Analytical location holding between non-physical endurants and abstract regions.
The part relation between a particular and an atom.
A boundary here is taken to be a part (mereological treatment). Consequently, in the case of endurants, (reified) boundaries are features.
Anytime x is present, x has participant y. In other words, all parts of x have a same participant.Participation can be constant (in all parts of the perdurant, e.g. in 'the car is running'), or temporary (in only some parts, e.g. in 'I'm electing the president').
A location relation bounded to regions and defined analytically through the composition of inherence and q-location. This is the analytical version of 'generic location'.
'Constituent' should depend on some layering of the ontology. For example, scientific granularities or ontological 'strata' are typical layerings. A constituent is a part belonging to a lower layer. Since layering is actually a partition of the ontology, constituents are not properly classified as parts, although this kinship can be intuitive for common sense. Example of specific constant constituents are the entities constituting a setting (a situation), whilethe entities constituting a collection are examples of generic constant constituents.
The dependence on an individual of a given type at some time. This is traditionally a relation between particulars and universals, but this one states that x generically depends on y if a z different from y, but with the same properties, can be equivalently its depend-on.This is a temporally-indexed relation (embedded in this syntax).
The most generic location relation, probably equivalent to more than one image schema in a cognitive system (e.g. containment for exact location, proximity for approximate location).This is meant to reason on generalized, common sense as well as formal locations, including naive localization, between any kinds of entities. Generic location is branched into 'exact' location, ranging on regions, and 'approximate' (naive) location, ranging on non-regions.
A quality having a q-location at an atomic region.
The immediate relation holding for features and entities.
Any pair of individuals are ontologically identical if they are identical to themselves. Reflexive, symmetric, and transitive.
Any pair of individuals are notionally identical iff they instantiate all and only the same concepts.
A relation that holds without additional mediating individuals. In logical terms, a non-composed relation.
A relation that holds without additional mediating individuals. In logical terms, a non-composed relation.
The immediate relation holding for qualities and entities.
Total constant participation applied to the mereological sum of the perdurants in which an endurant participates.
A relation that composes other relations. For example, a participation relation composed with a representation relation.Composed relation cannot be directly expressed in OWL-DL, then (at least some) compositions are expressed as class or restriction axioms.
A relation that composes other relations. For example, a participation relation composed with a representation relation. Composed relation cannot be directly expressed in OWL-DL, then (at least some) compositions are expressed as class or restriction axioms.
Having the same parts at time t.
Mereological overlap: having a common part.
The most generic part relation, reflexive, asymmetric, and transitive.
The immediate relation holding between endurants and perdurants (e.g. in 'the car is running').Participation can be constant (in all parts of the perdurant, e.g. in 'the car is running'), or temporary (in only some parts, e.g. in 'I'm electing the president').A 'functional' participant is specialized for those forms of participation that depend on the nature of participants, processes, or on the intentionality of agentive participants. Traditional 'thematic role' should be mapped to functional participation.For relations holding between participants in a same perdurant, see the co-participates relation.
A composed (mediated) relation used here to make relations 'temporary': by adding it as a superrelation, the effect is that the two related endurants cannot be present at all the same time intervals, but are compresent at least at some time interval (see related axiom).In FOL, the same constraint can be stated directly by coreference.This workaround can be used to index time of relations that involve reciprocal dependency, but it cannot be used in general with relations involving multiple strata of reality. For example, _about_ relation can be temporally indexed, without involving that the time of the information object overlaps with the time of the entity the information is about (but this works for e.g. the _realizes_ relation between information objects and entities whatsoever). The different temporal constraints of about vs. expresses probably derive from the dependency of aboutness from conception (to be about x, an information object should also express a description d that is satisfied by a situation including x, then temporal overlapping of _about_ is true in virtue of d). On the other hand, even conceives cannot be indexed in this way, because overlapping does not hold between the time og the conceiving agent, and the conceived description (or situation).
Analytical location holding between physical endurants and physical regions.
The proper part relation: irreflexive, antisymmetric, and transitive.
The immediate relation holding for qualities and regions. See 'generic location' branching for the various mediated relations that embed q-location.
Presence of a physical quality when inheres in an endurant.
A relation for representing regions within other regions, e.g. in measurement spaces (space composition).The result of r-location composition is a new 'composed region', which can either preserve the same region type (e.g. physical+physical->physical, or physical+abstract->physical), or not (e.g. physical+abstract->abstract). See 'composition description' for more details.In some cases, space composition is conventional, i.e. a space is just 'located' at another space, as in the case of measurement spaces:(direct composition): r r-location r1In other cases, r-location implies a complex path, e.g. :(homogeneous composition): r q-location-of q inherent-in x has-quality q1 q-location r1(heterogeneous composition across endurants and perdurants): r q-location-of q inherent-in e participant-in p has-quality q1 q-location r1(heterogeneous composition across physical and non-physical endurants): r q-location-of q inherent-in pe specific-constant-dependent npe has-quality q1 q-location r1
Mereological sibling: having a common whole
'Constituent' should depend on some layering of the ontology. For example, scientific granularities or ontological 'strata' are typical layerings. A constituent is a part belonging to a lower layer. Since layering is actually a partition of the ontology, constituents are not properly classified as parts, although this kinship can be intuitive for common sense. Example of specific constant constituents are the entities constituting a setting (a situation), whilethe entities constituting a collection are examples of generic constant constituents.
The constant dependence between two individuals. Taken here as primitive.
By strong connection here we mean a connection between two entities that share a boundary.
The immediate relation holding for qualities and entities at time t.
Having an atom as part at a time t.
Being part at time t. It holds for endurants only. This is important to model parts that can change or be lost over time without affecting the identity of the whole. In FOL, this is expressed as a ternary relation, but in DLs we only can reason with binary relations, then only the necessary axiom of compresence is represented here.
Only some parts of the perdurant p have a participant e.In fact, participation can be constant (in all parts of the perdurant, e.g. in 'the car is running'), or temporary (in only some parts, e.g. in 'I'm electing the president').Implicitly, this relation has a temporal indexing.If needed, in OWL one can derive such indexing by expliciting what parts of p have e as _constant_ participant.An appropriate OWL axiom is created to bind this relation to a proper part of it, which has the temporary-participant as a constant one.
x participates in some of y's parts.
Being proper part at time t. It holds for endurants only. This is important to model proper parts that can change or be lost over time without affecting the identity of the whole.
The perdurant p has a participant e that constantly participates in p with all its parts, e.g. in 'I played the concert' (where the concert is a solo concert).
The perdurant p has a participant e that temporarily participates in p with all its parts, e.g. in 'I played the concert' (where I actually played just an ouverture).See also 'temporary-participant'.
The basic connection, not requiring a common boundary.
The relation between information objects and entities they are about. The difference with 'expresses' is that the last requires a situation to be about something. E.g. Dante's Comedy is about facts like Dante's travel to the hereafter. The Comedy expresses a script as well as various related meanings, while the facts talked about are not 'expressed'.Given that descriptions are expressed by at least one IO, and that interpretations of IOs requires conceiving a description, and the (plausible) claim that being about something can only be done in context, i.e. within a situation, we can propose that the conceived description is satisfied by the situation (the context) of the entity the IO is about.On this basis, about would result to be a mediated relation. This is still a proposal, then we keep about here as a primitive for some time.
Figures are not dependent on roles defined or used in the same descriptions they are defined or used, but they can act because they depute some powers to some of those roles. In other words, a figure selected by some agentive role can play that role because there are other roles in the descriptions that define or use the figure. Those roles select endurants that result to act for the figure.For example, an employee acts for an organization that deputes the role (e.g. turner) that classifies the employee. Simply put, a guy working as a turner at FIAT acts for (or on behalf of) FIAT.In complex figures, like organizations or societies, a total agency is possible when an endurant plays a delegate, or representative role of the figure.
The composition of d-uses and valued-by relations: a description d-uses a parameter that is valued by a region.
An important relation between agents and descriptions is adoption, requiring previous creation by a rational agent, and internal representation by the same agent. It can involve an actual desire to perform the possibly expected actions.
An important relation between agents and descriptions is adoption, requiring previous creation by a rational agent, and internal representation by the same agent. It can involve an actual desire to perform the possibly expected actions.
It is the immediate relation between roles or figures, and tasks. It is the descriptive counterpart of the 'participant-in' relation for agentive roles or figures.In other words, it is used to state attitudes, attention or even subjection that an object can have wrt an action or process. Formally, a modality target is a task that sequences a perdurant that has a participant that plays a role bound to that modality target with a certain modality.For example, a person is usually obliged to drive in a way that prevents hurting other persons. Or a person can have the right to express her ideas.Another, more complex example: a BDI application to a certain ordered set of tasks including initial conditions (beliefs), final conditions (desires), and ways to reach goals (intentions). In other words, to move from beliefs to goals is a way of bounding one or more agent(s) to a sequence of actions.
C-SAT - like R-SAT - concerns entities that exist in a situation entirely prior to the description. Moreover, it assumes redundant satisfaction. But, differently from P-SAT and R-SAT, no qualified satisfaction is assumed. In fact, C-SAT implies no dependency of a situation on its description. C-SAT typically applies to different views of existing situations, as for regulative descriptions (disclaimer: the situation can be already created by complying to the regulation, e.g executing it as a plan, but in this case there actually exists a plan that has the regulation as part), narratives, symbolic interpretations, etc.
A role r characterizes a collection c when proper subsets of the members of c play different roles r,...,rn that are all used by a same description or deputed by a same figure.
A.K.A. 'selected-by'.The referencing relation between concepts defined by descriptions and constituents of situations. It can be understood as a reification of a 'satisfiability' relation holding between elements of theories and elements of models.It has a time index, but this should not be intended as a partial compresence, since the time only refers to a part of the classified particular life or extension.
A.K.A. 'selects'.The referencing relation between concepts defined by descriptions, and constituents of situations. It can be understood as a reification of a 'satisfiability' relation holding between elements of theories and elements of models.It has a time index, but this should not be intended as a partial compresence, since the time only refers to a part of the classified particular life or extension.
A relation holding between two endurants participating in a same perdurant. This typically subsumes many common sense, verbally encoded, relations, such as "making", "moving", "transforming", etc.
'Component' is a proper part with a role (or function) in a system or a context. Roles can be different for the same entity, and the evaluation of them changes according to the kind of entity. For instance, components of endurants can 'play functional roles' in a whole, while components of perdurants are the essential 'episodes' in their whole.As a functional part relation, component is not transitive, because functions depend on intentions and/or designs, and something intentionally essential for a direct whole, can be non-essential for another, indirect whole.
The role shared by all members of a collection has a covering relation towards the collection.
An important relation between agents and descriptions is creation, implying that a given description is *specifically* dependent on a rational agent.
An important relation between agents and descriptions is creation, implying that a given description is *specifically* dependent on a rational agent.
Descriptions can d-use (descriptively use) concepts or figures, provided that used ones are defined by some description.
Descriptions define either concepts or (social) figures. Once defined, they can be d-used by other descriptions.
Figures can depute roles that are played by endurants that are supposed to 'act for' the figure.
Anti-transitive predecessor.
Anti-transitive succession.
A relation between a role and a power allowed towards some function/task.This is dispositional, and implies that a participation classified by this relation is an 'empowered participation'.
A partial order relation that holds between descriptions. It represents the proper part relation between a description and another description featuring the same properties of the former, with at least an additional one.Descriptions can be expanded either by adding other descriptions as parts, or by refining concepts or figures that are d-used by them.Specializing the concepts or figures that are d-used by them is on the contrary a case of description specialization.For descriptions, an intention to expand must be present (unless purely formal theories are considered, but even in this case a criterion of relevance is usually active).
A double composition is needed here for linking situations and descriptions components, since many possible constituents could be available in the situation. The first one constrains the classifies relation through description components, the second one constrains it through situation constituents.
The composition of d-uses and sequences relations: a description d-uses a course that sequences a perdurant.
A method can exploit an involved endurant when it plays a device-like role.
A relation between information objects that are used as representations (signs) and the content (meaning, conceptualization) they represent. In this ontology content is reified as a 'description'.Information objects are 'systemic' objects created by the system of rules of a semiotic code. For the representation between the physical implementation of information objects (physical representations) and information objects, the 'realized-by' relation is used.
Two or more collections can be extensionally equivalent and still not be the same collection. Each collection needs a unifying description which provides its intensional identity criterion.
A description can provide its unity criterion to a physical object. In this case we say that the description *functionally unifies* the physical object. This relation is equivalent to a composition of a description that unifies a collection whose members are (usually connected) proper parts of a physical object.Ideally, this notion should be used to provide a definition to physical objects, but this application would destroy the distinction between a 'perceived' object (an endurant whose unity depends on the perception competence of an agent), and a 'functional' object, since each perceived object would be such because it is functionally unified by a description conceived by the perceiving agent. In DOLCE we still apply to the distinction between perception and function.
When there is an 'epistemological layering', i.e. a description d involves another description d' (one of the roles in d classifies d'), a situation that satisfies d', will be in the scope of d as well.For example, a judgment procedure will have a legal case in its scope, but being a legal case depends on satisfying some legal description not identical to that procedure.Another example: a plan assessment is a technique to evaluate a plan execute, and the assessment 'has in scope' the plan execution.
An activity expected by a method.
A particular has a figure as (one of) its hypostases, e.g. a personification like the holy grail or a goddess.
A figure is an hypostasis of a particular, e.g. a personification like the holy grail or a goddess, or an organization, which is the hypostatis of a (postulated) collective).
The maximal specialization achievable according to some criterion. Only applicable to social objects that logically reify set-related entities (relations, classes, sets).
The relation between descriptions and agents. Agents have inner (a.k.a. 'mental') states and are endowed with, or produce, representations or conceptualizations, both corresponding here to 'descriptions'. The relation has a time index, but this should not be intended as a partial compresence, since time only refers to the part of the agent's life in which it represents the description (a.k.a. 'conceives', now rejected because of its strong human-rationality connotation). Provisionally, internally-represents is introduced here as an immediate (primitive) relation, but other options are under study. The first involves mediating internal representation through an ontology of mental states and events, while the second is semiotic: since descriptions are expressed by at least one information object, representing internally requires at least one creation/interpretation of an information object, therefore internally-represents would be a 'mediated' relation.
The relation between agents and descriptions. Agents have inner (a.k.a. 'mental') states and are endowed with, or produce, representations or conceptualizations, both corresponding here to 'descriptions'. The relation has a time index, but this should not be intended as a partial compresence, since time only refers to the part of the agent's life in which it represents the description (a.k.a. 'conceives', now rejected because of its strong human-rationality connotation). Provisionally, internally-represents is introduced here as an immediate (primitive) relation, but other options are under study. The first involves mediating internal representation through an ontology of mental states and events, while the second is semiotic: since descriptions are expressed by at least one information object, representing internally requires at least one creation/interpretation of an information object, therefore internally-represents would be a 'mediated' relation.
The relation between agents and information objects. In order to interpret something, an agent should conceive a description that results to be 'expressed by' that information object.Interprets implies that an expressed description is conceived by the agent (i.e., when an agent interprets an IO, it conceives of a description expressed by the IO; of course two agents can conceive of different descriptions, then resulting in different interpretations).
The composition of d-uses and played-by relations: a description d-uses a role that is played by an endurant.
A particular case of an endurant participating in a perdurant that meets (is connected to the beginning of) the life of another endurant.
Being a (generic, temporary) constituent in a countable collection, for example: member of a society, bacterium in a colony, etc.
An endurant of type e1 metaphorically plays a role (defined in a description d2), when that role comes from a metaphorical mapping between the description d1 that grants a unity criterion to endurants of type e1, and another description d2 that grants a unity criterion to endurants of type e2.
The relation between roles and courses. Modal target subrelations can be seen as 'reifications' of the operators of modal logics.
A relation between a role and a duty binding towards some function/task.This is dispositional, and implies that a participation classified by this relation is a 'due participation'.
A task (as any other concept) can be optional within some plan (or any description). In this case, it can be ignored in plan execution without affecting the satisfaction of the plan.Within plans, an task said to be optional should be placed in a way that preserves the topology (the connectedness) of the maximal task, except for sequential tasks, where it can be skipped without affecting the control structure. In fact, an optional task must either be component of a bag or sequential task, or have the concurrent task or the any-order task as a direct predecessor.
a.k.a. 'expressed according to'. The relation between information objects and the languages, codes, grammars, etc. that they are ordered by. E.g. Dante's Comedy is ordered by Middle Age Italian language (in this case, a complex of encoding systems).In principle, any description can be used as an encoding system, but in practice, only some combinatorial systems are used for encoding (see module on 'information objects').
P-SAT assumes two satisfaction semantics: redundant satisfaction and qualified satisfaction. In order to allow for a correct implementation of the qualified satisfaction, P-SAT requires that the description exists prior to at least some of the entities in the setting of the satisfying situation. Ontologically, it results that P-SAT also implies a specific dependency of the situation on its description. P-SAT typically applies to plans, projects, designs, methods, techniques, game rules, instructions, punishment rules, constitutive descriptions, sanctions, and strategies.A sample P-SAT qualified satisfaction axiom for plans is given in OWL.
The mediated relation between an entity and a parameter through the region at which the entity is localized and that is the value for the parameter.
This is the immediate relation between roles and endurants. A role classifies the position (function, use, relevance, ...) of an endurant within a context (description). Roles can be ordered, interdependent, at different layers. etc.
This is the immediate relation between roles and endurants. A role classifies the position (function, use, relevance, ...) of an endurant within a context (description). Roles can be ordered, interdependent, at different layers. etc.
To be understood as 'entity x has predecessor y'.This is the transitive version, but it results to be a complex property in OWL-DL, and transitivity should be overruled.
R-SAT assumes redundant satisfaction and qualified satisfaction, but it works out that semantics with entities in the situation that entirely exist prior to the description.This seems paradoxical, since a description hardly motivates what happens if it is not present to any agent involved in things happening. For this reason, we postulate a so-called specific retroactive dependency (SRD), meaning that the creator of the description is willing to attribute the status of a scientific law to that description, despite it could not be present before the situation. R-SAT typically applies to explanations that are considered as well-founded in science (physical, social, or cognitive), reverse engineering, criminal investigation, etc. Consider that the actual validity of the explanation is not addressed by the description, but by external evaluation descriptions.
a.k.a. support.A (usually physical) representation (p. endurant, p. perdurant, p. quality, p. region, or p. situation) realizes a non-physical object according to a system of rules.The main use of this relation is between information objects and the entities through which information objects are used and interpreted. E.g. a paper copy of the 1861 edition of Dante's Comedy, with Dore's illustrations, realizes the Comedy (as an information object).There is a sense in which any entity that realizes an IO also realizes an IO about itself.For example, a painting realizing information about a woman also realizes information about its own information. Of course, the converse of the previous axiom does not hold in general.For example, the information about a woman can be realized by entities different from that woman (as when referring to an absent woman). In other words, an entity (in a semiotic perspective) always realizes two information objects: one about itself, and another about something else.In the non-representation cases, the information objects are identical (an entity only realizes information about itself).Therefore entities, once they have a relevance in a society, can have semiotic properties. Even physical artifacts that are not built primarily for communicative purposes e.g. a chair can be considered as realizing some IO that expresses a design description (cf. system-design), and is about a context (situation) of use, fruition, or just affordance that satisfies the design.
A relation holding between non-physical objects and entities whatsoever (thus including non-physical objects themselves). An intuition for the references relation could be that a non-physical object adds 'information' to an entity. In fact, non-physical objects depend on a communication setting. In most cases, this is the characteristic relation that provides a unity criterion to objects, events, etc. For example, cars are objects and not mere aggregates because there is a project, a design, a social value, a functional structure, a personal emotional structure, etc. attached to them. This attachment can be represented by means of 'non-physical objects' that 'reference' cars. The most obvious application is for situations, which do not exist without a description, although they still are extensional entities: a situation without a part is no more the same situation, but a situation is not a mere aggregate, since it has references to a description as its unity criterion. Adding information to an entity can also be thought as an intentional solution to a holistic stance. Defenders of this view -within different frameworks- are Kant, Brentano, Husserl, Gestalt psychologists, Merleau-Ponty ... References is distinguished according to the kinds of non-physical objects and referenced ground entities: referencing between descriptions and situations is called 'SATISFIED-BY', while referencing between description components and situation components is called 'CLASSIFIES'. 'SETTING-FOR' is a referencing relation between a situation and the entities in its setting (it was formerly a constitution relation, but since situation appear to be social objects from the DOLCE viewpoint, the constitution solution is no more applicable). 'EXPRESSES' is bound to information objects and the meaning (description of a representation or conceptualization) in which they are involved. 'REALIZED-BY' is bound to information objects and physical representations that are used to communicate them, etc. 'ABOUT' is bound to information objects and entities whatsoever (aboutness of intentionality).
A relation holding between non-physical objects and entities whatsoever (thus including non-physical objects themselves). An intuition for the references relation could be that a non-physical object adds 'information' to an entity. In fact, non-physical objects depend on a communication setting. In most cases, this is the characteristic relation that provides a unity criterion to objects, events, etc. For example, cars are objects and not mere aggregates because there is a project, a design, a social value, a functional structure, a personal emotional structure, etc. attached to them. This attachment can be represented by means of 'non-physical objects' that 'reference' cars. The most obvious application is for situations, which do not exist without a description, although they still are extensional entities: a situation without a part is no more the same situation, but a situation is not a mere aggregate, since it has references to a description as its unity criterion. Adding information to an entity can also be thought as an intentional solution to a holistic stance. Defenders of this view -within different frameworks- are Kant, Brentano, Husserl, Gestalt psychologists, Merleau-Ponty ... References is distinguished according to the kinds of non-physical objects and referenced ground entities: referencing between descriptions and situations is called 'SATISFIED-BY', while referencing between description components and situation components is called 'CLASSIFIES'. 'SETTING-FOR' is a referencing relation between situation and the entities in its setting (it was formerly a constitution relation, but since situation appear to be social objects from the DOLCE viewpoint, the constitution solution is no more applicable). 'EXPRESSES' is bound to information objects and the meaning (description of a representation or conceptualization) in which they are involved. 'REALIZED-BY' is bound to information objects and physical representations that are used to communicate them, etc. 'ABOUT' is bound to information objects and entities whatsoever (aboutness of intentionality).
Concepts and figures can be refined by adding components, e.g. an elementary task can become complex, a complex task can increase its complexity, maximal tasks can be composed, etc.A description gets expanded if one of the concepts or figures it uses are refined.Refinement applies also to collections, situations, and information objects.Descriptions are refined by adding component descriptions.
A regulation states reified conditions on how a situation should look like. Regulations are mostly taken as descriptions for the social world.
Requisites are constraints over the attributes of entities. Within DnS, a requisite-for relation holds between parameters (that bound regions to certain value ranges), and either roles, figures or courses. When a situation satisfies a description with parameters, endurants and perdurants in the situation must have attributes that range within the boundaries stated by parameters (in DOLCE terms, entities must have qualities that are mapped to certain value ranges of regions).
Requisites are constraints over the attributes of entities. Within DnS, a requisite-for relation holds between parameters (that bound regions to certain value ranges), and either roles, figures or courses. When a situation satisfies a description with parameters, endurants and perdurants in the situation must have attributes that range within the boundaries stated by parameters (in DOLCE terms, entities must have qualities that are mapped to certain value ranges of regions).
A relation between a role and a right allowance towards some function/task.This is dispositional, and implies that a participation classified by this relation is a 'righteous participation'.
See also comment on 'satisfies' for a different explanation.This is the primitive relation between descriptions and situations. It can be understood as a reification of the 'satisfiability' relation of formal semantics that holds between theories and models. A theory is reified as a description, thus acquiring a life-cycle: a theory can be changed, versioned, discussed, issued, etc. 'Theory' can be a 'potential' theory in the sense that most conceptualizations that could be formalized, could also be reified, e.g. plans, norms, stories, projects, diagnoses, methods, etc. No position is taken on the extensionality of descriptions. For example, if a theory is required to be reified in fine detail, if it changes an axiom, it could be considered no more the same theory. On the other hand, if theories are reified without such a strong assumption, some axioms can be changed just like non-essential parts of physical objects, with the theory preserving its identity.In case a theory is considered extensional, it might be considered a member of a class of 'theory changing history'. The 'refines' relation provides this possibility.A model is reified as a situation, thus a *class* of models that can satisfy a theory is reified as a situation type (class). Situations can depend on descriptions, but not vice-versa (constructivist stance). Components of descriptions 'classify' entities of situations.There are at least three satisfaction subrelations, and a lot of conditions can be stated for allowing an automatic matching of satisfaction. See the FOL version of DLP for details.
See 'satisfied-by'.
This is the immediate relation between courses and perdurants. A course can be either atomic, being a simple 'perdurant role', or it can be complex, thus creating an abstract ordering over a temporal or causal sequence of processes or actions. The ontology of plans develops in detail intentional complex courses.
The relation between a situation and the entities that are referenced by it. (At least some of, or all) such entities must be classified by concepts defined by the description that the situation is supposed to satisfy.
Specialization as reification of a partial-order relation between type- or set-reified social objects, i.e. descriptions, concepts, and collections.For example, concepts that are apparently classified by other concepts; e.g. a manager that plays the role of buyer, where the role manager actually specializes the role buyer. Descriptions can be specialized by other descriptions that specialize their concepts. For descriptions, an intention to specialize must be present (unless purely formal theories are considered, but even in this case a criterion of relevance is usually active). Specialization does not imply expansion (proper part) for descriptions. If there exists a concept that is defined by the specialized description, which is not d-used in the specializing one, the second only specializes a part of the first. If there exists a concept that is defined by the specializing description, which is not d-used by the specialized one, the first both specializes and expands the second.
Specialization as reification of a partial-order relation between social objects. For example, concepts that are apparently classified by other concepts; e.g. a manager that plays the role of buyer, where the role manager actually specializes the role buyer. Descriptions can be specialized by other descriptions that specialize their concepts or figures. For descriptions, an intention to specialize must be present (unless purely formal theories are considered, but even in this case a criterion of relevance is usually active). Specialization does not imply expansion (proper part) for descriptions. If there exists a concept that is defined by the specialized description, which is not d-used in the specializing one, the second only specializes a part of the first. If there exists a concept that is defined by the specializing description, which is not d-used by the specialized one, the first both specializes and expands the second.
To be understood as 'entity x has successor y'. Succession does not exclude connection, but it excludes overlapping. It can be direct or indirect, and assumes a choice (temporal, spatial, abstract, etc.) Cf. the cognitive 'path' schema. This is the transitive version.
Being component at time t. It holds for endurants only. This is important to model components that can change or be lost over time without affecting the identity of the whole.
Based on characterizing roles, collections specifically depend on some description.We can therefore build a new relation of unification between collections and the descriptions on which they depend. Unification is axiomatized by means of sufficient conditions, and is not temporalized, since changing the description (differently from changing some members) creates a new collection.
The use relations between endurants: an endurant e1 uses e2 within a perdurant in which both are participating. A rule then states that if e1 uses e2, e2 is used *in* a perdurant.
The "selected by" relations holding between regions and parameters. At least one region is supposed to be a value for a parameter.
This relation constrains participation within the scope of a description: a perdurant is participated by an object according to a description and its components.
A functional participation relation holding between activities and targeted endurants.It catches the everyday language notion of being the destination of an action. Unfortunately, such a notion can't be formalized in general, because it is sensible to the particular plan that drives the action. Possibly, once a rich taxonomy of actions and related personal and social plans is developed, a better axiomatization can be provided.
A functional usage participation relation holding between activities and physical objects.It catches the everyday language notion of being the tool, support or devisce of an action. Unfortunately, such a notion can't be formalized in general, because it is sensible to the particular plan that drives the action. Possibly, once a rich taxonomy of actions and related personal and social plans is developed, a better axiomatization can be provided.
A functional participation relation assuming a relatively static role played by the endurant (e.g. not conceiving a plan, being subjected to some manipulation without involvement, etc.).Unfortunately, such a notion can't be formalized in general, because it is sensible to the particular plan that drives the action. Possibly, once a rich taxonomy of actions and related personal and social plans is developed, a better axiomatization can be provided.
A functional participation relation holding between agents and actions. It catches the everyday language notion of being the initiator of an action, or having a leading or primary role. Unfortunately, such a notion can't be formalized in general, because it is sensible to the particular plan that drives the action. Possibly, once a rich taxonomy of actions and related personal and social plans is developed, a better axiomatization can be provided.
The power of enforcing a plan of action to other agents.
A functional participation relation that assumes a meet relation between an activity and the life of an endurant.Unfortunately, such a notion can't be formalized in general, because it is sensible to the particular project that drives the action. Possibly, once a rich taxonomy of actions and related personal and social plans is developed, a better axiomatization can be provided.
An amount of matter can be a resource in some activity, if it has some role bound to the course that sequences the activity in a same description (typically a plan).
A perdurant p1 results from another one p2 if they are sequenced within a same course, if a same endurant participates in both perdurants, and if p1 follows p2.
A functional participation relation assuming a total constant participation, beyond certain roles and courses defined by a description.
A functional participation relation assuming a total constant participation, beyond certain roles and courses defined by a description.
Targeting at an endurant, which in principle can avoid bearing modifications.
A perdurant can have some information object as patient participant, e.g. in a communication activity.
A functional participation between an action and an endurant that supports the goals of a performer.It catches the everyday language notion of being exploited during an action by someone/something that initiates or leads it.Unfortunately, such a notion can't be formalized in general, because it is sensible to the particular plan that drives the action. Possibly, once a rich taxonomy of actions and related personal and social plans is developed, a better axiomatization can be provided.
The goal state described by the goal of a plan can be achieved by executing activities that are sequenced by some task (either elementary or complex). The relation between the goal and the task is called here 'achievable-through'.
Adoption holding for goals.
Adoption holding for plans.
A task can be discarded within some plan. In this case, it is ignored in plan execution without affecting the satisfaction of the plan. A discarded task can appear only as a direct successor to a deliberation task.
We define a disposition relation between the roles used in a plan having a main goal, and the influenced goal.For example, the role 'eater' can have a disposition to being satiated, meaning that a person playing the role of eater that adopts that plan can act in order to be satiated.Disposition relation is useful to account for those cases in which a task addressed by a role is not internal to the plan, but the plan is a subplan of another one in which that task is represented as a full-fledged goal.
Exit condition can be used to state what deliberation task causes to exit a cycle.
A relation between a goal and the main goal of the plan it is a subgoal of. Usable for talking of dependencies between goals.
iteration interval can be used to state how much time should be taken by each iteration of the looped activity
The relation between a plan and its main goal.
A situation is a post-condition of the execution of a method (and of its tasks) when it is a successor (however succession is interpreted, although temporal interpretation is the usual one) of that execution, and is constituted by a subset of the individuals that constitute the execution situation. For example, a surgical guideline describes how to carry out a heart transplant: its (expected) execution situation is constituted by the perdurants, endurants, and regions described by the guideline, while its post-condition situation might be only constituted by the transplanted heart, its anatomical and morphological environment, the physiological functions in which it participates, and some physiological values. But the devices used during the transplantation and the surgeon can be external to the post-condition situation. This definition does not cover the possibility of a post-condition having constituents that are not involved in the description. This is a difficult issue. A possible solution is that such post-conditions are actually referenced by other descriptions that -for instance- 'control' the outcome of a procedure, or 'reconstruct' a set of events under an independent unity criterion. If this solution is applicable, such post-conditions would be maximal situations requiring the composition (bundle) of two or more related descriptions.
A situation is a pre-condition of the execution of a method (and of its tasks) when it is a predecessor (however succession is interpreted, although temporal interpretation is the usual one) of that execution, and is constituted by a subset of the individuals that constitute the execution situation. For example, a surgical guideline describes how to carry out a heart transplant: its (expected) execution situation is constituted by the perdurants, endurants, and regions described by the guideline, while its pre-condition situation might be only constituted by the heart to be removed, the one to be transplanted, their anatomical and morphological environment, the physiological functions in which they participates, and some physiological values. But the devices used during the transplantation and the surgeon might (or might not) be external to the pre-condition situation. This definition does not cover the possibility of a pre-condition having constituents that are not involved in the description. This is a difficult issue. A possible solution is that such pre-conditions are actually referenced by other descriptions that -for instance- 'control' the feasibility of a procedure, or 'analyze' a set of events under an independent unity criterion. If this solution is applicable, such pre-conditions would be 'maximal' situations requiring the 'composition' of two or more related descriptions.
Two tasks contained in the same plan.
A subgoal (relative to a plan) is a goal that is a part of a subplan.A goal is not necessarily a part of the main goal of the plan it is a subgoal of. E.g. consider the goal: being satiated; eating food can be a subgoal of the plan that has being satiated as its main goal, but it is not a part of being satiated.See also relations: influence, disposition to.
The execution of a task (an action classified by it) can make a new situation emerge: in this case the task has a task-postcondition.
The execution of a task (an action classified by it) can require that a situation holds: in this case the task has a task-precondition.
A last part of a perdurant (any part that includes the 'final' boundary, but not the 'initial' one.
Analytical indirect location holding between endurants and temporal regions.
Temporal connection between perdurants: p1 ending part is connected to p2 beginning part.
Temporal precedence between two perdurants. No further dependence is implied (e.g. mereological, causal).
Presence is axiomatized as being temporally located in a part of one's life.
A beginning part of a perdurant (any part that includes the 'initial' boundary, but not the 'final' one.
Any mediated relation that composes temporal locations of perdurants with mereotopological relations between those locations.Mereotopological relations are those specified in the J. Allen's theory of time intervals.
AKA 'co-occurs'. Temporal coincidence between perdurants.
Having a common atomic temporal location.
All temporal locations of perdurant x are also temporal locations of perdurant y.
Temporal overlap: having a (partly) common temporal location.
iteration cardinality can be used to state in a task how many times an action should be repeated
The main characteristic of abstract entities is that they do not have spatial nor temporal qualities, and they are not qualities themselves. The only class of abstract entities we consider in the present version of the upper ontology is that of quality regions (or simply regions). Quality spaces are special kinds of quality regions, being mereological sums of all the regions related to a certain quality type. The other examples of abstract entities (sets and facts) are only indicative.
A quality inherent in a non-physical endurant.
A region at which only abstract qualities can be directly located. It assumes some metrics for abstract (neither physical nor temporal) properties.
Eventive occurrences (events) are called achievements if they are atomic, otherwise they are accomplishments.Further developments: being 'achievement', 'accomplishment', 'state', 'event', etc. can be also considered 'aspects' of processes or of parts of them. For example, the same process 'rock erosion in the Sinni valley' can be seen as an accomplishment (what has brought the current state that e.g. we are trying to explain), as an achievement (the erosion process as the result of a previous accomplishment), as a state (collapsing the time interval of the erosion into a time point), as an event (what has changed our focus from a state to another).In the erosion case, we could have good motivations to shift from one aspect to another: a) causation focus, b) effectual focus, c) condensation d) transition (causality).
Eventive occurrences (events) are called achievements if they are atomic, otherwise they are accomplishments.Further developments: being 'achievement', 'accomplishment', 'state', 'event', etc. can be also considered 'aspects' of processes or of parts of them. For example, the same process 'rock erosion in the Sinni valley' can be seen as an accomplishment (what has brought the current state that e.g. we are trying to explain), as an achievement (the erosion process as the result of a previous accomplishment), as a state (collapsing the time interval of the erosion into a time point), as an event (what has changed our focus from a state to another).In the erosion case, we could have good motivations to shift from one aspect to another: a) causation focus, b) effectual focus, c) condensation d) transition (causality).
The common trait of amounts of matter is that they are endurants with no unity (according to Gangemi et a. 2001 none of them is an essential whole). Amounts of matter - 'stuffs' referred to by mass nouns like 'gold', 'iron', 'wood', 'sand', 'meat', etc. - are mereologically invariant, in the sense that they change their identity when they change some parts.
AKA arbitrary-collection.The mereological sum of any two or more endurants (physical or not). Arbitrary sums have no unity criterion (they are 'extensional').
A feature that is not part of its host, like a hole in a piece of cheese, the underneath of a table, the front of a house, or the shadow of a tree.
The main characteristic of endurants is that all of them are independent essential wholes. This does not mean that the corresponding property (being an endurant) carries proper unity, since there is no common unity criterion for endurants. Endurants can 'genuinely' change in time, in the sense that the very same endurant as a whole can have incompatible properties at different times. To see this, suppose that an endurant - say 'this paper' - has a property at a time t 'it's white', and a different, incompatible property at time t' 'it's yellow': in both cases we refer to the whole object, without picking up any particular part of it. Within endurants, we distinguish between physical and non-physical endurants, according to whether they have direct spatial qualities. Within physical endurants, we distinguish between amounts of matter, objects, and features.
An occurrence-type is stative or eventive according to whether it holds of the mereological sum of two of its instances, i.e. if it is cumulative or not. A sitting occurrence is stative since the sum of two sittings is still a sitting occurrence.In general, events differ from situations because they are not assumed to have a description from which they depend. They can be sequenced by some course, but they do not require a description as a unifying criterion.On the other hand, at any time, one can conceive a description that asserts the constraints by which an event of a certian type is such, and in this case, it becomes a situation.Since the decision of designing an explicit description that unifies a perdurant depends on context, task, interest, application, etc., when aligning an ontology do DLP, there can be indecision on where to align an event-oriented class. For example, in the WordNet alignment, we have decided to put only some physical events under 'event', e.g. 'discharge', in order to stress the social orientedness of DLP. But whereas we need to talk explicitly of the criteria by which we conceive discharge events, these will be put under 'situation'.Similar considerations are made for the other types of perdurants in DOLCE.A different notion of event (dealing with change) is currently investigated for further developments: being 'achievement', 'accomplishment', 'state', 'event', etc. can be also considered 'aspects' of processes or of parts of them. For example, the same process 'rock erosion in the Sinni valley' can be conceptualized as an accomplishment (what has brought the current state that e.g. we are trying to explain), as an achievement (the erosion process as the result of a previous accomplishment), as a state (if we collapse the time interval of the erosion into a time point), or as an event (what has changed our focus from a state to another).In the erosion case, we could have good motivations to shift from one aspect to another: a) causation focus, b) effectual focus, c) condensation d) transition (causality).If we want to consider all the aspects of a process together, we need to postulate a unifying descriptive set of criteria (i.e. a 'description'), according to which that process is circumstantiated in a 'situation'. The different aspects will arise as a parts of a same situation.
Features are 'parasitic entities', that exist insofar their host exists. Typical examples of features are holes, bumps, boundaries, or spots of color. Features may be relevant parts of their host, like a bump or an edge, or dependent regions like a hole in a piece of cheese, the underneath of a table, the front of a house, or the shadow of a tree, which are not parts of their host. All features are essential wholes, but no common unity criterion may exist for all of them. However, typical features have a topological unity, as they are singular entities.Here only features of physical endurants are considered.
An endurant with no mass, generically constantly depending on some agent. Non-physical endurants can have physical constituents (e.g. in the case of members of a collection).
Formerly known as description. A unitary endurant with no mass (non-physical), generically constantly depending on some agent, on some communication act, and indirectly on some agent participating in that act. Both descriptions (in the now current sense) and concepts are non-physical objects.
AKA 'entity'.Any individual in the DOLCE domain of discourse. The extensional coverage of DOLCE is as large as possible, since it ranges on 'possibilia', i.e all possible individuals that can be postulated by means of DOLCE axioms. Possibilia include physical objects, substances, processes, qualities, conceptual regions, non-physical objects, collections and even arbitrary sums of objects.The class 'particular' features a covering partition that includes: endurant, perdurant, quality, and abstract. There are also some subclasses defined as unions of subclasses of 'particular' for special purposes: spatio-temporal-particular (any particular except abstracts)- physical-realization (any realization of an information object, defined in the ExtendedDnS ontology).
Perdurants (AKA occurrences) comprise what are variously called events, processes, phenomena, activities and states. They can have temporal parts or spatial parts. For instance, the first movement of (an execution of) a symphony is a temporal part of the symphony. On the other hand, the play performed by the left side of the orchestra is a spatial part. In both cases, these parts are occurrences themselves. We assume that objects cannot be parts of occurrences, but rather they participate in them. Perdurants extend in time by accumulating different temporal parts, so that, at any time they are present, they are only partially present, in the sense that some of their proper temporal parts (e.g., their previous or future phases) may be not present. E.g., the piece of paper you are reading now is wholly present, while some temporal parts of your reading are not present yet, or any more. Philosophers say that endurants are entities that are in time, while lacking temporal parts (so to speak, all their parts flow with them in time). Perdurants, on the contrary, are entities that happen in time, and can have temporal parts (all their parts are fixed in time).
An endurant having a direct physical (at least spatial) quality.
The main characteristic of physical objects is that they are endurants with unity. However, they have no common unity criterion, since different subtypes of objects may have different unity criteria. Differently from aggregates, (most) physical objects change some of their parts while keeping their identity, they can have therefore temporary parts. Often physical objects (indeed, all endurants) are ontologically independent from occurrences (discussed below). However, if we admit that every object has a life, it is hard to exclude a mutual specific constant dependence between the two. Nevertheless, we may still use the notion of dependence to (weakly) characterize objects as being not specifically constantly dependent on other objects.
A quality inherent in a physical endurant.
A region at which only physical qualities can be directly located. It assumes some metrics for physical properties.
Within stative occurrences, we distinguish between states and processes according to homeomericity: sitting is classified as a state but running is classified as a process, since there are (very short) temporal parts of a running that are not themselves runnings. In general, processes differ from situations because they are not assumed to have a description from which they depend. They can be sequenced by some course, but they do not require a description as a unifying criterion. On the other hand, at any time, one can conceive a description that asserts the constraints by which a process of a certian type is such, and in this case, it becomes a situation. Since the decision of designing an explicit description that unifies a perdurant depends on context, task, interest, application, etc., when aligning an ontology do DLP, there can be indecision on where to align a process-oriented class. For example, in the WordNet alignment, we have decided to put only some physical processes under 'process', e.g. 'organic process', in order to stress the social orientedness of DLP. But whereas we need to talk explicitly of the criteria by which we conceive organic processes, these will be put under 'situation'. Similar considerations are made for the other types of perdurants in DOLCE. A different notion of event (dealing with change) is currently investigated for further developments: being 'achievement', 'accomplishment', 'state', 'event', etc. can be also considered 'aspects' of processes or of parts of them. For example, the same process 'rock erosion in the Sinni valley' can be conceptualized as an accomplishment (what has brought the current state that e.g. we are trying to explain), as an achievement (the erosion process as the result of a previous accomplishment), as a state (if we collapse the time interval of the erosion into a time point), or as an event (what has changed our focus from a state to another). In the erosion case, we could have good motivations to shift from one aspect to another: a) causation focus, b) effectual focus, c) condensation d) transition (causality). If we want to consider all the aspects of a process together, we need to postulate a unifying descriptive set of criteria (i.e. a 'description'), according to which that process is circumstantiated in a 'situation'. The different aspects will arise as a parts of a same situation.
The abstract content of a proposition. Abstract content is purely combinatorial: from this viewpoint, any content that can be generated by means of combinatorial rules is assumed to exist in the domain of quantification (reified abstracts).
An atomic region.
Qualities can be seen as the basic entities we can perceive or measure: shapes, colors, sizes, sounds, smells, as well as weights, lengths, electrical charges... 'Quality' is often used as a synonymous of 'property', but this is not the case in this upper ontology: qualities are particulars, properties are universals. Qualities inhere to entities: every entity (including qualities themselves) comes with certain qualities, which exist as long as the entity exists.
A quality space is a topologically maximal region. The constraint of maximality cannot be given completely in OWL, but a constraint is given that creates a partition out of all quality spaces (e.g. no two quality spaces can overlap mereologically).
We distinguish between a quality (e.g., the color of a specific rose), and its value (e.g., a particular shade of red). The latter is called quale, and describes the position of an individual quality within a certain conceptual space (called here quality space) Gardenfors (2000). So when we say that two roses have (exactly) the same color, we mean that their color qualities, which are distinct, have the same position in the color space, that is they have the same color quale.
Features that are relevant parts of their host, like a bump or an edge.
A mathematical set.
An ordinary space: geographical, cosmological, anatomical, topographic, etc.
A physical quality, q-located in (whose value is given within) ordinary spaces (geographical coordinates, cosmological positions, anatomical axes, etc.).
Dummy class for optimizing some property universes. It includes all entities that are not reifications of universals ('abstracts'), i.e. those entities that are in space-time.
Any region resulting from the composition of a space region with a temporal region, i.e. being present in region r at time t.
Within stative occurrences, we distinguish between states and processes according to homeomericity: sitting is classified as a state but running is classified as a process, since there are (very short) temporal parts of a running that are not themselves runnings.In general, states differ from situations because they are not assumed to have a description from which they depend. They can be sequenced by some course, but they do not require a description as a unifying criterion.On the other hand, at any time, one can conceive a description that asserts the constraints by which a state of a certian type is such, and in this case, it becomes a situation.Since the decision of designing an explicit description that unifies a perdurant depends on context, task, interest, application, etc., when aligning an ontology do DLP, there can be indecision on where to align a state-oriented class. For example, in the WordNet alignment, we have decided to put only some physical states under 'state', e.g. 'turgor', in order to stress the social orientedness of DLP. But whereas we need to talk explicitly of the criteria by which we conceive turgor states, these will be put under 'situation'.Similar considerations are made for the other types of perdurants in DOLCE.A different notion of event (dealing with change) is currently investigated for further developments: being 'achievement', 'accomplishment', 'state', 'event', etc. can be also considered 'aspects' of processes or of parts of them. For example, the same process 'rock erosion in the Sinni valley' can be conceptualized as an accomplishment (what has brought the current state that e.g. we are trying to explain), as an achievement (the erosion process as the result of a previous accomplishment), as a state (if we collapse the time interval of the erosion into a time point), or as an event (what has changed our focus from a state to another).In the erosion case, we could have good motivations to shift from one aspect to another: a) causation focus, b) effectual focus, c) condensation d) transition (causality).If we want to consider all the aspects of a process together, we need to postulate a unifying descriptive set of criteria (i.e. a 'description'), according to which that process is circumstantiated in a 'situation'. The different aspects will arise as a parts of a same situation.
An occurrence-type is stative or eventive according to whether it holds of the mereological sum of two of its instances, i.e. if it is cumulative or not. A sitting occurrence is stative since the sum of two sittings is still a sitting occurrence.
A temporal location quality.
A quality inherent in a perdurant.
A region at which only temporal qualities can be directly located. It assumes a metrics for time.
A temporal region, measured according to a calendar.
A Perdurant that exemplifies the intentionality of an agent. Could it be aborted, incomplete, mislead, while remaining a (potential) accomplishment ... The point here is that having a result depends on a method, then an action remains an action under incomplete results. As a matter of fact, if we neutralize intentionality, a purely topological, post-hoc view is at odds with the notion of incomplete accomplishments.
In dependency terms, an activity is an action that is generically constantly dependent on a (at least partly) shared plan adopted by participants. This condition implies that an action must be sequenced by a task.Intuitively, activities are complex actions that are at least partly conventionally planned.
A catch-all class used to join agentive objects (either physical or social). Agents are dispositionally so, in the sense that they internally represent descriptions, and in particular plans, goals and possible actions, but they do not necessarily act. In everyday language, agent is used in this sense, but also to tell that something has acted in a certain way, or to say that something has an initiator or leading role in some action. In DLP, the performs relation encodes these notions.
AKA Agentive-role.A role that can only be played by agents.
Agentive figures are those which are assigned (agentive) roles from a society or community; hence, they can act like a physical agent. Typical agentive figures are societies, organizations, and in general all socially constructed persons. Agentive figures are not dependent on roles defined or used in the same descriptions they are defined or used, but they can act because they depute some powers to some of those roles. In other words, a figure classified by some agentive role can play that role because there are other roles in the descriptions that define or use the figure. Those roles classifies endurants that result to act for the figure. For example, an employee acts for an organization that deputes the role (e.g. turner) that classifies the employee. Simply put, a guy working as a turner at FIAT acts for (or on behalf of) FIAT. In complex figures, like organizations or companies, a total agency is possible when an endurant plays a delegate or representative role of the figure. Since figures are social objects, it is conceivable to find agentive figures that act for other agentive figures.
Within Physical objects, a special place have those to which we ascribe generic intentionality (compatibly to Brentano's distinction, the ability to internally represent a description). These are called Agentive, as opposite to Non-agentive. In general, we assume that agentive objects are constituted by non-agentive objects: an organism is constituted by bodily organs, a robot is constituted by some machinery, and so on. Among non-agentive physical objects we have for example houses, bodily organs, pieces of wood, etc. Generic agentivity is defined here in a wide sense as implying representation or conception (to be characterized in a dedicated - but not developed as yet - ontology of mind). A representation or conception only requires intentionality in Brentano's terms (i.e., the ability to represent something to oneself). See also 'rational physical object'.
A social object that is assumed to internally represent a plan. Since social objects are dependent on physical ones, it is not trivial to interpret the local sense in which a social object 'internally represents' a plan. For example, an institution can have the plan to promote or regulate some activities, but this is possible by means of the powers conferred to it by some legal system, through its representatives, and that plan has to be executed by means of the physical agents that 'act for' the institution.
An event occurring in the (embodied) mind.
The modal descriptions depending on some mental attitude, represented here by means of a relation between roles and tasks.
A state of the (embodied) mind
Collections are social objects which, although not defined by a description, depend both on member entities and on some concepts or figures, hence indirectly on descriptions. While we could talk in general of collections of any kind of entities (events, objects, abstracts, etc.), we restrict here our attention to collections of endurants, and to the concepts that classify them (i.e. roles).
A collection with only agents as members.
Here communication is taken in a rather wide sense, being possible as an (intentional) activity as well as a phenomenon.
AKA C-Description. A non-physical object that is defined by a description s, and whose function is classifying entities from a ground ontology in order to build situations that can satisfy s.
A description whose purpose is defining a figure.
A concept that classifies (in particular, it 'sequences') perdurants (processes, events, or states), as a component of some description. Courses are the descriptive counterpart of perdurants, and, since perdurants have endurants as participants, they are usually the function of some role.
A description is a social object which represents a conceptualization (e.g. a mental object or state), hence it is generically dependent on some agent and communicable. Descriptions define or use concepts or figures, are expressed by an information object and can be satisfied by situations. The typology of descriptions is still preliminary.
A role played by descriptions only. Usable for metalinguistic notions, like those that deal with granular partitions of knowledge, strata of reality, argumentation, etc.
Desires are characterized here as modal description dependent on the cognitive (or 'mental') states of an agent. It is difficult to say more than that without reusing an ontology of cognitive states.Informally: a desire is a description that involves some (possible or actual) 'desire towards' attitude by an agent, and is ultimately motivated by evolutionary features of an organism (or by built-in features if the agent is artificial), which are (or used to be) an advantage for it.
a.k.a. 'social individual'. Figures are social objects defined or used by descriptions, but differently from concepts, they do not classify entities. Examples of figures are organizations, political-geographic objects, sacred symbols, etc.
Fluxes are processes that (also) contain accomplishments as constituents. In other words, fluxes emerge out of accomplishments.
A perceptual structure, from the descriptive viewpoint. In other words, this encodes the conditions by which a configuration, structure, or arrangement is perceived as a meaningful whole by a perceiving agent.
We are proposing here a restrictive notion of goal that relies upon its desirability by some agent, which does not necessarily play a role in the execution of the plan the goal is a part of. For example, an agent can have an attitude towards some task defined in a plan, e.g. duty towards, which is different from desiring it (desire towards). We might say that a goal is usually desired by the creator or beneficiary of a plan. The minimal constraint for a goal is that it is a proper part of a plan.For example, a desire to start a relationship can become a goal if someone takes action (or lets someone else take it for her sake) to obtain it.
A parameter valued by regions that are used asindicators for some behaviour or event to be checked.
An information encoding system is a description that involves information objects. They can be divided into 1) axiomatic systems, which provide roles and operations to define formal descriptions (e.g. theories), 2) combinatorial systems, which provide roles and operations to create valid information objects (e.g. grammars), 3) classification systems, which are contexts of (ev. ordered) lists of information objects, and 4) informal encoding systems, which provide roles and operations to define informal descriptions (e.g. narratives).
Information objects are social objects. They are realized by some entity. They are ordered (expressed according to) by some system for information encoding. Consequently, they are dependent from an encoding as well as from a concrete realization.They can express a description (the ontological equivalent of a meaning/conceptualization), can be about any entity, and can be interpreted by an agent.From a communication perspective, an information object can play the role of "message". From a semiotic perspective, it playes the role of "expression".
The course of events typical of the life of an object (kind).
A role used to express logical levels within some layering description or granular partition. A typical example is the Linnean taxonomic ordering, where Phylum or Species are hierarchical roles.
No easy definition of artifactual properties is possible, hence it is better to rely on alternative descriptions and roles: a physical object that shows or is known to have an artifactual origin that counts in the tasks an ontology is supposed to support, will be a material artifact. On the other hand, physical objects that do not show that origin, or that origin is unimportant for the task of the ontology, will be physical bodies. Formally, a restriction is provided here that requires that the collection whose members are (at least some of the) proper parts of a material artifact is *unified* by a plan or project.
A description that contains a specification to do, realize, behave, etc. Subclasses are plan, technique, practice, project, etc.
A modal description is any part of a description that has a unity criterion consisting in the specification of a modal target (some course), and it can be a right, power, duty, etc. Notice that modal descriptions can appear in conventionalized descriptions as well as in idiosyncratic assessements, narratives, promises, etc. From the formal semantic viewpoint, a modal description is the reification of a relation involving a modal logic operator.
A tipology of non-agentive figures is currently under investigation.
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Within Physical objects, a special place have those to which we ascribe intentions, beliefs, and desires. These are called Agentive, as opposite to Non-agentive. Intentionality is understood here as the capability of heading for/dealing with objects or states of the world. This is an important area of ontological investigation we haven't properly explored yet, so our suggestions are really very preliminary. A possible modelling of case roles has been started within the descriptions plugin that could be embedded within basic DOLCE. In general, we assume that agentive objects are constituted by non-agentive objects: an organism is constituted by bodily organs, a robot is constituted by some machinery, and so on. Among non-agentive physical objects we have for example houses, body organs, pieces of wood, etc.
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A social object that is not assumed to internally represent a description. Since social objects are dependent on physical ones, it is not trivial to interpret the local sense in which a social object 'internally represents' a plan. See 'agentive-social-object' for some discussion.
A concept that classifies (in particular, it is 'valued by') regions, as defined by some description. Parameters are the descriptive counterpart of regions, and, as regions represent the qualities of perdurants or endurants, they can be requisites for some role or course.A parameter has at least one region that is a value for it.
A course used to sequence phenomena (non-intentional processes).
A phenomenon is basically a process that does not include any intentional active participation. Therefore, it cannot be sequenced by a task.It can be seen as an accomplishment when some intentionality puts boundaries on it (although it is not claimed to be inherently intentional). On the other hand, a purely physical phenomenon does not seem to have inherent boundaries either ... and also for biological processes as well as economic processes this seems to be disputable. If the boundary hypothesis is discarded, phenomenon should migrate under process.
A phenomenon having a physical endurant as participant.
Any physical particular that realizes a non-physical endurant. Such physical particulars can be either physical endurants, physical qualities, physical regions, perdurants with at least one physical participant, or a situation with one physical entity in its setting.Ultimately, a physical realization depends on at least one physical endurant (each of the others physical entity types depend on a physical endurant to be considered as such).
A plan is a method for executing or performing a procedure or a stage of a procedure.A plan must use both at least one role played by an agent, and at least one task.Finally, a plan has a goal as proper part, and can also have regulations and other descriptions as proper parts.
A social method carried out explicitly or by tradition, spontaneously emerged, or moderately or strongly regulated.
A project is a proactively satisfied method. Differently from a plan, a project includes at least one 'product' role to be played by some endurant (e.g. a house), or one 'result' role played by a perdurant with a definite participant (e.g. a restored state of a house).
Either a rational physical object (e.g. an animal capable of meta-representations), or a social object acted by a rational physical object (e.g. an organization).
In this ontology, a rational object is encoded as having the ability to internally represent meta-descriptions (descriptions that have other descriptions playing roles used by them). Other theories of rational agency assume desires and intentions for these objects, but in principle any agent can have desires and intentions: the very difference seems to be the ability to choose among different desires or intentions by going 'meta-level'.
Reconstructed fluxes are fluxes that only contain accomplishments as members.
A description usually requiring a C-SAT satisfaction for a situation. Norms, codes of practice, etc. are examples.
A non-social relation(ship): formal, linguistic, etc. It is considered here a theory, because relations are established in order to give an ordering to some reality.
Also known as 'functional role'.A concept that classifies (in particular, it is 'played by') endurants, as used in some description. Roles are the descriptive counterpart of endurants, and, as endurants participate in perdurants, they usually have courses as modal targets (see).The typology of roles is still preliminary.
A situation is a social object that appears in the domain of an ontology only because there is a description whose components can 'carve up' a view (setting) on that domain. A situation has to satisfy a description (see below for ways of defining the satisfies relation), and it has to be setting for at least one entity.In other words, it is the ontological counterpart (with due local differences or restrictions) of settings (situations from SC, contexts, episodes, states of affairs, structures, configurations, cases, etc.).A perdurant is usually the only mandatory constituent of a setting.Two descriptions of a same situation are possible, otherwise we would result in a solipsistic ontology. The time and space (and possibly other qualities) of a situation are the time and space of the perdurants in the setting.
Examples of Social Descriptions are laws, norms, shares, peace treaties, etc., which are generically dependent on societies.Social descriptions are dependent on a community of agents.
A catch-all class for entities from the social world. It includes agentive and non-agentive socially-constructed objects: descriptions, concepts, figures, collections, information objects. It could be equivalent to 'non-physical object', but we leave the possibility open of 'private' non-physical objects.
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A social description defining roles for the interaction of rational agents.
A role created and maintained by a society.
A role that involves responsibility, e.g. both duties and rights, in order to perform some task. It usually involves additional rights and/or powers in contexts (descriptions) different from the one that defines the status.
A role played exactly by two objects at the same time, e.g.: brother, sibling.
A course used to sequence activities or other controllable perdurants (some states, processes), usually within methods. They must be defined by a method, but can be *used* by other kinds of descriptions. They are desire targets of some role played by an agent. Tasks can be complex, and ordered according to an abstract succession relation. Tasks can relate to ground activities or decision making; the last kind deals with typical flowchart content. A task is different both from a flowchart node, and from an action or action type.Tasks can be considered shortcuts for plans, since at least one role played by an agent has a desire attitude towards them (possibly different from the one that puts the task into action). In principle, tasks could be transformed into explicit plans.
A technique is a practical method to obtain some modification in the environment (or evaluation of an environment) that fulfils some task.
This is used in a wide cultural sense: a theory about something, expressed in a rather systematic way, but not necessarily public (although communicable in principle). An axiomatic theory is not a theory in this sense, although we can expect an axiomatic theory to be the formal representation of a generic theory.
An abstract plan is a plan whose roles and tasks only specify classes of entities that can be included in a plan execution. In other words, a component from an abstract plan does not classify any named entity. This condition cannot be formalized in FOL, since we would like to express a condition by which an instance of an abstract plan specifies instances of plan components, but no instances of situation elements, e.g. that 'manager' classifies some (if any) instance of person, but not a specified (named) person.
An action task is an elementary task that sequences non-planning activities, like: moving, exercising forces, gathering information, etc. Planning activites are mental events involving some rational event.
A bag task is a complex task that does not include either a control task, or a successor relation among any two component tasks.The last condition cannot be stated in OWL-DL, because it needs a coreference.
A circumstantial plan has all components classifying named individuals from the ground ontology (e.g. only specific persons, specified resources, a finite number of time intervals and space regions, etc.).This condition cannot be formalized in FOL, since we would like to express a condition by which an instance of an circumstantial plan specifies both instances of plan components, and instances of situation elements, e.g. that 'manager' classifies a specified (named) person.
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A task that has at least two other tasks as components.
A control task is an elementary task that sequences a planning activity, e.g. an activity aimed at (cognitively or via simulation) anticipating other activities. Therefore, control tasks have usually at least one direct successor task (the controlled one), with the exception of ending tasks.The reification of control constructs allows to represent procedural knowledge into the same ontology including controlled action. Besides conceptual transparency and independency from a particular grounding system, a further advantage is enabling the representation of coordination tasks. For example, a manager that coordinates the execution of several related activities can be represented as a role with a responsibility (duty+right) towards some complex task.
An activity related to planning. It is sequenced by 'case task', and can contain an information gathering activity.
A state related to planning. It is sequenced by 'deliberation task', and is preceded by a decision activity.
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An atomic task.
A main goal can be defined as a goal that is part of a plan but not of one of its subplans. The characteristic axiom cannot be formalized in OWL-DL (it requires coreference).
A goal situation is a situation that satisfies a goal.Opposite to the case of subplan executions, a goal situation is not part of a plan execution.In other words, it is not true in general that any situation satisfying a part of a description, is also part of the situation that satisfies the whole description. This helps to account for the following cases: a) Execution of plans containing abort or suspension conditions (the plan would be satisfied even if the goal has not been reached, see below), b) Incidental satisfaction, like when a situation satisfies a goal without being intentionally planned (but anyway desired).
An activity aimed at gathering information for some purpose. It is typically sequenced by case tasks for taking decisions (can be part of decision activities).
A maximal task is a complex task that has all the tasks defined in a plan as components.In OWL-DL the axiom is defined as a concept axiom over plan component task.
A technique to evaluate a plan execution.
A task defined in a plan assessment.
Plan executions are situations that proactively satisfy a plan (cf. definition of P-SAT above). Subplan executions are proper parts of the whole plan execution.
The activity to generate a plan.
The technique by which a planning process can be carried out.
A saturated plan is a plan that cannot be executed twice, since it defines spatio-temporal parameters restricted to one value, e.g. one of its tasks classifies an event that is valued by a definite temporal value in a definite space region.Of course, in the case of maximal spatio-temporal regions, a saturated plan tends to approximate an abstract plan from the execution viewpoint, but these worst cases are unavoidable when dealing with maximality.
A scheduling is a task that cannot be executed twice, since it has a temporal parameter restricted to one value, e.g. it classifies an event that is valued by a definite temporal value.
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A sequential task is a complex task that includes a successor relation among any two component tasks, and does not contain any control task.The first condition cannot be stated in OWL-DL, because it needs coreference.
A proper part of a plan.
A specialization of ending-task, aimed at sequencing events that end a plan execution without having reached its main-goal, and with no intention to resurrect the plan.
A specialization of ending-task, aimed at sequencing events that end a plan execution without having reached its main-goal, but with the possibility or resurrecting the plan.
The task sequencing a positive decision to adopt a plan for execution.
A control task aimed at starting an activity. It is specialized either by a beginning task or a reactivation task.
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A case task branched to exactly 2 tasks, not executable in parallel.
An any order task is a branching task that defines no order in the successor tasks. Itís another way of defining a bag task, because any temporal relation can be expected between any two perdurants sequenced by the tasks that are direct successor to the any order task.
A beginning task is a control task that is the predecessor of all tasks defined in the plan.
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A task that articulates the plan into an ordered set of tasks.
A case task is a task branched to a set of tasks that are not executable concurrently. In order to choose the task to be executed, preliminary deliberation tasks should be executed. A case task sequences a decision activity (a kind of mental event involving rationality) that has a deliberation state as outcome (sequenced by a deliberation task).
A specialization of ending-task, aimed at sequencing events that end a plan execution having reached its main-goal.
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A concurrent task is a task branched to a set of tasks executable concurrently -the sequenced perdurants can overlap-, which means that no deliberation task is performed in order to choose among them. A concurrent task has at least one successor synchronization task, which is aimed at waiting for the execution of all -except the optional ones- tasks direct successor to the concurrent -or any order, see below- one.The axioms cannot be expressed fully in OWL-DL (no value mapping available).
The task sequencing a decision activity, aiming at if action has to be taken in order to start a plan execution.
The task sequencing a decision to take action in order to start a plan execution.
A deliberation task is a control task that sequences deliberation states (decisions taken after a case task execution).
An ending task is a control task that has no successor tasks defined in the plan.
A loop task with a defined number -and possibly frequency- of iterations.
A loop task is a control task that has as successor an action -or complex- task that sequences at least two distinct activities sharing a minimal common set of properties -they have a MinimalCommonType. Notice that MinimalCommonType cannot be formalised as a first-order predicate, and then neither in OWL-DL. It can be considered a trivial guideline: when sequencing looped actions, choose a definite action class from the ground ontology.
Some relations typically hold for loop tasks. Exit condition can be used to state what deliberation task causes to exit the cycle; iteration interval can be used to state how much time should be taken by each iteration of the looped activity; iteration cardinality can be used to state how many times the action should be repeated.
A loop task, which specifies when a certain condition becomes true for a cyclical task to exit.
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A task for parallel concurrent activities.
A control task that directly precedes both a case task and some other task.It specializes the branching task.
The task sequencing an activity from which the possibility is raised to execute a plan.
The task sequencing an assessment that the activities aiming at creating the prerequisites to start a plan execution are completed.
An activation task to start a plan execution after it has been suspended.
The task joining the decision and preparation phases of the plan assessment, with the activation phases of the plan.
The task sequencing a negative decision to adopt a plan execution.
A specialization of ending-task, aimed at sequencing events that end a plan execution without having reached its main-goal for a certain time
A task that joins a set a tasks after a branching.In particular, a synchronization task is aimed at waiting for the execution of all (except the optional ones) tasks that are direct successor to a concurrent or any order task.