GFO Part I Basic Principles



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			Onto-Med >> Theories >> GFO Part I Basic Principles
			Overview General Formal Ontology (GFO)	Next: 1 Introduction General Formal Ontology (GFO) A Foundational Ontology Integrating Objects and Processes Heinrich Herre, Barbara Heller $^\dagger$ , Patryk Burek, Robert Hoehndorf, Frank Loebe, Hannes Michalek Part I: Basic Principles Version 1.0 Abstract: This report is a living document of the Research Group Ontologies in Medicine (Onto-Med) which represents work in progress towards a proposal for an integrated system of foundational ontologies. It will be applied to several fields of medicine, biomedicine, and biology, and a number of applications are carried out in collaboration with the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Coordination Center for Clinical Trials at the University of Leipzig. The General Formal Ontology (GFO) is a component of the Integrated System of Foundational Ontologies (ISFO), and ISFO is a part of the Integrated Framework for the Development and Application of Ontologies (IFDAO). The predecessor of IFDAO was the GOL project which was launched in 1999 as a collaborative research effort of the Institute of Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (IMISE) and the Institute of Informatics (IfI) at the University of Leipzig. 1 Introduction 1.1 Formal Ontology and Information Systems 1.2 General Organization of ISFO 1.3 Applications 1.4 Related Work 2 Basic Assumptions and Logical Methods 2.1 Philosophical Assumptions 2.1.1 Categories 2.1.2 Existence and Modes of Being 2.2 The Axiomatic Method 2.3 Representation of Ontologies 2.3.1 Model-theoretical Languages 2.3.2 Graph-theoretical Systems 2.4 Translations and Ontological Mappings 2.4.1 Semantic Translations 2.4.2 Ontological Mappings and Reductions 3 Meta-Ontological Architecture of GFO 3.1 Meta-Languages and Meta-Categories 3.1.1 Meta-Languages 3.1.2 Categorial Abstraction 3.2 Abstract Top Level 3.3 Abstract Core Level 3.4 Basic Level 4 Ontological Levels 5 Space and Time 5.1 Time 5.2 Space 6 Basic Categories of Individuals 6.1 Endurants, Presentials, and Persistants 6.2 Processes 6.3 Templates of Individuals 7 Material Structures 7.1 Material Structures, Space, and Time 7.2 Material Structures and Substrates 7.3 Boundaries of Material Structures 7.4 Material Persistants and Object-Process Integration 8 Occurrents 8.1 Processes and Time, Process Boundaries, and Processual Roles 8.2 Related Notions 8.2.1 Changes 8.2.2 Discrete vs. Continuous Processes and States 8.2.3 Simple and Complex Processes 8.2.4 Histories 8.3 Relating Processes to Space 8.4 Process Classifications 9 Properties 9.1 Property Universals and Their Values 9.2 Property Individuals and Their Values 9.3 Classification of Property Universals 10 Relations and Facts 10.1 Relations, Relators and Relational Roles 10.2 Facts and Propositions 11 Situoids, Situations, and Configurations 11.1 Situations and Configurations 11.2 Situoids and Configuroids 12 Roles 12.1 General Approach 12.2 Classification of Roles 12.2.1 Relational Roles 12.2.2 Processual Roles 12.2.3 Social Roles 12.3 Meta-level Status of Roles 13 Functions 14 Ontologically Basic Relations and Basic Categories 14.1 Entity and Existential Dependency 14.2 Set and Set-theoretical Relations 14.3 Instantiation and Categories 14.4 Property Relations 14.5 Parthood Relation 14.5.1 Abstract and Domain-specific Part-of Relations 14.5.2 Part-of Relation for Sets 14.5.3 Part-of-Relations for Time and Space 14.5.4 Part-of Relation for Material Structures 14.5.5 Part-of-Relation for Processes 14.5.6 Role-of 14.6 Boundaries, Coincidence, and Adjacence 14.7 Relation of Concrete Individuals to Space and Time 14.7.1 Material Structures 14.7.2 Processes 14.7.3 Framing 14.8 Participation 14.9 Association 14.10 Ontical Connectedness 14.11 Causality 15 Applications of GFO 15.1 Examples 15.1.1 Example for Comparison: The Statue 15.1.1.1 Source Material 15.1.1.2 Ontological Analysis 15.1.1.3 Comparison with the DOLCE Formalization 15.1.2 Race Example 15.1.2.1 Source Material 15.1.2.2 Ontological Analysis 15.1.3 Staging Example 15.1.3.1 Source Material 15.1.3.2 Ontological Embedding into GFO 15.1.3.3 Domain-specific Extension 15.2 Application of GFO to Biomedical Ontologies 16 Comparisons With Other Foundational Ontologies 16.1 Comparison to DOLCE 16.1.1 Ontological Levels 16.1.2 Classes, Universals, and Individuals 16.1.3 Time and Space 16.1.4 Presentials, Persistants, and Endurants 16.1.5 Properties, Property Values, Qualities, and Qualia 16.1.6 Processes and Perdurants 16.1.7 Further Issues 16.2 Comparison to Sowa's Ontology 16.2.1 Introduction: Construction Method 16.2.2 Physical and Abstract Categories 16.2.3 Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness 16.2.4 Continuants and Occurrents 16.2.5 Combination of the Distinctions 16.2.6 Conclusion Acknowledgements Appendix: GFO Hierarchy Bibliography About this document ... Next: 1 Introduction Robert Hoehndorf 2006-10-18