Processes endure, whereas events occur

In this essay, we aim to help clarify the nature of so-called 'occurrences' by attributing distinct modes of existence and persistence to processes and events. In doing so, we break with the perdurantism claimed by DOLCE’s authors and we distance ourselves from mereological analyzes like those recently conducted by Guarino to distinguish between 'processes' and 'episodes'. In line with the works of Stout and Galton, we first bring closer (physical) processes and objects in their way of enduring by proposing for processes a notion of dynamic presence (contrasting with a static presence for objects). Then, on the events side, we attribute to them the status of abstract entities by identifying them with objects of thought (by individual and collective subjects), and this allows us to distinguish for themselves between existence and occurrence. We therefore identify them with psychological (or even social) endurants, which may contingently occur

Examples of polynomial identities distinguishing the Galois objects over finite-dimensional Hopf algebras

We define polynomial H-identities for comodule algebras over a Hopf algebra H and establish general properties for the corresponding T-ideals. In the case H is a Taft algebra or the Hopf algebra E(n), we exhibit a finite set of polynomial H-identities which distinguish the Galois objects over H up to isomorphism.Comment: 12 pages. V2 is an extended version of v1: Sections 2.3 and 3 are new; title has been changed and references added. V3: a few typos correcte

Physical processes, their life and their history

Here, I lay the foundations of a high-level ontology of particulars whose structuring principles differ radically from the 'continuant' vs. 'occurrent' distinction traditionally adopted in applied ontology. These principles are derived from a new analysis of the ontology of “occurring” or “happening” entities. Firstly, my analysis integrates recent work on the ontology of processes, which brings them closer to objects in their mode of existence and persistence by assimilating them to continuant particulars. Secondly, my analysis distinguishes clearly between processes and events, in order to make the latter abstract objects of thought (alongside propositions). Lastly, I open my ontological inventory to properties and facts, the existence of which is commonly admitted. By giving specific roles to these primitives, the framework allows one to account for static and dynamic aspects of the physical world and for the way that subjects conceive its history: facts account for the life of substances (physical objects and processes), whereas events enable cognitive subjects to account for the life story of substances

Integration of the DOLCE top-level ontology into the OntoSpec methodology

This report describes a new version of the OntoSpec methodology for ontology building. Defined by the LaRIA Knowledge Engineering Team (University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France), OntoSpec aims at helping builders to model ontological knowledge (upstream of formal representation). The methodology relies on a set of rigorously-defined modelling primitives and principles. Its application leads to the elaboration of a semi-informal ontology, which is independent of knowledge representation languages. We recently enriched the OntoSpec methodology by endowing it with a new resource, the DOLCE top-level ontology defined at the LOA (IST-CNR, Trento, Italy). The goal of this integration is to provide modellers with additional help in structuring application ontologies, while maintaining independence vis-\`{a}-vis formal representation languages. In this report, we first provide an overview of the OntoSpec methodology's general principles and then describe the DOLCE re-engineering process. A complete version of DOLCE-OS (i.e. a specification of DOLCE in the semi-informal OntoSpec language) is presented in an appendix

The Rates of Second-Order Gas Reactions

It has been shown that the most accurate existing measurements of the rates of second-order gas reactions show deviations from pure exponential temperature dependence, which can be empirically represented by a linear increase of the energy of activation with temperature. It is pointed out that this requires the chance of reaction to increase with the energy of the collision in a continuous fashion. Assuming a particular form for this variation, a theory is worked out which predicts that this linear increase shall fail at temperatures only slightly higher than those yet reached in the hydrogen iodide decomposition. There is reason to believe that the numerical results of this theory are substantially correct, even though the detailed assumptions are doubtless far from right