LoLa: a modular ontology of logics, languages and translations

The Distributed Ontology Language (DOL), currently being standardised within the OntoIOp (Ontology Integration and Interoperability) activity of ISO/TC 37/SC 3, aims at providing a unified framework for (i) ontologies formalised in heterogeneous logics, (ii) modular ontologies, (iii) links between ontologies, and (iv) annotation of ontologies.\ud \ud This paper focuses on the LoLa ontology, which formally describes DOL's vocabulary for logics, ontology languages (and their serialisations), as well as logic translations. Interestingly, to adequately formalise the logical relationships between these notions, LoLa itself needs to be axiomatised heterogeneously---a task for which we choose DOL. Namely, we use the logic RDF for ABox assertions, OWL for basic axiomatisations of various modules concerning logics, languages, and translations, FOL for capturing certain closure rules that are not expressible in OWL (For the sake of tool availability it is still helpful not to map everything to FOL.), and circumscription for minimising the extension of concepts describing default translations

An Institutional Framework for Heterogeneous Formal Development in UML

We present a framework for formal software development with UML. In contrast to previous approaches that equip UML with a formal semantics, we follow an institution based heterogeneous approach. This can express suitable formal semantics of the different UML diagram types directly, without the need to map everything to one specific formalism (let it be first-order logic or graph grammars). We show how different aspects of the formal development process can be coherently formalised, ranging from requirements over design and Hoare-style conditions on code to the implementation itself. The framework can be used to verify consistency of different UML diagrams both horizontally (e.g., consistency among various requirements) as well as vertically (e.g., correctness of design or implementation w.r.t. the requirements)

Fighting behaviour in Broscus cephalotes

Die Kämpfe der Hirschkäfer sind allgemein bekannt. Die Männchen versuchen dabei, sich gegenseitig mit ihren Mandibeln umzuwerfen oder vom Stamm zu hebeln. Hier kämpfen Rivalen um die Weibchen. Das gilt nach der Beschreibung von STANEK (1984) auch für die Kämpfe des Scarabaeiden Lethrus apterus. CROWSON (1981) erwähnt zusätzlich Dynastinae. Über Kampfverhalten bei Carabiden gibt es nur äußerst spärliche Hinweise. Das Kampfverhalten von Scarites buparius wurde von ALICATA et al. (1980) beschrieben. BRANDMAYR (mdl.) hat Kämpfe bei Caterus beobachtet, allerdings nur zweimal. Angeregt von ZETTO BRANDMAYR et al. (2000), die einen Zusammenhang fanden zwischen dem Bau der Mandibeln und der besonders guten Fähigkeit von Siagona europaea, Ameisen zu fangen und zu verzehren, wurde die Nahrungswahl von Broscus cephalotes untersucht (MOSSAKOWSKI 2003). Das Kämpfen dieser Käfer untereinander war nicht zu übersehen.Broscus cephalotes attacks everything, also con-specific individuals. This may happen by a Broscus sitting at the opening of its tube or when running around and another beetle runs across. In most cases, fights started and ended without any obvious reason. A real hunting behaviour could not be observed. The fighting behaviour can be characterized as catch-ascatch- can and, in our experiments, was displayed most frequently under artificial daytime conditions. It is interpreted as fighting for prey

Applications of Metric Coinduction

Metric coinduction is a form of coinduction that can be used to establish properties of objects constructed as a limit of finite approximations. One can prove a coinduction step showing that some property is preserved by one step of the approximation process, then automatically infer by the coinduction principle that the property holds of the limit object. This can often be used to avoid complicated analytic arguments involving limits and convergence, replacing them with simpler algebraic arguments. This paper examines the application of this principle in a variety of areas, including infinite streams, Markov chains, Markov decision processes, and non-well-founded sets. These results point to the usefulness of coinduction as a general proof technique

Qualitative Constraint Calculi: Heterogeneous Verification of Composition Tables

In the domain of qualitative constraint reasoning, a subfield of AI which has evolved in the past 25 years, a large number of calculi for efficient reasoning about spatial and temporal entities has been developed. Reasoning techniques developed for these constraint calculi typically rely on so-called composition tables of the calculus at hand, which allow for replacing semantic reasoning by symbolic operations. Often these composition tables are developed in a quite informal, pictorial manner and hence composition tables are prone to errors. In view of possible safety critical applications of qualitative calculi, however, it is desirable to formally verify these composition tables. In general, the verification of composition tables is a tedious task, in particular in cases where the semantics of the calculus depends on higher-order constructs such as sets. In this paper we address this problem by presenting a heterogeneous proof method that allows for combining a higher-order proof assistance system (such as Isabelle) with an automatic (first order) reasoner (such as SPASS or VAMPIRE). The benefit of this method is that the number of proof obligations that is to be proven interactively with a semi-automatic reasoner can be minimized to an acceptable level