Biomedical ontologies: What part-of is and isn’t

AbstractMereological relations such as part-of and its inverse has-part are fundamental to the description of the structure of living organisms. Whereas classical mereology focuses on individual entities, mereological relations in biomedical ontologies are generally asserted between classes of individuals. In general, this practice leaves some basic issues unanswered: type constraints of mereological relations, e.g., concerning artifacts and biological entities, the relation between parthood and time, inferred parts and wholes as well as a delimitation of parthood against spatial inclusion. Furthermore, mereological relations can be asserted not only between physical objects but also between biological processes and medical procedures. We analyze these ambiguities and make suggestions for a standardization of mereological relations in biomedical ontologies

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

Getting their acts together: A coordinated systems approach to extended cognition

A cognitive system is a set of processes responsible for intelligent behaviour. This thesis is an attempt to answer the question: how can cognitive systems be demarcated; that is, what criterion can be used to decide where to draw the boundary of the system? This question is important because it is one way of couching the hypothesis of extended cognition – is it possible for cognitive systems to transcend the boundary of the brain or body of an organism? Such a criterion can be supplied by what is called in the literature a ‘mark of the cognitive’. The main task of this thesis is to develop a general mark of the cognitive. The starting point is that a system responsible for intelligent behaviour is a coordinated coalition of processes. This account proposes a set of functional conditions for coordination. These conditions can then be used as a sufficient condition for membership of a cognitive system. In certain circumstances, they assert that a given process plays a coordination role in the system and is therefore part of the system. The controversy in the extended cognition debate surrounds positive claims of systemhood concerning ‘external’ processes so a sufficient condition will help settle some of these debates. I argue that a Coordinated Systems Approach like this will help to move the extended cognition debate forward from its current impasse. Moreover, the application of the approach to social systems and stygmergic systems - systems where current processes are coordinated partly by the trace of previous action – promises new directions for research