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CLASSIFYING PROCESSES: AN ESSAY IN APPLIED ONTOLOGY
Author(s) -
Smith Barry
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
ratio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-9329
pISSN - 0034-0006
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9329.2012.00557.x
Subject(s) - ontology , computer science , representation (politics) , domain (mathematical analysis) , upper ontology , formal ontology , process ontology , ontology components , information retrieval , epistemology , data science , suggested upper merged ontology , domain knowledge , knowledge management , mathematics , philosophy , mathematical analysis , politics , political science , law
We begin by describing recent developments in the burgeoning discipline of applied ontology, focusing especially on the ways ontologies are providing a means for the consistent representation of scientific data. We then introduce Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), a top‐level ontology that is serving as domain‐neutral framework for the development of lower level ontologies in many specialist disciplines, above all in biology and medicine. BFO is a bicategorial ontology, embracing both three‐dimensionalist (continuant) and four‐dimensionalist (occurrent) perspectives within a single framework. We examine how BFO‐conformant domain ontologies can deal with the consistent representation of scientific data deriving from the measurement of processes of different types, and we outline on this basis the first steps of an approach to the classification of such processes within the BFO framework. 1