66 research outputs found
Scale in object and process ontologies
Scale is of great importance to the analysis of real world
phenomena, be they enduring objects or perduring processes. This paper
presents a new perspective on the concept of scale by considering it within two
complementary ontological views. The first, called SNAP, recognizes enduring
entities or objects, the other, called SPAN, perduring entities or processes.
Within the meta-theory provided by the complementary SNAP and SPAN
ontologies, we apply different theories of formal ontology such as mereology
and granular partitions, and ideas derived from hierarchy theory. These
theories are applied to objects and processes and form the framework within
which we present tentative definitions of scale, which are found to differ
between the two ontologies
Hierarchy : Perspectives for Ecological Complexity
xvi,310 hal,;ill,;21 c
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