thus creating a stratification of the modules. Terminological knowledge is acquired by conceptual analysis and ontology integration over a set of authoritative sources. After addressing general issues about conceptual analysis and integration, the methodology is briefly described. The central part of the article presents the investigation we have made on the 476,000 medical concepts singled out by the National Library of Medicine as the Metathesaurus in the UMLS project. This is followed by several case studies concerning lexical polysemy, the interface between ontologies and lexicon, and other special problems encountered in the specification of the ontologies. A section describing the current structure of the library and the generic theories reused is provided. Current results of our research include the integration of some top-level ontologies in the ON9.2 ontology library, and the formalization of the terminological knowledge in the UMLS Metathesaurus.

In C. Freksa, D.M. Mark (eds.), Proceedings of Spatial information theory - Cognitive and computational foundations of geographic information science (COSIT’99), Stade (Germania), August 25-29,1999 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1661). Springer Verlag, Berlin, 1999, pp. 235-250

Abstract. In qualitative spatial reasoning, the last ten years have brought a lot of results on theories of spatial properties and relations taking regions of space as primitive entities. In particular, the axiomatization of mereotopologies has been extensively studied. However, properties of space such as divisibility, density and atomicity haven’t attracted much attention in this context. Nevertheless, atomicity is especially important if one seeks to build a bridge between spatial reasoning and spatial databases approaches in areas like vision or GIS. In this paper we will investigate the possibility of characterizing such properties in spaces modeled by mereologies and mereotopologies. In addition, properties of atoms like extension and self-connectedness will be considered.

In N. Guarino (ed.) Formal Ontology in Information Systems. Proceedings of FOIS'98, Trento, Italy, June 6-8, 1998. IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp. 3-15

Abstract.Research on ontology is becoming increasingly widespread in the computer science community, and its importance is being recognized in a multiplicity of research fields and application areas, including knowledge engineering, database design and integration, information retrieval and extraction. We shall use the generic term “information systems”, in its broadest sense, to collectively refer to these application perspectives. We argue in this paper that so-called ontologies present their own methodological and architectural peculiarities: on the methodological side, their main peculiarity is the adoption of a highly interdisciplinary approach, while on the architectural side the most interesting aspect is the centrality of the role they can play in an information system, leading to the perspective of ontology-driven information systems.

In A. Rubio, N. Gallardo, R. Castro, A. Tejada (eds.), Proceedings of First International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation. ELRA - European Language Resources Association, Granada, Spain, May 28-30, 1998, pp. 527-534

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to explore some semantic problems related to the use of linguistic ontologies in information systems, and to suggest some organizing principles aimed to solve such problems. The taxonomic structure of current ontologies is unfortunately quite complicated and hard to understand, especially for what concerns the upper levels. I will focus here on the problem of ISA overloading, which I believe is the main responsible of these difficulties. To this purpose, I will carefully analyze the ontological nature of the categories used in current upper-level structures, considering the necessity of splitting them according to more subtle distinctions or the opportunity of excluding them because of their limited organizational role.

Abstract. ONIONS is a methodology for ontology analysis and integration. It has been applied to some relevant and very large medical terminologies (e.g. the 332,000 medical concepts singled out by the National Library of Medicine in the UMLS project). Current results include the alignment of the top-level ontologies of the terminologies considered. The paper reviews the formal and conceptual tools employed in this task, presents the most significant results obtained, and discusses two case studies.

Abstract. Paper-based terminology systems cannot satisfy anymore the new desiderata of healthcare information systems: the demand for re-use and sharing of patient data, their transmission and the need of semantic-based criteria for purposive statistical aggregation. The unambiguous communication of complex and detailed medical concepts is now a crucial feature of medical information systems. Ontologies can support a more effective data and knowledge sharing in medicine. In this paper we briefly survey our ontological analysis and integration of various top-levels of terminologies and we report the main results of the ontological analysis of the UMLS Metathesaurus.

Abstract. Sharing and reusing large subsets of the medical terminology is needed in various areas: knowledge-based systems, information retrieval, standardization, etc. The main obstacle to sharing and reusing medical terminologies is the lack of conceptual integration of terms. Actually the intended meaning of terms is different according to the context in which they appear and to the context of use. Interdisciplinary research in ontology provides good evidence that use of generic ontologies specified from literature is the grounding matter for conceptual integration of terminologies. Following our experiences in engineering a methodology for terminology integration, we suggest that the contextual dependency of terms should be overcome by means of a collaborative modelling environment, a distributed approach, an expressive language and a sound methodology. ON9, our current medical ontology library, evolved using expressive languages like GRAIL, Ontolingua, Loom and OCML. It also took advantage from tools for the distributed negotiation of ontologies like Ontosaurus.

Abstract. We discuss an approach to a theory of physical objects and present a logical theory based on a fundamental distinction between objects and their substrates, i.e. chunks of matter and regions of space. The purpose is to establish the basis of a general ontology of space, matter and physical objects for the domain of mechanical artifacts. An extensional mereological framework is assumed for substrates, whereas physical objects are allowed to change their spatial and material substrate while keeping their identity. Besides the parthood relation, simple self-connected region and congruence (or sphere) are adopted as primitives for the description of space. Only threedimensional regions are assumed in the domain.

Abstract. We collected a set of words, suffixes, and idioms regarding actions in surgical procedures, ie. "deeds" as defined in a CEN European Prestandard; we then searched for their definitions in different authoritative sources and we performed an ontological analysis of this material according to the ONIONS methodology. The result was a formal model on surgical actions, as an extension of our previous model ON8.5, using Ontolingua with "frame ontology". We worked out criteria to assist domain experts in organizing hierarchies on surgical actions, according to points of view on structural, instrumental and functional properties.

Abstract. We present the most applicable aspects of our research in the conceptual integration of terminologies. From past experience, we claim that the conceptualizations provided for terminological ontologies need to be philosophically and linguistically grounded. We developed ONIONS, a methodology for integrating domain terminologies by exploiting a library of generic ontologies. Our current focus is on flexible and cooperative modelling of terminological ontologies. We adopt modular and negotiable architectures of ontologies and some WWW-oriented tools, such as Ontolingua and Ontosaurus.

In L. Carlucci Ailello, J. Doyle, S. C. Shapiro (eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference (KR '96) on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Morgan Kaufmann, Boston, MA, pp. 220-229

Abstract. We present a logical theory of space where only tridimensional regions are assumed in the domain. Three distinct primitives are used to describe their mereological, topological and morphological properties: mereology is described by a parthood relation satisfying the axioms of Closed Extensional Mereology; topology is described by means of a "simple region" predicate, by which a relation of "strong connection" between regions having at least a surface in common is defined; morphology is described by means of a "congruence" primitive, whose axioms exploit Tarski's analogy between points and spheres.

Abstract. Knowledge bases, data bases and object-oriented systems (referred to in the paper as Object-Centered systems) all rely on attributes as the main construct used to associate properties to objects; among these, a fundamental role is played by the so-called part-whole relation. The representation of such a structural informa- tion usually requires a particular semantics together with specialized inference and update mechanisms, but rarely do current modeling formalisms and methodologies give it a specific, "first-class" dignity. The main thesis of this paper is that the part-whole relation cannot simply be considered as an ordinary attribute: its specific ontological nature requires to be understood and integrated within data modeling formalisms and methodologies. On the basis of such an ontological perspective, we survey the conceptual modeling issues involving part-whole relations, and the various modeling frameworks provided by knowledge representation and object-oriented formalisms.

Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to defend the systematic introduction of formal ontological principles in the current practice of knowledge engineering, to explore the various relationships between ontology and knowledge representation, and to present the recent trends in this promising research area. According to the "modelling view" of knowledge acquisition proposed by Clancey, the modeling activity must establish a correspondence between a knowledge base and two separate subsystems: the agent's behavior (i.e. the problem-solving expertize) and its own environment (the problem domain). Current knowledge modelling methodologies tend to focus on the former subsystem only, viewing domain knowledge as strongly dependent on the particular task at hand: in fact, AI researchers seem to have been much more interested in the nature of reasoning rather than in the nature of the real world. Recently, however, the potential value of task-independent knowlege bases (or "ontologies") suitable to large scale integration has been underlined in many ways. In this paper, we compare the dichotomy between reasoning and representation to the philosophical distinction between epistemology and ontology. We introduce the notion of the ontological level, intermediate between the epistemological and the conceptual level discussed by Brachman, as a way to characterize a knowledge representation formalism taking into account the intended meaning of its primitives. We then discuss some formal ontological distinctions which may play an important role for such purpose.

In N. Mars (ed.) Towards Very Large Knowledge Bases: Knowledge Building and Knowledge Sharing. IOS Press, Amsterdam: pp. 25-32

Abstract. The word "ontology" has recently gained a good popularity within the knowledge engineering community. However, its meaning tends to remain a bit vague, as the term is used in very different ways. Limiting our attention to the various proposals made in the current debate in AI, we isolate a number of interpretations, which in our opinion deserve a suitable clarification. We elucidate the implications of such various interpretations, arguing for the need of clear terminological choices regarding the technical use of terms like "ontology", "conceptualization" and "ontological commitment". After some comments on the use "Ontology" (with the capital "o") as a term which denotes a philosophical discipline, we analyse the possible confusion between an ontology intended as a particular conceptual framework at the knowledge level and an ontology intended as a concrete artifact at the symbol level, to be used for a given purpose. A crucial point in this clarification effort is the careful analysis of Gruber' s definition of an ontology as a specification of a conceptualization.

Abstract. We focus in this paper on some meta-level ontological distinctions among unary predicates, like those between concepts and assertional properties. Three are the main contributions of this work, mostly based on a revisitation of philosophical (and linguistic) literature in the perspective of knowledge representation. The first is a formal notion of ontological commitment, based on a modal logic endowed with mereological and topological primitives. The second is a formal account of Strawson's distinction between sortal and non-sortal predicates. Assertional properties like red belong to the latter category, while the former category is further refined by distinguishing substantial predicates (corresponding to types like person) from non-substantial predicates (corresponding to roles like student). The third technical contribution is definition of countability which exploits the topological notion of connection to capture the intended semantics of unary predicates.

In Proceedings of National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-94), Morgan Kaufmann, Seattle, pp. 560-567

Abstract. Formalizing the ontological commitment of a logical language means offering a way to specify the intended meaning of its vocabulary by constraining the set of its models, giving explicit information about the intended nature of the modelling primitives and their a priori relationships. We present here a formal definition of ontological commitment which aims to capture the very basic ontological assumptions about the intended domain, related to issues such as identity and internal structure. To tackle such issues, a modal framework endowed with mereo-topological primitives has been adopted. The paper is mostly based on a revisitation of philosophical (and linguistic) literature in the perspective of knowledge representation.

Abstract. This paper argues that a community of interoperating information systems agents requires an ontology not only of the objects in the world, the agents themselves and the message types available; but also of the complex behavioural protocols through which tasks are accomplished. The universe of these applications is described using formal upper ontologies and the material ontology of institutional fact, and a method of representing a subsumption lattice of behavioural protocols using the process algebra representation of finite state machines is adapted from the literature. This behavioural subtype structure is shown to be compatible with the other aspects of the ontology. The resulting system is applied to a community of agents. 

Abstract. This report is a tutorial on how formal upper ontologies can be useful in building systems which involve interoperating autonomous information systems. It begins with an analysis of the problems that need to be solved in order to build such systems, then looks at a material ontology of institutional facts and speech acts which accounts for most of the content of such systems. It then shows how the OntoClean meta-ontological system can help us make sense of the structures involved in the ontologies needed to support interoperating autonomous systems, then finally how the formal upper ontologies of DOLCE and the Bunge-Wand-Weber system can help clarify the content of the material ontologies needed. 

Abstract. This paper argues that the physical being of one of John Searle’s institutional facts is the totality of records of the fact, together with some very specific background activities and capacities.

Abstract. The focus of this paper is on quality of ontologies as they relate to interoperating information systems. Quality is not a property of something but a judgment, so must be relative to some purpose, and generally involves recognition of design tradeoffs. Ontologies used for information systems interoperability have much in common with classification systems in information science, knowledge based systems, and programming languages, and inherit quality characteristics from each of these older areas. Factors peculiar to the new field lead to some additional characteristics relevant to quality, some of which are more profitably considered quality aspects not of the ontology as such, but of the environment through which the ontology is made available to its users. Suggestions are presented as to how to use these factors in producing quality ontologies.

Abstract. Agents, which are more or less autonomous programs performing tasks on behalf of users, act by exchange of messages. The content of messages is regulated by agreements called ontologies among the interoperating parties. In order for interoperation involving complex objects to be successful, there are several meta-ontological requirements, notably the ability to identify the object in the appropriate context and the ability to tell which are its parts. These issues of identity and unity are central to the OntoClean meta-ontology and method. This paper shows how they apply to a typical e-commerce application under multiple levels of refinement of more abstract objects into their parts. In particular, it shows that identity and unity are sometimes represented lexically rather than logically, and how a state view of the interoperation follows naturally from its structural specification.

Abstract. Information systems ontology is intended to facilitate interoperability among the many applications which are now becoming available on the Internet. In particular, it is intended to facilitate the development of intelligent agents which can automate a large part of the task of a user achieving some end employing multiple autonomous applications. A large number of ontologies exist supporting specific kinds of interoperation among selected, generally mutually aware, applications. The intent of the upper ontology movement is to develop an abstract description of what there is in the world, in an application-independent form, which can be used both to help build specific ontologies and to help in finding common ground among them. This paper argues that for the purposes of information systems interoperation and the semantic web there is a distinction in upper ontologies between formal and material ontologies, based on analogies with concepts in Kant’s synthetic a priori, and that formal ontologies whose focus is on how we see the world are more likely to be successfully developed in the absence of applications than are material ontologies, which attempt to catalog the world a priori.

Abstract.  This paper shows how it is possible to represent the complex data structures needed to support electronic commerce applications in the semantic web using ontologies. The conventional mereological or subtype-oriented refinement of the ontology is supplemented by a method of coordinated refinement based on category theory. The combined methods make ontologies a much more powerful tool for organising the semantic web.

Abstract.  Formal ontology, as the science of the formal relations that structure reality as a whole, aims at a theory of categories corresponding to the most general features of possible objects, whether existing or non-existing. The present paper is an attempt to summarise and extend recent research in analytical metaphysics in a formalised theory of objects. Existence is characterised as a formal property, suggesting that the use of quantifiers alone does not involve any existential assumptions about the objects quantified over. However, the only non-existing objects allowed for in the present account are real or objective possibilities. De re modalities as well as ontological dependence are defined on the basis of a counterpart-theoretic specification of possibilia. The present framework allows for necessary and non-relative identity as well as for a granular parthood relationship satisfying the thesis of composition as partial identity. The paper culminates in the formalisation of an Aristotelian four-category ontology allowing for universals and particulars, substances and particularised properties; in this context, the redundance of higher-order material universals as well as moderate haecceitism is argued for. After a short analysis of relationality and extrinsicness, a theory of spatial and temporal objects is sketched and a temporal counterpart theory is proposed as a solution to the problem of temporary intrinsics. The paper concludes with some general remarks on the relation between ontology and the theory of subjectivity, defending a modal approach to consciousness and a counterpart theoretic analysis of intentionality.

Abstract. More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. They are finding that one of the more difficult tasks facing them is determining how the data from one application matches semantically with the data from the other applications. Currently there are few methodologies for undertaking this task – most commercial projects just rely on experience and intuition. Taking semantically heterogeneous databases as the prototypical situation, this paper describes how ontology (in the traditional metaphysical sense) can contribute to delivering a more efficient and effective process of matching by providing a framework for the analysis, and so the basis for a methodology. It delivers not only a better process for matching, but the process also gives a better result. This paper describes a couple of examples of this: how the analysis encourages a kind of generalisation that reduces complexity and how ontological relativity can be used to enhance this. Finally, it suggests that the benefits are not just restricted to individual integration projects: that the process processes models which can be used as to construct a universal reference ontology – for general use in a variety of types of projects.

Abstract. This paper is a case study that describes how the Business Object Reference Ontology (BORO) approach works in practice. It describes in detail a selected part of the work using the approach that has been going on in the EPISTLE community for several years. This will help people better understand not just the benefits of using the approach, but also what it is and how it is applied. It will also illustrate the kinds of results it gives - by providing specific examples of the kind of very general patterns this type of analysis typically produces.

Abstract. We compare several geometrical theories based on mereology (mereogeometries) in a unified framework. Most theories in this area lack in formalization and this prevents any systematic logical analysis. We overcome this problem by isolating a common domain in R^n and, selecting natural interpretations, we use this framework to show several interdependencies among primitive relations of these theories. We conclude that, for dimension n ≤ 3 and with some additional assumptions, most of the theories considered are equivalent in the provided interpretation.

Abstract. ONIONS helps terminological ontology construction starting from existing, contextually heterogeneous terminologies. It is a methodology for integrating the context-dependent conceptualizations underlying conceptually heterogeneous terminology systems. We describe an application of this methodology to the medical domain with an example extracted from the umls system. We also give a short description of the current ontology library produced by means of Onions, and of its metaontology.