The Ontology of Group Agency

We present an ontological analysis of the notion of group agency developed by Christian List and Philip Pettit. We focus on this notion as it allows us to neatly distinguish groups, organizations, corporations – to which we may ascribe agency – from mere aggregates of individuals. We develop a module for group agency within a foundational ontology and we apply it to organizations

Organisations and Variable Embodiments

How can organisations survive not only the substitution of members, but also other dramatic changes, like that of the norms regulating their activities, the goals they plan to achieve, or the system of roles that compose them? This paper is as first step towards a well-founded ontological analysis of the persistence of organisations through changes. Our analysis leverages Kit Fine’s notions of rigid and variable embodiment and proposes to view the (history of the) decisions made by the members of the organisation as the criterion to re-identify the organisation through change

Modélisation ontologique de processus dans le domaine de la veille épidémiologique

Session "Posters"National audienceDans ce papier, nous proposons une modélisation ontologique des processus de la veille sur les maladies infectieuses. Nous montrons l'intérêt de formaliser les aspects dynamiques des connaissances du domaine de la veille. Cette modélisation est menée sur trois niveaux : i) conceptuel modélisant des processus de la veille, de la veille sur les maladies infectieuses et de la propagation d'une maladie infectieuse ; ii) semi-formel correspondant à l'élaboration de patrons de processus pour faciliter la réutilisation des modèles conceptuels de?finis, et iii) formel correspondant à la formalisation des patrons élaborés. Ces patrons sont traduits dans le langage PSL pour rendre opérationnelle leur réutilisation et raisonner sur les modèles définis. La pertinence de la réutilisation des patrons est testée dans le domaine de l'épidémiologie de la bilharziose. Notre travail s'inscrit dans une approche de modélisation par spécification de la veille épidémiologique et constitue un apport à la mise en place des systèmes de veille. Une autre contribution est de participer aux travaux dans le domaine des ontologies des processus en prenant en compte les spécificités des phénomènes épidémiologiques

Organising knowledge in the age of the semantic web: a study of the commensurability of ontologies

 This study is directed towards the problem of conceptual translation across different data management systems and formats, with a particular focus on those used in the emerging world of the Semantic Web. Increasingly, organisations have sought to connect information sources and services within and beyond their enterprise boundaries, building upon existing Internet facilities to offer improved research, planning, reporting and management capabilities. The Semantic Web is an ambitious response to this growing demand, offering a standards-based platform for sharing, linking and reasoning with information. The imagined result, a globalised knowledge network formed out of mutually referring data structures termed "ontologies", would make possible new kinds of queries, inferences and amalgamations of information. Such a network, though, is premised upon large numbers of manually drawn links between these ontologies. In practice, establishing these links is a complex translation task requiring considerable time and expertise; invariably, as ontologies and other structured information sources are published, many useful connections are neglected. To combat this, in recent years substantial research has been invested into "ontology matching" - the exploration of algorithmic approaches for automatically translating or aligning ontologies. These approaches, which exploit the explicit semantic properties of individual concepts, have registered impressive precision and recall results against humanly-engineered translations. However they are unable to make use of background cultural information about the overall systems in which those concepts are housed - how those systems are used, for what purpose they were designed, what methodological or theoretical principles underlined their construction, and so on. The present study investigates whether paying attention to these sociological dimensions of electronic knowledge systems could supplement algorithmic approaches in some circumstances. Specifically, it asks whether a holistic notion of commensurability can be useful when aligning or translating between such systems.      The first half of the study introduces the problem, surveys the literature, and outlines the general approach. It then proposes both a theoretical foundation and a practical framework for assessing commensurability of ontologies and other knowledge systems. Chapter 1 outlines the Semantic Web, ontologies and the problem of conceptual translation, and poses the key research questions. Conceptual translation can be treated as, by turns, a social, philosophical, linguistic or technological problem; Chapter 2 surveys a correspondingly wide range of literature and approaches.      The methods employed by the study are described in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 critically examines theories of conceptual schemes and commensurability, while Chapter 5 describes the framework itself, comprising a series of specific dimensions, a broad methodological approach, and a means for generating both qualitative and quantitative assessments. The second half of the study then explores the notion of commensurability through several empirical frames. Chapters 6 to 8 applies the framework to a series of case studies. Chapter 6 presents a brief history of knowledge systems, and compares two of these systems - relational databases and Semantic Web ontologies. Chapter 7, in turn, compares several "upper-level" ontologies - reusable schematisations of abstract concepts like Time and Space . Chapter 8 reviews a recent, widely publicised controversy over the standardisation of document formats. This analysis in particular shows how the opaque dry world of technical specifications can reveal the complex network of social dynamics, interests and beliefs which coordinate and motivate them. Collectively, these studies demonstrate the framework is useful in making evident assumptions which motivate the design of different knowledge systems, and further, in assessing the commensurability of those systems. Chapter 9 then presents a further empirical study; here, the framework is implemented as a software system, and pilot tested among a small cohort of researchers. Finally, Chapter 10 summarises the argumentative trajectory of the study as a whole - that, broadly, an elaborated notion of commensurability can tease out important and salient features of translation inscrutable to purely algorithmic methods - and suggests some possibilities for further work

Investigating business process elements: a journey from the field of Business Process Management to ontological analysis, and back

Business process modelling languages (BPMLs) typically enable the representation of business processes via the creation of process models, which are constructed using the elements and graphical symbols of the BPML itself. Despite the wide literature on business process modelling languages, on the comparison between graphical components of different languages, on the development and enrichment of new and existing notations, and the numerous definitions of what a business process is, the BPM community still lacks a robust (ontological) characterisation of the elements involved in business process models and, even more importantly, of the very notion of business process. While some efforts have been done towards this direction, the majority of works in this area focuses on the analysis of the behavioural (control flow) aspects of process models only, thus neglecting other central modelling elements, such as those denoting process participants (e.g., data objects, actors), relationships among activities, goals, values, and so on. The overall purpose of this PhD thesis is to provide a systematic study of the elements that constitute a business process, based on ontological analysis, and to apply these results back to the Business Process Management field. The major contributions that were achieved in pursuing our overall purpose are: (i) a first comprehensive and systematic investigation of what constitutes a business process meta-model in literature, and a definition of what we call a literature-based business process meta-model starting from the different business process meta-models proposed in the literature; (ii) the ontological analysis of four business process elements (event, participant, relationship among activities, and goal), which were identified as missing or problematic in the literature and in the literature-based meta-model; (iii) the revision of the literature-based business process meta-model that incorporates the analysis of the four investigated business process elements - event, participant, relationship among activities and goal; and (iv) the definition and evaluation of a notation that enriches the relationships between activities by including the notions of occurrence dependences and rationales

Semantic Business Process Modeling

This book presents a process-oriented business modeling framework based on semantic technologies. The framework consists of modeling languages, methods, and tools that allow for semantic modeling of business motivation, business policies and rules, and business processes. Quality of the proposed modeling framework is evaluated based on the modeling content of SAP Solution Composer and several real-world business scenarios

Dwelling on ontology - semantic reasoning over topographic maps

The thesis builds upon the hypothesis that the spatial arrangement of topographic features, such as buildings, roads and other land cover parcels, indicates how land is used. The aim is to make this kind of high-level semantic information explicit within topographic data. There is an increasing need to share and use data for a wider range of purposes, and to make data more definitive, intelligent and accessible. Unfortunately, we still encounter a gap between low-level data representations and high-level concepts that typify human qualitative spatial reasoning. The thesis adopts an ontological approach to bridge this gap and to derive functional information by using standard reasoning mechanisms offered by logic-based knowledge representation formalisms. It formulates a framework for the processes involved in interpreting land use information from topographic maps. Land use is a high-level abstract concept, but it is also an observable fact intimately tied to geography. By decomposing this relationship, the thesis correlates a one-to-one mapping between high-level conceptualisations established from human knowledge and real world entities represented in the data. Based on a middle-out approach, it develops a conceptual model that incrementally links different levels of detail, and thereby derives coarser, more meaningful descriptions from more detailed ones. The thesis verifies its proposed ideas by implementing an ontology describing the land use ‘residential area’ in the ontology editor Protégé. By asserting knowledge about high-level concepts such as types of dwellings, urban blocks and residential districts as well as individuals that link directly to topographic features stored in the database, the reasoner successfully infers instances of the defined classes. Despite current technological limitations, ontologies are a promising way forward in the manner we handle and integrate geographic data, especially with respect to how humans conceptualise geographic space

Understanding the Code of Life: Holistic Conceptual Modeling of the Genome

[ES] En las últimas décadas, los avances en la tecnología de secuenciación han producido cantidades significativas de datos genómicos, hecho que ha revolucionado nuestra comprensión de la biología. Sin embargo, la cantidad de datos generados ha superado con creces nuestra capacidad para interpretarlos. Descifrar el código de la vida es un gran reto. A pesar de los numerosos avances realizados, nuestra comprensión del mismo sigue siendo mínima, y apenas estamos empezando a descubrir todo su potencial, por ejemplo, en áreas como la medicina de precisión o la farmacogenómica. El objetivo principal de esta tesis es avanzar en nuestra comprensión de la vida proponiendo una aproximación holística mediante un enfoque basado en modelos que consta de tres artefactos: i) un esquema conceptual del genoma, ii) un método para su aplicación en el mundo real, y iii) el uso de ontologías fundacionales para representar el conocimiento del dominio de una forma más precisa y explícita. Las dos primeras contribuciones se han validado mediante la implementación de sistemas de información genómicos basados en modelos conceptuales. La tercera contribución se ha validado mediante experimentos empíricos que han evaluado si el uso de ontologías fundacionales conduce a una mejor comprensión del dominio genómico. Los artefactos generados ofrecen importantes beneficios. En primer lugar, se han generado procesos de gestión de datos más eficientes, lo que ha permitido mejorar los procesos de extracción de conocimientos. En segundo lugar, se ha logrado una mejor comprensión y comunicación del dominio.[CA] En les últimes dècades, els avanços en la tecnologia de seqüenciació han produït quantitats significatives de dades genòmiques, fet que ha revolucionat la nostra comprensió de la biologia. No obstant això, la quantitat de dades generades ha superat amb escreix la nostra capacitat per a interpretar-los. Desxifrar el codi de la vida és un gran repte. Malgrat els nombrosos avanços realitzats, la nostra comprensió del mateix continua sent mínima, i a penes estem començant a descobrir tot el seu potencial, per exemple, en àrees com la medicina de precisió o la farmacogenómica. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi és avançar en la nostra comprensió de la vida proposant una aproximació holística mitjançant un enfocament basat en models que consta de tres artefactes: i) un esquema conceptual del genoma, ii) un mètode per a la seua aplicació en el món real, i iii) l'ús d'ontologies fundacionals per a representar el coneixement del domini d'una forma més precisa i explícita. Les dues primeres contribucions s'han validat mitjançant la implementació de sistemes d'informació genòmics basats en models conceptuals. La tercera contribució s'ha validat mitjançant experiments empírics que han avaluat si l'ús d'ontologies fundacionals condueix a una millor comprensió del domini genòmic. Els artefactes generats ofereixen importants beneficis. En primer lloc, s'han generat processos de gestió de dades més eficients, la qual cosa ha permés millorar els processos d'extracció de coneixements. En segon lloc, s'ha aconseguit una millor comprensió i comunicació del domini.[EN] Over the last few decades, advances in sequencing technology have produced significant amounts of genomic data, which has revolutionised our understanding of biology. However, the amount of data generated has far exceeded our ability to interpret it. Deciphering the code of life is a grand challenge. Despite our progress, our understanding of it remains minimal, and we are just beginning to uncover its full potential, for instance, in areas such as precision medicine or pharmacogenomics. The main objective of this thesis is to advance our understanding of life by proposing a holistic approach, using a model-based approach, consisting of three artifacts: i) a conceptual schema of the genome, ii) a method for its application in the real-world, and iii) the use of foundational ontologies to represent domain knowledge in a more unambiguous and explicit way. The first two contributions have been validated by implementing genome information systems based on conceptual models. The third contribution has been validated by empirical experiments assessing whether using foundational ontologies leads to a better understanding of the genomic domain. The artifacts generated offer significant benefits. First, more efficient data management processes were produced, leading to better knowledge extraction processes. Second, a better understanding and communication of the domain was achieved.Las fructíferas discusiones y los resultados derivados de los proyectos INNEST2021 /57, MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, PID2021-123824OB-I00, CIPROM/2021/023 y PDC2021- 121243-I00 han contribuido en gran medida a la calidad final de este tesis.García Simón, A. (2022). Understanding the Code of Life: Holistic Conceptual Modeling of the Genome [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/19143

Explaining Data Patterns using Knowledge from the Web of Data

Knowledge Discovery (KD) is a long-tradition field aiming at developing methodologies to detect hidden patterns and regularities in large datasets, using techniques from a wide range of domains, such as statistics, machine learning, pattern recognition or data visualisation. In most real world contexts, the interpretation and explanation of the discovered patterns is left to human experts, whose work is to use their background knowledge to analyse, refine and make the patterns understandable for the intended purpose. Explaining patterns is therefore an intensive and time-consuming process, where parts of the knowledge can remain unrevealed, especially when the experts lack some of the required background knowledge. In this thesis, we investigate the hypothesis that such interpretation process can be facilitated by introducing background knowledge from the Web of (Linked) Data. In the last decade, many areas started publishing and sharing their domain-specific knowledge in the form of structured data, with the objective of encouraging information sharing, reuse and discovery. With a constantly increasing amount of shared and connected knowledge, we thus assume that the process of explaining patterns can become easier, faster, and more automated. To demonstrate this, we developed Dedalo, a framework that automatically provides explanations to patterns of data using the background knowledge extracted from the Web of Data. We studied the elements required for a piece of information to be considered an explanation, identified the best strategies to automatically find the right piece of information in the Web of Data, and designed a process able to produce explanations to a given pattern using the background knowledge autonomously collected from the Web of Data. The final evaluation of Dedalo involved users within an empirical study based on a real-world scenario. We demonstrated that the explanation process is complex when not being familiar with the domain of usage, but also that this can be considerably simplified when using the Web of Data as a source of background knowledge