Abstract
Direct representation knowledgebases can enhance and even provide an alternative to document-centered digital libraries. Here we consider realist semantic modeling of everyday activities and infrastructures in such knowledgebases. Because we want to integrate a wide variety of topics, a collection of ontologies (a foundry) and a range of other knowledge resources are needed. We first consider modeling the routine procedures that support human activities and technologies. Next, we examine the interactions of technologies with aspects of social organization. Then, we consider approaches and issues for developing and validating explanations of the relationships among various entities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
In some cases, “object-oriented” simply means entity or object-based. We use “object-oriented” in the stronger, programming-language sense of objects that include specific processes and procedures.
- 2.
The descriptions of Thick Entities we envision are analogous to the descriptions of Model or Reference Organisms. The latter often includes anatomies (i.e., partonomies) and, less often, descriptions of related Procedures and Mechanisms.
- 3.
A Mechanism describes how a Process is implemented. A Procedure is like a workflow with flow control and decision points. There is no direct way for BFO to represent control statements such as loops and conditionals needed for Procedures, although it is possible to represent control statements with OWL on an ad hoc basis and to use those representations in combination with BFO. A pure BFO modeling language should be developed that, like the C programming language, is self-compiling.
The distinction in some object-oriented languages between “private methods” and “public methods” can also be applied to Thick Entities. Private methods are those which interact internally only with other Parts of a given Thick Entity whereas Public Methods support interaction with other Thick Entities.
- 4.
- 5.
Smith (Social Objects, http://ontology.buffalo.edu/socobj.htm) claims that social entities are entirely consistent with the BFO framework. There has been significant work on social ontology by some of the designers of the BFO framework but there does not yet seem to have been a concerted effort to directly integrate that work into the BFO. Much of the discussion about social ontologies for BFO has focused on commitments and obligations [21]. Other specific proposals have focused on contracts, economics, and social aspects of medicine [14].
- 6.
A full Functionalist model could have a web of Functions that address Needs. Mechanisms which satisfy Needs may themselves generate new Needs. BFO seems to lean toward a Structuralist view but its inclusion of Procedures with an object-oriented flavor suggests it could become more Functionalist.
- 7.
For an internally consistent ontology/model, all terms in the definitions should also be included in the ontology.
- 8.
Much of what is termed systems analysis appears focused more on process re-engineering than on systematic analysis of existing systems. Case studies can support what might properly be considered as systems analysis. Specifically, convergent case studies can be useful to evaluate possible causal mechanisms [12].
- 9.
The links of other entities (such as Locations, Dependent Continuants, and Processes) to the Object forms a sort of faceting. Indeed, it is easy to see the similarity to Raganathan’s PMEST and to FrameNet’s Frame Elements [2]. However, such entity-based faceting should be distinguished from other faceted classification systems which are subject based.
References
Allen, R.B.: Toward an Interactive Directory for Norfolk, Nebraska: 1899–1900. IFLA Newspaper and Genealogy Section Meeting, Singapore (2013). arXiv:1308.5395
Allen, R.B.: Frame-Based Models of Communities and Their History. In: Nadamoto, A., Jatowt, A., Wierzbicki, A., Leidner, J.L. (eds.) SocInfo 2013. LNCS, vol. 8359, pp. 110–119. Springer, Heidelberg (2014). Histoinformatics. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-55285-4_9
Allen, R.B.: Issues for direct representation of history. In: ICADL 2016, pp. 218–224. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49304-6_26
Allen, R.B.: Rich semantic models and knowledgebases for highly-structured scientific communication (2017). arXiv:1708.08423
Allen, R.B.: Rich semantic modeling, in preparation
Allen, R.B., Song, H., Lee, B.E., Lee, J.Y.: Describing scholarly information resources with a unified temporal map. In: ICADL 2106, pp. 212–217. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49304-6_25
Arp, R., Smith, B., Spear, A.D.: Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology. MIT Press, Cambridge (2015). http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/bfo/Reference
Conway, S.: Thai Textiles. British Museum Press, London (1992)
Chu, Y.M., Allen, R.B.: Formal representation of socio-legal roles and functions for the description of history. In: TPDL, pp. 379–385 (2016). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43997-6_30
Diamond, J.: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Norton, New York (1997)
Gasser, L.: Information and collaboration from a social/organizational perspective. In: Nof, S.Y. (ed.) Information and Collaboration Models of Integration, pp. 237–261. Kluwer, the Netherlands (1994)
George, A.L., Bennett, A.: Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)
Gibbon, E.: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1845). www.gutenberg.org/files/731/731-h/731-h.htm
Jansen, L.: Four rules for classifying social entities. In: Hagengruber, R., Riss, U. (eds.) Philosophy, Computing and Information Science, pp. 189–200. Pickering & Chatto, London (2014)
Lee, B.W., Lee, Y.S. (eds.): Music of Korea. National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts, Seoul (2007)
Maslow, A.H.: A theory of human motivation. Psychol. Rev. 50, 370–396 (1943)
Parsons, T.: The Structure of Social Action. Free Press, Boston (1968)
Peregrine, P., Moses, Y.T., Goodman, A., Lamphere, L., Peacock, J.L.: What is science in anthropology? Am. Anthropol. 114, 593–597 (2012). doi:10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01510.x
Roberts, C.: The Logic of Historical Explanation. Pennsylvania State University Press, State College (1995)
Schilbrack, K.: A realist social ontology of religion. J. Relig. 27, 161–178 (2017). doi:10.1080/0048721X.2016.1203834
Smith, B.: Searle and de Soto: the new ontology of the social world. In: Smith, B., Mark, D., Ehrlich, I. (eds) The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality, Open Court (2015). http://ontology.buffalo.edu/document_ontology/Searle&deSoto.pdf
Smith, B., Ashburner, M., Rosse, C., Bard, J., Bug, W., Ceusters, W., Goldberg, L.J., Eilbeck, K., Ireland, A., Mungall, C.J., Leontis, N., Rocca-Serra, P., Ruttenberg, A., Sansone, S.A., Scheuermann, R.H., Shah, N., Whetzel, P.L., Lewis, S.: The OBO foundry: coordinated evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integration. Nat. Biotechnol. 25, 1251–1255 (2007). doi:10.1038/nbt1346
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Allen, R.B., Yang, E., Timakum, T. (2017). A Foundry of Human Activities and Infrastructures. In: Choemprayong, S., Crestani, F., Cunningham, S. (eds) Digital Libraries: Data, Information, and Knowledge for Digital Lives. ICADL 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10647. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70232-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70232-2_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70231-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70232-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)