58,532 research outputs found
The ERA of FOLE: Superstructure
This paper discusses the representation of ontologies in the first-order
logical environment FOLE (Kent 2013). An ontology defines the primitives with
which to model the knowledge resources for a community of discourse (Gruber
2009). These primitives, consisting of classes, relationships and properties,
are represented by the ERA (entity-relationship-attribute) data model (Chen
1976). An ontology uses formal axioms to constrain the interpretation of these
primitives. In short, an ontology specifies a logical theory. This paper is the
second in a series of three papers that provide a rigorous mathematical
representation for the ERA data model in particular, and ontologies in general,
within the first-order logical environment FOLE. The first two papers show how
FOLE represents the formalism and semantics of (many-sorted) first-order logic
in a classification form corresponding to ideas discussed in the Information
Flow Framework (IFF). In particular, the first paper (Kent 2015) provided a
"foundation" that connected elements of the ERA data model with components of
the first-order logical environment FOLE, and this second paper provides a
"superstructure" that extends FOLE to the formalisms of first-order logic. The
third paper will define an "interpretation" of FOLE in terms of the
transformational passage, first described in (Kent 2013), from the
classification form of first-order logic to an equivalent interpretation form,
thereby defining the formalism and semantics of first-order logical/relational
database systems (Kent 2011). The FOLE representation follows a conceptual
structures approach, that is completely compatible with Formal Concept Analysis
(Ganter and Wille 1999) and Information Flow (Barwise and Seligman 1997)
Study on behavioral impedance for route planning techniques from the pedestrian's perspective: Part I - Theoretical contextualization and taxonomy
The interest of researchers for analyzing of best routes and shortest
paths allows a continuous technological advance in topological analysis
techniques used in the geographic information systems for
transportation. One of the topological analysis techniques is the route
planning, in which the constraint management must be considered. There
have been few studies where the constraint domain for pedestrian in an
urban transportation system was clearly stated. Consequently, more
studies need to be carried out. The aim of this paper is to provide a
theoretical contextualization on identification and management of
constraints to ascertain the behavioral impedance domain from the
pedestrian perspective. In this part of the research the grounded theory
was the research method used to develop the proposed theory. A
meta-model was used to (1) define the behavioral domain structure, (2)
hold the behavioral data collection and (3) verify the design of the
proposed taxonomic tree. The main contribution of this article is the
behavioral domain taxonomy from the pedestrian perspective, which will
be used to implement a module responsible for the constraint management
of an experimental application, named Router. Within this context, the
proposed taxonomy could be used to model cost functions more precisely.Postprint (published version
A new model for solution of complex distributed constrained problems
In this paper we describe an original computational model for solving
different types of Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems (DCSP). The
proposed model is called Controller-Agents for Constraints Solving (CACS). This
model is intended to be used which is an emerged field from the integration
between two paradigms of different nature: Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and the
Constraint Satisfaction Problem paradigm (CSP) where all constraints are
treated in central manner as a black-box. This model allows grouping
constraints to form a subset that will be treated together as a local problem
inside the controller. Using this model allows also handling non-binary
constraints easily and directly so that no translating of constraints into
binary ones is needed. This paper presents the implementation outlines of a
prototype of DCSP solver, its usage methodology and overview of the CACS
application for timetabling problems
Selectional Restrictions in HPSG
Selectional restrictions are semantic sortal constraints imposed on the
participants of linguistic constructions to capture contextually-dependent
constraints on interpretation. Despite their limitations, selectional
restrictions have proven very useful in natural language applications, where
they have been used frequently in word sense disambiguation, syntactic
disambiguation, and anaphora resolution. Given their practical value, we
explore two methods to incorporate selectional restrictions in the HPSG theory,
assuming that the reader is familiar with HPSG. The first method employs HPSG's
Background feature and a constraint-satisfaction component pipe-lined after the
parser. The second method uses subsorts of referential indices, and blocks
readings that violate selectional restrictions during parsing. While
theoretically less satisfactory, we have found the second method particularly
useful in the development of practical systems
Revisiting the Core Ontology and Problem in Requirements Engineering
In their seminal paper in the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and
Methodology, Zave and Jackson established a core ontology for Requirements
Engineering (RE) and used it to formulate the "requirements problem", thereby
defining what it means to successfully complete RE. Given that stakeholders of
the system-to-be communicate the information needed to perform RE, we show that
Zave and Jackson's ontology is incomplete. It does not cover all types of basic
concerns that the stakeholders communicate. These include beliefs, desires,
intentions, and attitudes. In response, we propose a core ontology that covers
these concerns and is grounded in sound conceptual foundations resting on a
foundational ontology. The new core ontology for RE leads to a new formulation
of the requirements problem that extends Zave and Jackson's formulation. We
thereby establish new standards for what minimum information should be
represented in RE languages and new criteria for determining whether RE has
been successfully completed.Comment: Appears in the proceedings of the 16th IEEE International
Requirements Engineering Conference, 2008 (RE'08). Best paper awar
Revisiting the Core Ontology and Problem in Requirements Engineering
In their seminal paper in the ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and
Methodology, Zave and Jackson established a core ontology for Requirements
Engineering (RE) and used it to formulate the "requirements problem", thereby
defining what it means to successfully complete RE. Given that stakeholders of
the system-to-be communicate the information needed to perform RE, we show that
Zave and Jackson's ontology is incomplete. It does not cover all types of basic
concerns that the stakeholders communicate. These include beliefs, desires,
intentions, and attitudes. In response, we propose a core ontology that covers
these concerns and is grounded in sound conceptual foundations resting on a
foundational ontology. The new core ontology for RE leads to a new formulation
of the requirements problem that extends Zave and Jackson's formulation. We
thereby establish new standards for what minimum information should be
represented in RE languages and new criteria for determining whether RE has
been successfully completed.Comment: Appears in the proceedings of the 16th IEEE International
Requirements Engineering Conference, 2008 (RE'08). Best paper awar
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