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Seminar on Foundations of Ontological Analysis and Conceptual Modeling

Organization:
CUSO - 3ème Cycle Romand d'Informatique
Professors Christine Parent & Thibault Estier, ISI, University of Lausanne
Professor Stefano Spaccapietra, LBD, EPFL, Lausanne

About the Topic
Ontology science began in ancient times as a fundamental part of philosophical analysis and categorization of what exists. In recent years, the emergence of the semantic web approach has raised a tremendous interest in ontologies as the kernel meaning-provider for future application. Ontologies enable complex computerized information systems that are reliant on robust and coherent representations of their subject matter. The systematization and elaboration of such representations and their associated reasoning techniques constitute today the modern discipline of formal ontology, which is now being applied to such diverse domains as artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, bioinformatics, GIS, knowledge engineering, information retrieval, and the Semantic Web at large. Researchers in all these areas are becoming increasingly aware of the need for serious engagement with ontology, understood as a general theory of the types of entities and relations making up their respective domains of enquiry, to provide a solid foundation for their work.
This seminar is a unique opportunity to deeply explore and get familiar with the fundamentals of the ontology world and how to build on these to improve our conceptual modeling expertise.

About the Speaker
Nicola Guarino is one of the best known and most talented speakers on ontologies, both from the formal and the application perspectives. He is the scientific director of the ISTC-CNR Laboratory for Applied Ontology in Trento, Italy.
He has been active in the ontology field since 1991, developing a strongly interdisciplinary approach that combines together Computer Science, Philosophy, and Linguistics, and relies on Logic as a unifying paradigm. As early as 1993 he organized in Padua the first International Workshop on Formal Ontology in Conceptual Analysis and Knowledge Representation, and since then he has gained a well-known international leadership concerning the ontological foundations of conceptual modeling and knowledge engineering, and more in general the role of semantic technologies in information systems, in multi-agent systems, and in natural language processing. His impact is testified by a long list of widely cited papers, and many keynote talks and tutorials in major conferences involving different communities. Among the most well known results of his lab, the OntoClean methodology and the DOLCE foundational ontology.
He is co-editor-in-chief of the Applied Ontology journal (IOS Press).
For more information: http://www.loa-cnr.it/guarino.html


Abstract (from the speaker)

This course is intended to offer a compact, self-contained introduction to the basic tools of formal ontological analysis and their practical role in conceptual modeling and knowledge representation. I will first introduce the notion of the "ontological level", motivating the need of ontologically non-neutral representation formalisms; I will then present the basic notions of formal ontological analysis (like essence, identity, unity, plurality, dependence) in the light of their impact on the foundations of conceptual modeling and knowledge representation.
In the second part of the course I will introduce the OntoClean methodology and the DOLCE ontology, which are being used in several projects around the world. The former is used to analyze and evaluate the ontological adequacy of taxonomic relationships, the latter is an upper ontology based on carefully designed distinctions among objects, events, qualities, and abstract entities. Concrete conceptual modeling examples will be made, mainly taken from enterprise modeling and e-government applications, including in particular the analysis of services and organizations.

PROGRAM

Monday, March 29, 9:00-17:30

•    Focusing on content: concepts and signs
Short motivations for ontological analysis as the study of content qua content. Introduction on cognitive nature of concepts, the meaning triangle and the difference between intensions and extensions, nature of conceptualizations.
•    What is an ontology
Different kinds of knowledge, ontological commitment of language, difference between philosophical and computational ontologies, difference between ontologies and other models.
•    The ontological level
Different kinds of knowledge representation languages; role of formal ontological distinctions in knowledge representation languages
•    From data and knowledge bases to ontology-driven information systems
How ontologies play a role in all components of an information system, both at run time and development time

•    The basic tools of formal ontology
Preliminary presentation of the main “chapters” of formal ontology: essence and identity, parts, unity and plurality, dependence, composition and constitution, properties and qualities. Very short introduction to mereology (the theory or parts). Revisitation of basic notions concerning instances and classes.
•    Essence, identity, unity, dependence, and constitution
Introduction to the main notions used in the OntoClean methodology: essential properties, rigidity, and unity. Introduction to the notion of constitution for physical objects.
•    Modelling roles
Analysis of the notion of role in conceptual modeling. Modeling puzzles concerning roles. Solutions in the light of ontological analysis.
•    The basic categories of the DOLCE ontology: objects, events, qualities
Introduction to the motivations and the basic upper-level distinctions of the DOLCE ontologies, used in several applications all over the world.

•    The ontology of social reality: services and organizations
Ontology of “socially constructed entities”. Organizations as the protypical example of socially constructed entities. Ontological analysis of the notion of “service” in its broadest sense.
General discussion