Editorial: Formal Ontologies meet Industry

The Formal Ontologies meet Industry (FOMI) workshop series is a scientific initiative supported by the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA) aimed at bringing together academics and practitioners interested in ontologies for industry. FOMI addresses research and application topics concerning, e.g., the design of domain-specific ontologies, the development of ontology-based information systems, or the investigation of the theoretical underpinnings of formal ontology when tuned to engineering applications

Events and Activities: Is there an Ontology behind BPMN?

In the context of business process modelling, the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a de-facto standard with more than 70 commercial tools that currently support its use. Amongst its main modelling constructs, BPMN includes activities and events. However, the focus of the standard is on providing an intuitive graphical language, rather than formal semantics specifications. This results in semantic ambiguities regarding the interpretation of its modelling constructs. We investigate whether the main building blocks of BPMN commit to an ontological theory of the domain entities at hand, eventually clarifying this commitment by the approach of ontological analysis

Design Knowledge Representation: An Ontological Perspective

We present a preliminary high-level formal theory, grounded on knowledge representation techniques and foundational ontologies, for the uniform and integrated representation of the different kinds of (quali- tative and quantitative) knowledge involved in the designing process. We discuss the conceptual nature of engineering design by individuating and analyzing the involved notions. These notions are then formally charac- terized by extending the DOLCE foundational ontology. Our ultimate purpose is twofold: (i) to contribute to foundational issues of design; and (ii) to support the development of advanced modelling systems for (qualitative and quantitative) representation of design knowledge

Features and Components in Product Models

Product structures are represented in engineering models by depicting and linking components, features and assemblies. Their understanding requires knowledge of both design and manufacturing practices, and yet further contextual reasoning is needed to read them correctly. Since these representations are essen- tial to the engineering activities, the lack of a clear and explicit semantics of these models hampers the use of information systems for their assessment and exploita- tion. We study this problem by identifying different interpretations of structure rep- resentations, and then discuss the formal properties that a suitable language needs for representing components, features and combinations of these. We show that the representation of components and features require a non-standard mereology

Matrix metalloproteinases and their tissue inhibitors after selective laser trabeculoplasty in pseudoexfoliative secondary glaucoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aim of this study was to assess changes in metalloproteinases (MMP-2) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases (TIMP-2) following selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) in patients with pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (PEXG).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We enrolled 15 patients with PEXG and cataracts (PEXG-C group) and good intraocular pressure (IOP) controlled with β-blockers and dorzolamide eye drops who were treated by cataract phacoemulsification and 15 patients with pseudoexfoliative glaucoma (PEXG-SLT group). The PEXG-SLT patients underwent a trabeculectomy for uncontrolled IOP in the eye that showed increased IOP despite the maximum drug treatment with β-blockers and dorzolamide eye drops and after ineffective selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT). The control group consisted of 15 subjects with cataracts. Aqueous humor was aspirated during surgery from patients with PEXG-C, PEXG-SLT and from matched control patients with cataracts during cataract surgery or trabeculectomy. The concentrations of MMP-2 and TIMP-2 in the aqueous humor were assessed with commercially available ELISA kits.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In PEXG-SLT group in the first 10 days after SLT treatment a significant reduction in IOP was observed: 25.8 ± 1.9 vs 18.1.0 ± 1.4 mm/Hg (p < 0.001), but after a mean time of 31.5 ± 7.6 days IOP increased and returned to pretreatment levels: 25.4 ± 1.6 mm/Hg (p < 0.591). Therefore a trabeculectomy was considered necessary.</p> <p>The MMP-2 in PEXG-C was 57.77 ± 9.25 μg/ml and in PEXG-SLT was 58.52 ± 9.66 μg/ml (p < 0.066). TIMP-2 was 105.19 ± 28.53 μg/ml in PEXG-C and 105.96 ± 27.65 μg/ml in PEXG-SLT (p < 0.202). The MMP-2/TIMP-2 ratio in the normal subjects was 1.11 ± 0.44. This ratio increase to 1.88 ± 0.65 in PEXG-C (p < 0.001) and to 1.87 ± 0.64 in PEXG-SLT (p < 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference between the PEXG-C and PEXG-SLT ratios (p < 0.671).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This case series suggest that IOP elevation after SLT can be a serious adverse event in some PEXG patients. The IOP increase in these cases would be correlated to the failure to decrease the TIMP-2/MMP-2 ratio.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials <b>ISRCTN79745214</b></p

Ontological foundations for feature-based product modelling

The work presented in the thesis strives from the need of providing ontological foundations for product knowledge management; in particular, it provides an ontological characterisation of engineering features on the grounds of foundational theories of ontology engineering. Inasmuch as feature-based models are employed for disparate application tasks, on the one side we develop a high-level understanding of features by distinguishing the domain entities that are modelled in their terms. In this manner, we aim at an ontology that is not strictly committed to specific application requirements but it is broadly applicable to product knowledge representation. On the other hand, we focus on the representation of (some aspects of) the physical layouts of material products. The notion of form feature plays a relevant role in this context and attention will be paid in the different ways in which it can be understood and represented according to engineering conceptualisations

Ontology for Analytic Claims in Music

ADBIS 2022 Short Papers, Doctoral Consortium and Workshops: DOING, K-GALS, MADEISD, MegaData, SWODCH, Turin, Italy, September 5–8, 2022, Proceeding