]> COSMO ontology, Version 0.64-917. Last edit 20100412 by Patrick Cassidy rev 849 is modularized Has 21 top-level classes under 'Thing' Uses elements of the OpenCyc OWL version 0.78, SUMO, BFO and DOLCE ontologies, as well as elements created specifically for COSMO. Parts of COSMO were derived from or closely aligned with elements of other public ontologies such as OpenCyc, SUMO, and BFO,in order to ease the translation of COSMO ontologies to those other structures, but the conceptual structure of COSMO (hierarchy and relations) is too different from those other ontologies to allow simplistic automatic translation; it is anticipated that translation will be possible, but will require 'bridging axioms' to convert the terms and syntax of COSMO to those of any other ontology, and vice-versa. The meanings of the COSMO elements must be interpreted only from the structure of the COSMO ontology and from the full COSMO documentation. According to the documentation of those other ontologies, they are freely usable by the public, though they remain copyrighted by their originators (more detail below). No copyright restrictions are attached to materials added in the COSMO project, therefore the only copyright restrictions for use of this ontology are those placed by the developers of the OpenCyc, SUMO, and BFO on parts derived directly from those works. Those derived parts will include some of the labels, and parts of the documentation. Relation of COSMO to other ontologies: The COSMO ontology has a structure and basic viewpoint that differs in some significant parts from that of the ontologies from which it has derived materials, and the main parts of the hierarchical structure and relations are not significantly derived from any of the referenced ontologies. Most basically, the representations were intended to adhere as closely as possible to linguistic intuitions about the meaning and usage of English terms, while specifying the meanings in a logically precise manner. Every element added to COSMO is individually evaluated for its utility and validity within the conceptual structure of the COSMO ontology, and is not derived or adopted solely or mainly on the basis of the appearance of a similar concept in another ontology. Certain individual subtype relations are similar to those in OpenCyc or SUMO; but because the basic hierarchical structure of COSMO differs from the other ontologies, logical inference using these relations will arrive at conclusions that cannot be aligned directly with either OpenCyc or SUMO. No simplistic mapping between COSMO and these other ontologies is likely to enable accurate inference. The documentation derived from OpenCyc and SUMO is provided as a means to reference similar concepts in those other ontologies, and to explain similarities and differences, for the convenience of those who are familiar with those ontologies. Contents derived from OpenCyc and SUMO are copyrighted and made freely available for public use under the terms found in the documentation for those works (see below). Materials added specifically for the COSMO project are not copyrighted. The contents derived from SUMO are copyrighted by the IEEE and made freely available for public use. For more detail see: see http://www.ontologyportal.org A description of the SUMO project can be found in: Niles, I., and Pease, A. 2001. Towards a Standard Upper Ontology. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS-2001), Chris Welty and Barry Smith, eds, Ogunquit, Maine, October 17-19, 2001. The Contents of the OpenCyc OWL version used in this project are found at: http://www.cyc.com/2004/06/04/cyc OpenCyc materials are copyrighted and licensed for free public use under the GNU 'LGPL' license. The Opencyc documentation reads: ************ OpenCyc copyright notice ****************** Copyright Information OpenCyc Knowledge Base Copyright 2001-2004 Cycorp, Inc., Austin, TX, USA. All rights reserved. OpenCyc Knowledge Server Copyright 2001-2004 Cycorp, Inc., Austin, TX, USA. All rights reserved. Other copyrights may be found in various files. The OpenCyc Knowledge Base The OpenCyc Knowledge Base consists of code, written in the declarative language CycL, that represents or supports the representation of facts and rules pertaining to consensus reality. OpenCyc is licensed using the GNU Lesser General Public License, whose text can also be found on this volume. The OpenCyc CycL code base is the "library" referred to in the LGPL license. The terms of this license equally apply to renamings and other logically equivalent reformulations of the Knowledge Base (or portions thereof) in any natural or formal language. See http://www.opencyc.org for more information. ************ OpenCyc copyright notice ****************** Definitions described as coming from the 'Random House Webster' (RHW) refer to the Electronic Dictionary 'Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary' on CD (2002) from Random House, Inc. and Multimedia 2000 Inc.(a paperback version is still available at: http://www.randomhouse.com/category/reference/) Some of the entries have annotation references to WordNet ('wordnet' and 'wnsense' relations). The WordNet version referenced is WordNet 2.1 (see http://wordnet.princeton.edu/). Because the WordNet hierarchy differs from that of COSMO, these pointers are only informative, and may not be useful for accurate automatic conversion of WordNet sense tags to the corresponding senses in COSMO, but the utility of this mapping needs to be investigated. InheritableType is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class which is used to identify those metatypes which, when specified as the parent Type for some class (Type) in the ontology, will also by implication be the parent Type for all subtypes of any Type explicitly designated as an instance of any subtype of 'InheritableType'. This is a primitive mechanism to permit translation of this ontology among various formats, while permitting the use of reasoning engines which require that arguments to relations, if restricted as to Type, be instances of some specified Type. There are some ontologies, such as SUMO, using first-order logic, which permit one to specify that an argument to a relation must be a *subtype* of some Type in the ontology, rather than an *instance* of some Type. OWL and some other reasoning engines do not permit that kind of restriction. For convenience, to allow this ontology to be used in multiple reasoning engines and to be automatically translated into multiple formats, this metatype is provided and so that one can avoid having to specify the metatype instance of every Type that is to be used as an argument to a relation. When using this ontology in an inference engine that requires explicit types, it will be necessary to add the InheritableType as a Type of each subtype of any Type that is specified to be an instance of such an inheritable type. That addition will have to be one in a preprocessing stage before using that inference engine. An axiom may be added to an ontology using FOL to specify that all subtypes of a Type ?T that is an instance of an InheritableType ?MT will also be instances of that InheritableType: (=> (and (isanInstanceOf ?T ?MT) (isaSubclassOf ?MT InheritableType)) (forall (?ST) (=> (isaSubclassOf ?ST ?T) (isanInstanceOf ?ST ?MT)))) This axiom will permit the ontologist to avoid specifying the metatype for every subtype of the root type of that Type tree, in those ontology implementations that can use FOL. 'LogicalFunctionType' is a metaclass used to signal that a particular type (class) represents a concept that needs some functional procedure to proeprly represent. This is similar in use to the type 'LogicalFunction', but it is used to label types rather than instances. LogicalFunctions in COSMO are ontology elements that are either vague or context-dependent, and are use to represent interpretations of information that is specified with vague or context-dependent terms. Where possible, the LogicalFunction may be implemented by a procedure that attempts to narrow the range of meanings, but if that is not possible, the default vague meanings (being a set of possible meanings) is used in the representation. RoleType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Role as their argument. 'QuantifierType' is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Quantifier as their argument. AttributeValueType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of AttributeValue as their argument. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Difference as one of their arguments.. QualitativeAttributeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for taste attributes and an argument restriction for some relations on QualitativeAttributeValues This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations. QuantitativeAttributeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for QuantitativeAttributes (length, mass), and an argument restriction for various relations on AttributeType types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. IntensiveAttributeValueType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of IntensiveAttributeValue as their argument. @ToDo: values should be disjoint with PertainingAttributeValues,but as yet (r915) no systematic search to add type to PertainingAttributeValues. PertainingAttributeValueType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of PertainingAttributeValue as their argument. @ToDo: values should be disjoint with PertainingAttributeValues,but as yet (r915) ,but as no systematic search to add type to PertainingAttributeValues. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Event as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Event as one of their arguments. This is used specifically for the restriction on 'InsuranceAgreement'. Each instance of InsuredEventType is a type of Event that commonly is insured against in some InsuranceAgreement. Many kinds of Events *can* in principle be insured against, but this metatype is for those types of Events that *commonly* are insured against, or actually *have been* insured against, in some aplication that uses this ontology. ObjectType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for objects, whether abstract or physical, and an argument restriction for various relations on Object types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. 'AccountType' is a metatype which is a specialization of 'ObjectType'; it can serve as type for objects, whether abstract or physical, and an argument restriction for various relations on Object types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. 'TimeIntervalType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for TimeIntervals, and can and an argument restriction for various relations on TimeInterval types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. PhysicalObjectType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical objects and an argument restriction for various relations on Physical Object types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. RuleType is a metatype which is a specialization of 'ObjectType' that can serve as type for Rules (laws, theories) and an argument restriction for various relations on Rule types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. 'PropositionType' is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for Propositions and an argument restriction for various relations on Propositions types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. 'hasPluralForm' relates a COSMO entry to an English noun or word combination that is the closest lexicalized representation of the meaning;this should be used only if there is also a singular form represented.. 'hasPluralForm' relates a COSMO entry to an English noun or word combination that is the closest lexicalized representation of the meaning. Other forms such as plurals and infiinitives and past tenses are represented by other AnnotationProperty's. This is used only occasionally. Globally unique identifier, fromOpenCyc 0.78. NOTE that this is a formatted string having 32 alphanumberic characters with embedded hyphens, though it is represented (temporarily) as a simple string here. Another form of 'unique identifier' has 16 characters, and is represented in COSMO as an AbstractString which is a subtype of Identifier. See 'UniqueIdentifier16' Globally Unique ID Points to the Chinese character string (Mandarin, traditional characters) closest in meaning to the intended meaning of the element. See also 'chins' (simplified characters) and 'chinp' (pinyin) for the equivalent simplified and Pininy representations. Chinese-Traditional Points to the Chinese character string (Mandarin, simplifies characters) closest in meaning to the intended meaning of the element. See also 'chint' (traditional characters) and 'chinp' (pinyin) for the equivalent simplified and Pininy representations. Chinese-Simplified Points to the Pinyin representation of the Chinese character string closest in meaning to the intended meaning of the element. See also 'chins' (simplified characters) and 'chint' (traditional characters) for the equivalent simplified and traditional character representations. Chinese-Pinyin Each class of a ColorAttribute forms a region with more specific classes of ColorAttribute forming subregions.. ElementType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical substances and an argument restriction for the relations on chemical elements. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. MetalType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for Metals and an argument restriction for the relations on Metals. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Context as one of their arguments. IT can also be used for types for which namespace prefixes would be convenient to label the instances, such as 'AtomicSymbol'.. A collection of collections and a specialization of #$ChemicalSubstanceType. Each instance of #$ChemicalCompoundTypeByChemicalSpecies is a specialization of #$PartiallyTangible whose instances are defined _only_ by their chemical composition - not by their physical state or any other property. Instances of #$ChemicalCompoundTypeByChemicalSpecies are collections whose instances are completely uniform with each other in terms of chemical structure, e.g., #$Water, #$Caffeine, and #$IronOxide. This collection does not include the chemical elements - such as #$Carbon and #$Oxygen, since there can be multiple types that molecules can be formed out of a single element, e.g. O2 and #$Ozone. Use the broader collection, #$ChemicalSubstanceType, for substances which have a general chemical specification, that is, whose instances do not have exactly the same chemical composition but fall within certain specifications, e.g., #$DNAStuff. bd40a83e-da13-41d6-9955-dc363ad8ec02 VitalityAttributeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for attributes specifyuing vitality (alive, dead) and an argument restriction for some relations on QualitativeAttributes. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations. AttributeTypeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for AttributeTypes (length, mass), and an argument restriction for various relations on AttributeType types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Agent as one of their arguments. All Organisms, plant, animal, microorganism, are of AgentType. MeasurableQuantityType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for MeasurableQuantities, whether abstract or physical, and an argument restriction for various relations on MeasurableQuantity types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. ShapeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for shape attributes and an argument restriction for the hasShape relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations. NOTE: as of v0.50, both shape attributes and specifically shaped objects can be instances of ShapeType. @ToDo - this should probably be differentiated. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take an instance of Pattern as one of their arguments. OrganismObjectType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for LifeForms (including LifeForms that are not true Organisms) and an argument restriction for various relations on specific types of organisms. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. DeviceType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for Devices and an argument restriction for various relations on specific types of Devices. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. NOTE that we allow instances of DeviceType to be considered as a type of agent. FastenerType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for Fasteners and an argument restriction for various relations on specific Fasteners. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. NOTE that we allow instances of DeviceType to be considered as a type of agent. PersonType is a metatype which is a specialization of OrganismType that can serve as type for a Person in its aspect as an animal, rather than a Role, and an argument restriction for various relations on people. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. RoleType is a metaclass that is a subclass of both 'PersonType' and 'RoleType'. It is used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of HumanRole as their argument. PlantType is a metatype which is a specialization of OrganismType that can serve as type for a Plant. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. AnimalType is a metatype which is a specialization of OrganismType that can serve as type for an Animal. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. ActionType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Action as their argument. COSMO note: this metatype has not been used up to v0.54. It includes all actions that need some kind of training beyond mere observation and repetition. Things that need years of training are represented as 'SkilledActivityType'. Inn Chinese, there is a difference in the words used to say one 'knows' how to do somnething, if that thing is learned or not learned (like knowing a person). This seems to be a fundamental and intuitive difference. AN examole is knowing how to speak Chinese. Cyc: This is the collection of activities which must first be learned before they can be performed - i.e., before any role which is a specPred of #$doneBy can be played. be6f173a-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: this metatype has not been used up to v0.54. It may be used to help classify actions that require years of training. This differs from the Cyc interpretation. Cyc: This is the collection of collections of activities which require some specialized skill to perform--i.e., to play any role which is a specPred of #$doneBy. So, all skilled activities are learned, but not all learned activities are skilled. For instance, #$WalkingOnTwoLegs is an instance of #$LearnedActivityType but not an instance of #$SkilledActivityType. Since every normal person learns to walk, it requires no special skill. In contrast, #$Juggling is an instance of #$SkilledActivityType, for most people do not know how to juggle. bdb56b97-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 CommunicationType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Communication as their argument. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Feeling as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Sign as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of SystemCondition as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of AilmentCondition as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of ValuableThing as one of their arguments.. OrganizationType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Organization as their argument. A collection of three disjoint collections, #$OrganizationWithBusinessCustomers, #$OrganizationWithIndividualCustomers, and #$OrganizationWithoutCustomers. The #$Organizations that are instances of the collections which are instances of #$OrganizationByClients are distinguished by the types of customers they serve or by their lack of customers (customers being used here in the sense of #$customers). c0861d7f-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 TendencyType is a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Tendency as one of their arguments. This metaclass is of importance in predicting behaviors over time, and may require probability assignments; therefore is is considered distinct and not a subtype of 'QualitativeAttributeType'.. CapabilityType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Capability as their argument. LimitationType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of Limitation as their argument. TransportationDeviceType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations involving TransportationDevices. MeasureType is a metatype which is a specialization of rdfs:Class that can serve as type for measures and an argument restriction for relations concerning types of measure (Length, Temperature, Color). MeasureType instances may be either AttributeTypes or AttributeValues. It may be better to distingish the two, but as of v. 0.46, the same metaclass is used for the two different aspects of quantitative attributes. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. HabitatType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for regions or physical areas with particular characteristics, and can serve as an argument restriction for the relation 'hasTypicalHabitat' OrganismTypes. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. LifeStageType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that pertain to organisms at particular stages of their life cycle. Instances of 'LifeStageType' are types which may represent time periods (the intervals of time during which an organism is in a specific stage), **or** the organism in that stage. NOTE: this is an unusual usage of metatypes; the instances may be a subtype of one of two disjoint types. (Here, a TimeInterval may implicitly play a 'Role'. @ToDo - can this lead to problems?). The collection of collections of things that are useful in nature. c0c73787-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$ChemicalCompoundTypeByChemicalSpecies. Instances of #$LigandType are collections whose instances are substances capable of surrounding and bonding to a central metal ion, forming a metal complex (or simply complex). In forming a complex, the ligands are considered to coordinate to the metal. 3bc47b54-3937-41d7-9033-bdfc2024a247 OccupationalRoleType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that pertain to Types describing people in occupational roles, such as 'Nurse', 'Firefighter'.. CoveringType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical objects that are subtypes of 'Covering-Object', and an argument restriction for various relations on CoveringObject types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. ContainerType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for containers and an argument restriction for various relations on container types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. PlantPartType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for plant parts and an argument restriction for various relations on parts of plants. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. Each instance of 'ServiceType' is a type that represents a service that some perosn performs for another, often for pay. A Service does not have to be performed for pay every time, but must be performed for pay in some cases. TopicType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on fields of knowledge, whether formal or informal. This type allows assertions about a whole field, as in the relation 'isKnowledgeableAbout'. VolumeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for volume attributes. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take an instance of a transitive Event (an Event that has a 'patient' role, something acted on) as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of FunctionalProcess as one of their arguments.. COSMO: a metatype for flowering trees. Cyc: Not itself a species, but a set of species encompassing those that are angiosperms. bd588f16-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A collection of collections and a specialization of #$OrganismClassificationType (q.v.). Instances of #$BiologicalTaxon correspond to ranked categories accepted by biologists for the classification of organisms according to their suspected evolutionary relationships. Such categories change as biologists learn more about the organisms involved and determine that existing classifications are more or less useful. They include all levels of taxons. Specializations of #$BiologicalTaxon include #$BiologicalOrder and #$BiologicalSpecies; instances include #$Marsupial and #$Ape. See also #$BiologicalTaxonType. bd58e2e8-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The collection of biological taxonomic subdivisions (see #$BiologicalTaxon) created below #$BiologicalFamily and above #$BiologicalSpecies. Sometimes, hybrids are possible between different instances of #$BiologicalSpecies that belong to the same #$BiologicalGenus. bd589a9f-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$BiologicalTaxon whose instances are more restrictive than those of #$BiologicalSpecies. Each instance of #$BiologicalSubspecies is a specialization of some instance of #$BiologicalSpecies. Members of different subspecies of the same species can produce fertile offspring by interbreeding; but such offspring are not members of either of the parental subspecies, although they are members of the common species. All instances of a given biological subspecies have significant traits or collections of traits in common that are not shared by all other members of the subsuming species. A #$BiologicalSubspecies is formed by inbreeding of a restricted group of members of the same species. This can happen naturally through geographic isolation or intentionally through controlled reproduction to create, for example, dog breeds or crop strains. c0b6222b-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A GrammaticalType is any structure (word, phrase, phoneme, morpheme) in a NaturalLanguage that, in combination with other structures constitues the grammar of the language, as represented in some grammatical theory of the language. Examples would be 'Subject', 'Verb', 'Object', 'VerbPhrase', etc. a BiologicalSubspecies that is or maintained by human breeding activities. See 'Breeding'. This corresponds to sense 13 of 'breed' in the random House Webster: 13. Genetics. a relatively homogenous group of animals within a species, developed and maintained by humans. This should be a subtype of 'variety' as used in the biological classification sense, but the owl:class (Types) and rdfs:class (Metatypes) hierarchy needs to be kept apart for clarity. Se 'Type' and 'Sort' for more detail on which COSMO type represents which sort of category. The collection of biological taxonomic subdivisions below #$BiologicalOrder (or #$BiologicalSuborder) and above #$BiologicalGenus. Especially important in Botanical classification. bd58cb2c-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of PhysiologicalCondition as one of their arguments. NOTE that illness (sickness, disease, ailment) is a subtype of PhysiologicalCondition, and this metatype can be used for relations on types of illness. NOTE that a 'PhysiologicalConditionType' is a subtype of 'ActionType' because it is 'performed' by an Agent, which is an Organism. A specialization of #$FirstOrderCollection (q.v.) whose instances are collections of #$Events. Each instance of #$RepeatedEventType is a collection of events whose instances tend to come in series or to occur at more or less regular intervals. These series or recurrences might be the result of natural phenomena (e.g. the spoutings of Old Faithful), human convention (e.g. the occurrence of #$BaseballInnings within a given game), or a combination of both (e.g. the annual celebration of Oktoberfest). An important specialization of this collection is #$RegularlyRepeatedEventType. See also #$IterativeEvent and #$IterativeEventType. bd5900b9-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$RepeatedEventType (q.v.). Each instance of #$RegularlyRepeatedEventType is a collection of events whose instances typically occur along with other instances of the same event-type at more or less regular intervals. These regular occurrences might be the result of natural phenomena (e.g. the sunrise), human convention (e.g. the execution of a dance step within a given dancing event), or a combination of both (e.g. the annual celebration of Oktoberfest). Other examples of #$RegularlyRepeatedEventType are #$OlympicGames, #$AcademicTerm, and #$TakingABreath. See also #$IterativeEvent and #$IterativeEventType. bd590072-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A LexicalType is any structure (word, phrase, phoneme, morpheme) in a NaturalLanguage that, has a distinctie pattern of letters in its alphabetical representation. An example would be an Abbreviation. BiologicalSpecies is a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take an instance of biological species as one of their arguments. Cyc: An instance of #$BiologicalTaxonType. Each instance of #$BiologicalSpecies is the most general taxon from which two breeding organisms of appropriate sexes can conceivably produce fertile offspring, or, in the case of asexual reproduction, is conventionally defined. Members of different species of animals cannot produce fertile offspring by interbreeding. If there are only two breeds of a given species and one breed becomes extinct, the second breed by virtue of that fact becomes an instance of #$BiologicalSpecies - since the only organisms instances can breed with to produce fertile offspring are, at that point, members of that collection. An instance of #$BiologicalSpecies has members who all have significant traits in common, and members of each biological species have other members as parents. Exceptions occur when a species is conventionally defined to start since parenthood could conceivably be traced back billions of years, yet new species came into existence. In biological taxonomy, related species are grouped into a particular instance of #$BiologicalGenus. Some genera have only a single species, but they remain different taxons. SUMO: The Class of all biological species, i.e. the class of all classes of Organism whose instances can interbreed. Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'species' in WordNet: 1. (27) species - ((biology) taxonomic group whose members can interbreed) bd58caeb-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: in COSMO, 'EndangeredSpecies' is a metatype whose instances are BiologicalSpecies whose survival as aspecies is at risk. SUMO: EndangeredSpecies is the subclass of Organism that includes plants and animals that are in danger of extinction from destruction of individuals or of habitat. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. RegionType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for regions, and an argument restriction for various relations on Region types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. MeasuringDeviceType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for MeasuringDevices, and an argument restriction for various relations on MeasuringDevice types. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. SpecificationType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for specifications (plays, plans, games) and an argument restriction for the isAnExecutionOf relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. SportType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for specifications of sports (games) and an argument restriction for the isAnExecutionOf relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. GameType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for games and an argument restriction for the isAnExecutionOf relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. PharmaceuticalType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that pertain to more or less well-defined chemical substances that are used officially (in some society) as a medicine.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take an instance of FacialHair as one of their arguments.. OccupationType is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that pertain to Occupations, such as 'isTheOccupationOfa' and 'practicesOccupation'. NOTE that this must not be used as the Type of people who have ocupations. For that, use 'OccupationalRoleType'. Each instance of MoneyTenderType denotes a form in which some quantity of Money may be represented. A collection of collections. Each instance of #$MoneyTenderType is a collection of objects of a type commonly offered in payment for goods, services, fees, wage-work, and so on. Notable instances of #$MoneyTenderType include #$Currency, #$CreditCard, and #$Check-TenderObject. bd58d8e4-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The collection of biological taxonomic subdivisions more specific than #$BiologicalClass but more general than #$BiologicalOrder. bd58cba7-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 SubstanceShapeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical substances in a particular shape 'SubstanceInaSpecificShape' and an argument restriction for the isaFormOfSubstance relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. TasteType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for taste attributes and an argument restriction for the hasTaste relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations. LocationMeasureType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical substances and an argument restriction for the hasLocation relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. MoleculeType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for classes of individual physical molecules and an argument restriction for the isaMoleculeOfSubstance relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. EmittableObjectType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for EmittableObjects and for wavelike Events, in an argument restriction for the canEmit relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations. Surface texture of physical objects. WireType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for different kinds of wire and an argument restriction for the relations on chemical elements. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. A specialization of #$BiologicalTaxon. Each instance of #$BiologicalOrder is an immediate subdivision of some instance of #$BiologicalClass or #$BiologicalSubclass (qq.v.). Instances of #$BiologicalOrder include #$CarnivoreOrder, #$Monotreme, and #$Primate. bd58e329-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 Each instance of FingerType is a subtype of 'Finger', indicating the specific type of Finger (e.g. 'LeftThumb'). CollectiveNounCategory is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for classes that are labeled as collective nouns in Engolish, such as 'lumber'. A metatype whos instances are the different ranks (levels) at which military personnel are classified for purpose of pay, duty, or authority. The separate service ranks (USNavyRank) are subtypes of this type. Corresponds to part of noun sense 2 of 'rank' in WordNet: 2. (6) rank -- (relative status; "his salary was determined by his rank and seniority") 30f91a14-74b0-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae rank rank rank2n The scale of ranks employed by the United States Navy. This is a collection of attributes that are used with the predicate #$rank-Military. 30f91a14-74b0-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae rank rank rank2n The scale of ranks employed by the United States Air Force. This is a collection of attributes that are used with the predicate #$rank-Military. b77c6604-74b0-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae rank rank rank2n The scale of ranks employed by the United States Army. This is a collection of attributes that are used with the predicate #$rank-Military. a0906ed6-74b0-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae rank rank rank2n The scale of ranks employed by the United States Marine Corps. This is a collection of attributes that are used with the predicate #$rank-Military. ccf8b4ba-74b0-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae rank rank rank2n a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Illness as one of their arguments. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Infection as one of their arguments. A Device or Process in its Role as an Invention. To refer to a device or process as an invention, one can add the type 'InventionType' to the type (OWL class) and then refer to that type. See 'ThomasAlvaEdison' for an examnple of usage. This is approximately sense 2 of 'invention' in WordNet, however, as a metatype it has no direct connection to any other type 2. (6) invention, innovation - (a creation (a new device or process) resulting from study and experimentation) invention invention2n BiologicalOrgan is a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that pertain to named parts of organisms at particular stages of their life cycle. It is not necessarily an animal body part type - it may be part of a plant. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a type of Location (spatial location) as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a type of TimeInterval (temporal location) as one of their arguments.. a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take an instance of Feature as one of their arguments.. A collection of specializations of #$AnimalBodyRegion. Each instance of #$AnimalBodyPartType is a collection of body parts, where the parts in question are differentiated from other body parts according to structure or function. Instances of #$AnimalBodyPartType include #$SpinalColumn, #$Eyelash, #$NervousSystem, #$Urethra, #$Wing-AnimalBodyPart, and #$HeelOfPalm. bd58e7da-9c29-11b19dad-c379636f7270 'ProductType' is a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take an instance of Product (i.e. something for sale) as one of their arguments.. GroupType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical objects and an argument restriction for various relations on types of Groups (not just People, but any type of Group). This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. SubstanceType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for physical substances and an argument restriction for the hasComponentSubstance relation. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. The restriction on hasGrainDiameter for SubstanceTypes should require subclasses rather than instances of LengthMeasure - instances may have to be created as a workaround. 'Money' is treated in COSMO as a GenericSubstance, and specific quantities of money are the objects that consist of Money. MoneyType is a metatype that can be used as an argument restriction for relations that take a subtype of Money as one of their arguments. Instances of MoneyType can be abstract or physical. EnergyType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for types of Energy and an argument restriction for the isaSourceOf relation. In COSMO Energy is viewed as a form of Substance, and a Quantity of energy would be made up of Energy; relativistically, a quantitiy of Energy is equivalent to some Mass (i.e. equivalent to a PhysicalObject). Thus Energy behaves somewhat like a PhysicalSubstance, but to avoid unnecessary complications, it is not classified as a PhysicalSubstance, but as a GnericSubstance. This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. FoodType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for different kinds of Food (a Substance). This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. 'SoupComponentType' is a specialized metatype which that has as its instances only those solid Foods (substances) that are commonly added to Soup. This tactic is required because subtances are represented as types, and to specify a union as a means of repressenting an 'A or B' object does not work. A messy OWL workaround. FoodType is a metatype which is a specialization of the Protege owl:Class that can serve as type for different kinds of FoodObject (a PhysicalObject). This is a primitive mechanism to accommodate OWL limitations on relation arguments. a metaclass used as the Type restriction on certain relations that take subclasses of ChemicallyDefinedSubstance as their argument. Cyc: A collection of collections and a specialization of #$TangibleStuffCompositionType. Each instance of #$ChemicalSubstanceType is a specialization of #$PartiallyTangible whose instances are defined _only_ by their chemical composition - not by their physical state or any other property. Instances of #$ChemicalSubstanceType can be of two varieties: (1) Collections whose instances are completely uniform with each other in terms of chemical composition; this includes (a) the chemical elements - such as #$Carbon, #$Oxygen, and #$Hydrogen - which are instances of #$ElementStuffTypeByNumberOfProtons (thus, the latter is a specialization of #$ChemicalSubstanceType), and (b) chemical compounds constituted of more than one substance chemically bonded, e.g., #$Water, #$Caffeine, and #$IronOxide, which are instances of #$ChemicalCompoundTypeByChemicalSpecies (2) Substances which have a general chemical specification, that is, whose instances do not have exactly the same chemical composition but fall within certain specifications, e.g., #$DNAStuff. Note that collections that are _not_ instances of #$ChemicalSubstanceType include collections of substances which have some component which is of overriding significance in some context, so that in everyday language such substances are frequently referred to by the name of their important component (e.g., penicillin applied to a tablet containing penicillin), but which have significant admixtures of other substances. Thus, #$Penicillin is an instance of #$ChemicalSubstanceType, but the collection of tablets containing penicillin and including other ingredients is not. Also, specializations of #$Mixture, such as #$Lemonade, are _not_ instances of #$ChemicalSubstanceType, because mixtures are determined by their physical state rather than solely by their chemical composition. bd58cd95-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: used for both substances and Objects. @ToDo (v0.50) Probably should be distinguished. Cyc: A collection of collections, and a specialization of #$ManufacturedGoodsType. Instances of this collection are types of pharmaceutical products that may be prescribed by a medical professional. Note that this includes drugs -- specializations of #$DrugSubstance -- as well as pharmaceutical devices such as #$TestStrip or #$HearingAid-Prescription. #$PrescriptionDrugType and #$OverTheCounterDrugType are among the specializations of this collection. c0fdf171-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 'TimedClassType' is a special metaclass used to allow the assertion, within the OWL format, of time limits on assertion of QalitativeAttributes for things. This special mechanism is used because in COSMO QualittaiveAttributes are types (owl:classes), and the 'instances' of QualitativeAttributes cannot be made instances of TimeSlice to allow assertion of time limits on their applicability. To use this, an assertion of a QualitativeAttribute within a time interval requires that a new class representing that attribute in that time interval be created when the time-indexed assertion is made. See 'AliveDuring1943-2008' and 'PatrickCassidy' for an example of use. The class of Synonyms has two uses: (1) When a synonymous term is included as a subtype of Synonym, it allows searching for a Type by more than one term, in the case where the alternative term(s) are also unique in the ontology. For example, where Cyc class names (but not meanings) have been changed, the Cyc term may also be included as a Synonym. We use the isaSynonymOf relation to relate Synonym classes to the class with the base name. (2) when used with the 'hasSynonym' relation, instances of Synonym can specify the context (such as namespace) in which the second term is a synonym of the first, and can indicate the overall frequency with which the term in that context actually has the same meaning as the base term. Since there can be multiple instances of the same synonymous term, it is represented as a datatype String entity. NOTE that instances of Synonym need to have unique id's as their identifiers in the ontology, so it is recommended that the unique ID's be generated by prefixing a namespace to the synonymous term that is pointed to by the 'hasSynonymousTerm' property of the Synonym instance. Thus if some term has the synonym 'process' in the PSL context, the instance of Synonym that specifies that relation can be named, e.g. 'PSL$process'. The general English contexts, where words may be ambiguous, is indicated by the namespace prefix 'engen'. A pointer from a concept to another concept of which it is a synonym. This is a crude method to permit search in Protege for synonyms of terms in the class search window. In v0.3 these synonyms were confined to classes. For other synonyms, use 'hasSynonym'. A pointer to an English word of which the given element represents at least one sense. This is used when there should be some lexical reference, but it is not in eother WordNet or LDOCE defining vocabulary. Longman vocabulary word A pointer to the word in the LDOCE (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English) defining vocabulary which the given element represents. Since the LDOCE words can be polysemous, and the nominalized forms of verbs in the COSMO will not be identical to verb meanings, this is not intended as a one-to one mapping, but in many cases the occurrence of a word in a text will be related to the COSMO concept representation by a more or less complex transformation. Longman vocabulary word A pointer to the synset in WordNet 2.1 which the given element represents. The pointer will in fact be to one of the words in the synset, and the sense number of that word in that synset will be found with the 'wnsense' relation. This pointer does not include the offset number. This can be used with a SPARQL query to find all of the ontology elements that correspond to senses for a given word. Wordnet vocabulary word A pointer to the sense number (and POS, if needed) in WordNet 2.1 which the given element represents. This is only needed if there is more than one WordNet sense for the word labeled by the 'wordnet' relation. The sense number should include the word whose sense number is referenced, since more than one Wordnet word may be used to label a particular concept. The usage is exemplified by these relations on 'Ordering': wordnet - order - /wordnet wordnet - command - /wordnet wnsense - order1v /wnsense wnsense - command2v - /wnsense WordNet sense. A pointer to the word in Anna Wierzbicka's 'natural semantic metalanguage' of 60 conceptual primitives that corresponds to the ontology element. NSM word Points to an English language word that is used to refer to the ontology element. Objects can be Physical or Abstract or Mental only PhysicalObjects have mass, and that is the defining characteristic of a PhysicalObject in COSMO. All Objects have at least one relation other than the type (isa) relation to some other entity that is not an Object. Almost all objects have an Attribute or AttributeValue. But the relation may be some other relation (e.g. to have a location, a composition, or to have proper parts). Thus a point can have Dimensionality (zero-dimensional), and will have a location, though the location may be in a poorly defined abstract space. For example, a character in an alphabet is an abstract object, which has at least one representation as a shaped physical object, and is an element of an Alphabet. This requirement for an Object to have some relation is not presently (v0.48) formalized in COSMO, as it is not needed for performance, only to clarify the meaning for the human users. 'Object' is a very primitive concept that cannot be defined, but can be comprehended only by the way this concept interacts with other concepts, and by its subclasses and instances. This Type is useful as an umbrella Type for various purposes,including relations on Events. NOTE that in COSMO an 'Object' is not necessarily 3D (as in an endurantist perspective) nor 4D (as in a perdurantist perspective. It can be use in syntactic constructions that appear to be 3D (such as when they are explicitly time-indexed), but when an object is also an instance of TimeSlice,it can be used in syntactic constructions that are typical of the 4D perspective, in which the time of a relation is not explicitly indexed. There is no WOrdNet sysnset that includes abstract objects, so the WordNet 'object' is identified only with 'PhysicalObject'. object The most general Type for Objects whose subtypes are abstract - intangible - things that do not have mass. Note that AbstractEntity is not a subtype of AbstractObject - the name 'Abstract' is retained for alignment with other ontologies. NOTE in particular that AbstractEntity is not disjoint from MentalObject, which may be created by people in space and time, and hae a location in space and time. The kind of abstract things that do not have a locaiton in space and time are under 'AbstrctObject' in COSMO. COSMO Note: the notion of 'Abstract' has historically been somewhat vague. It is often defined by saying that it represents things 'not located in space or time' - but then subclasses are defined which are clearly mental constructs with a defined creation time (e.g. musical compositions) - which means that they must indeed be located in time and space. In this ontology we distinguish 'Abstract' things from 'MentalObjects' - the latter are things created by IntelligentAgents (people) that have no mass, and therefore would traditionally be categorized as 'Abstract'. 'AbstractObject' here is used mostly to categorize mathematical things such as numbers, which arguably do not depend on intelligent entities for their existence. But 'AbstractEntities" and 'MentalObjects' are not considered disjoint here, so there is room for people to argue whether mathematical concepts are created or merely discovered by mathematicians - we take no position on that issue. hasAttributeType relates an Attribute to the Type of the attribute. A TemporalLocation is a location for something - usually an Event - in the universal time line of our real world, or some alternative reality. It may be a time interval or a point in time. Instances of TemporalLocation may be represented by a DateTimeString , without being reified as an actual instance of this Type. This category includes the conceptual 'Datetime' Entity that is pointed to by the common relations like 'CREATION_DATETIME' that occur in databases. This entity is often represented by a built-in dataype of 'DateTime' or something similar. In COSMO, a DateTime is represented by subtpyes of DateTimeString, an AbstractString. A location in time can serve as a Context, which is anything that can affect the truth of a statement. In the real world, virtually every statement about real-world objects is true only in some particular time interval. RELATIVITY: Time is assumed in COSMO to be measured by some clock, which by default is the NIST atomic clock set, but can be specified as some other clock. Thus a time slice of a spatiotemporal region will be unambiguous, and observers moving relative to that clock, or relative to each other, need to adjust their interpretation according to the equations of relativity. In COSMO there is a superfluous subtype link of this entity to the most general 'Thing' so that 'time' will be exposed to viewers of this ontology at the highest level in Protege, for perspicuity. ******** NOTE on BFO 'TemporalRegion' *********************** The BFO 'TemporalRegion' appears to be the closest BFO Type to the COSMO 'TemporalLocation'. BFO Definition ('TemporalRegion'): An occurrent that is part of time. BFO: Examples ('TemporalRegion'): the time it takes to run a marathon, the duration of a surgical procedure, the moment of death COOSMO note: this is not a *quantity* of time, as the BFO example might suggest, but a *location* in time. 'ten minutes' is not an instance of 'TemporalLocation'. ******** NOTE on BFO 'TemporalRegion' *********************** TimeInterval is not a quantity of time (what is measured by a stopwatch), but a it is a specific region of the time line, what is measured by a calendar (in our real world or in some hypothetical world). NOTE that it is not necessary that a TimeInterval be measured from some universal fixed point, such as 0 AD; any point on the time line may be used as the base referene point for a TimeInterval. Called: TimeInterval(Cyc); TimeInterval(SUMO - but SUMO requires contiguous intervals); time-interval(DOLCE) or period_in_time(ISO15926); the BFO equivalents of TimeInterval ('TemporalInterval') and TimePoint ('TemporalInstant') are disjoint in BFO, but a TimePoint is a subtype of TimeInterval in COSMO. For a quantity of time, use 'TimeDuration'. COSMO NOTE: as a convenience, a calendar time interval can be given a name that conforms to the conventions of one of the DateTime strings defined in COSMO, such as a 'DateTimeExtendedGroup', providing an opportunity for an interpreter to recognize the referenced time interval solely from the name of the instance. See the example used in defining the TimeAndPlace 'WorldTradeCenter20010911'. In Cyc, TimeInterval is not a measure. SUMO: An interval of time. Note that a TimeInterval has both an extent and a location on the universal timeline. Note too that a TimeInterval has no gaps, i.e. this class contains only convex time intervals. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 A specialization of #$TemporalThing. Each instance of #$TimeInterval is a temporal thing characterized fully by its temporal attributes. For example, the year A.D. 1967 is an instance of #$TimeInterval; although many interesting things happened during that year, the year itself is completely defined by its temporal extent. On the other hand, the event of Neil Armstrong's walking on the Moon is an #$Event and not a #$TimeInterval, since it is not fully characterized by its temporal extent or other temporal attributes. Specializations of #$TimeInterval include #$CalendarYear, #$CalendarMonth, and #$FiscalQuarter. DOLCE: a region - (Space and Time are special kinds of regions, i.e. AttributeValues or measures) A temporal region, measured according to a calendar. NOTE that a redundant subtype link to 'SituationProcessEventOrState' is included just to make it easier to find TimeInterval in a drill-down search. Corresponds approximately to noun sense 2 of 'time' in WordNet, but a 'TimeInterval' can be very specific as to starting and ending TimePoints: 2. (355) time - (an indefinite period (usually marked by specific attributes or activities); "he waited a long time"; "the time of year for planting"; "he was a great actor is his time") time time time2n BFO Definition: An occurrent at or in which processual entities can be located. COSMO note: this concept in COSMO is very generic,a nd can be used to specify a spatiotemporal region of any shape. To specify a spatiotemporal region of a more defined shape, use 'TimeAndPlace', for which the spatial shape of the region will depend on the 'location' component of the instance defined. BFO Examples: the spatiotemporal region occupied by a human life, the spatiotemporal region occupied by the development of a cancer tumor, the spatiotemporal context occupied by a process of cellular meiosis spatiotemporal_region COSMO: a three-dimensional region of some space (not necessarily our real world space). This is the space itself, and does not include or immply that ther are any objects in it. However, each instance of this kind fo space will usually be interpreted relative to some defined cooridinate system, which, in the ral world, usually means that it is relative to some physical object (which could be the collecion of all object in the universe as a whole, to provide a universal frame of revernce). In Cyc called 'ChunkOfSpace'. Cyc: A specialization of both #$ExtendedSpaceRegion and #$TwoOrHigherDimensionalThing (qq.v.). Instances of #$ChunkOfSpace are three-dimensional portions of a three-dimensional space. This is the kind of place that solid (i.e. three-dimensional) objects occupy. It makes sense to speak of, or compute, the volume of such objects. An important specialization of this collection is #$ChunkOfSpace-Empirical, whose instances are pieces of space in the empirical universe - the kind of space that physical objects occupy. be669a01-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 be5c5d8b-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A connected part of any space, physical or abstract. A Region does not have to be empty, but can be occupied by solid objects. For an empty region of space see 'FreeSpaceRegion'.This type differs from Place in that it cannot be a PhysicalObject, it is a Region of pure space, which may or may not have PhysicalObjects located in it. NOTE that Region is disjoint with PhysicalObject, but not disjoint with Object (which can be abstract). A Feature is classified as an Object though it may also be a Region. In Cyc called 'SpaceRegion' CYC: A specialization of both #$SpatialThing and #$IntangibleIndividual (qq.v.) whose instances are regions of space that exclusively act as possible locations for other spatial objects, and thus are immobile. A space region might be three-, two-, one-, or zero-dimensional; and spatial objects occupy such regions accordingly. Three-dimensional space regions (see #$ChunkOfSpace) can be occupied by solid objects. Two-dimensional space regions (or #$SpaceSurfaces) can be occupied by a purely two-dimensional objects. And similarly for one-dimensional space regions (#$SpaceLines) and zero-dimensional space regions (#$SpacePoints). Another important specialization of #$SpaceRegion is #$SpaceRegion-Empirical, whose instances are pieces of the embedding space for spatio-temporal objects (see #$SpatialThing-Localized). For more on spatial location and occupancy, see #$AbsoluteLocationalPredicate and its instances. BFO (SpatialRegion): Definition: A continuant at or in which other continuants can be located. COSMO note: in BFO, a SpatialRegion is the union of: Line, Point, Surface, and Volume. This is close to the present concept of 'Region', but those terms in COSMO are more abstract. One of the fundamental directions which define a space, abstract or physical; a 'Dimension' provides a criterion by which to create a linear ordering of points, which may themselves be complex objects. This is an abstrac notion, of which the common Dimensions of SpaceTime (three spatial, one time) are subtypes. Each Dimension is an abstract part of a Space. A Dimension provides a means of linear ordering, but does not have to be metric - there does not have to be a defined distance between points within the Dimension. Corresponds approximately to the union of senses 1 (mathematical) and 5 (topology) of 'dimension' in RHW: 1.Math. a. a property of space; extension in a given direction: A straight line has one dimension, a parallelogram has two dimensions, and a parallelepiped has three dimensions. b. the generalization of this property to spaces with curvilinear extension, as the surface of a sphere. c. the generalization of this property to vector spaces and to Hilbert space. 5. Topology. a. a magnitude that, independently or in conjunction with other such magnitudes, serves to define the location of an element within a given set, as of a point on a line, an object in a space, or an event in space-time. Includes sense 3 and (a small) part of sense 2 of 'dimension' in WordNet; it is unclear whether the WordNet sense 2 is intended to include the sense of this type, but if not, it should: 2. (5) property, attribute, dimension - (a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished; 'self-confidence is not an endearing property') 3. (1) dimension - (one of three Cartesian coordinates that determine a position in space) dimension dimension2n dimension3n A 'Dimension' in which there is a defined 'distance' measure that allows one to specify the distance between any two points in the Dimension. Corresponds approximately to the union of senses 1 (mathematical) and 5 (topology) of 'dimension' in RHW: 1.Math. a. a property of space; extension in a given direction: A straight line has one dimension, a parallelogram has two dimensions, and a parallelepiped has three dimensions. b. the generalization of this property to spaces with curvilinear extension, as the surface of a sphere. c. the generalization of this property to vector spaces and to Hilbert space. 5. Topology. a. a magnitude that, independently or in conjunction with other such magnitudes, serves to define the location of an element within a given set, as of a point on a line, an object in a space, or an event in space-time. Includes sense 3 of 'dimension' in WordNet: 3. (1) dimension - (one of three Cartesian coordinates that determine a position in space) dimension dimension3n 'DimensionOfCausality' is a 'MetricDimension' that can be an abstract dimension, or in our space-time the TimeDimension; its special property is that some 'causality' (abstract or concrete) must work from the lower magnitutdes of the Dimesnion to the higher magnitudes. The TimeDimension of or SpaceTime is one subtype. This type is included in COSMO to allow an abstraction of the dimension of Time in our SpaceTime, so that onw can envision abstract processes that 'cause' things to happen in an abstract space. For example, one can have an abstract Cartesian space with geometric objects whose shape, oritentation, or position relative to other objects are caused to change by the action of other objects or events, or processes in that space - i.e. a 'virtual world'. The DimensionOfCausality in such an abstract world would be analogous to Time in our SpaceTime, where effects must necessarily follow causes. 'TimeDimension'is the dimension of time in our SpaceTime; it is a subtype of the more abstract 'DimensionOfCausality'. Corresponds to noun sense 7 of 'time' in WordNet: 7. (33) fourth dimension, time - (the fourth coordinate that is required (along with three spatial dimensions) to specify a physical event) time time time7n COSMO Note: note that Cyc SpatialThing does not have to be in our space-time, whereas DOLCE spatio-temporal-particular is. So the DOLCE class is a subclass of the Cyc class. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of all things that have a spatial extent or location relative to some other #$SpatialThing or in some embedding space. Note that to say that an entity is a member of this collection is to remain agnostic about two issues. First, a #$SpatialThing may be #$PartiallyTangible (e.g. #$Texas-State) or wholly #$Intangible (e.g. #$ArcticCircle or a line mentioned in a geometric theorem). Second, although we do insist on location relative to another spatial thing or in some embedding space, a #$SpatialThing might or might not be located in the actual physical universe. It is far from clear that all #$SpatialThings are so located: an ideal platonic circle or a trajectory through the phase space of some physical system (e.g.) might not be. If the intent is to imply location in the empirically observable cosmos, the user should employ this collection's specialization, #$SpatialThing-Localized. Note that most of the Cyc 'SpatialThings' are in our universe (though not necessarily), so most are also under DOLCE 'spatio-temporal-particular'. DOLCE: Dummy class for optimizing some property universes. It includes all entities that are not reifications of universals ('abstracts'), i.e. those entities that are in space-time. spatio-temporal-particular[DOLCE]%SpatialThing OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of all spatial things, tangible or intangible, that can be meaningfully said to have location or position in the empirically observable universe of the context in question. This includes all #$PartiallyTangible things, such as pyramids and ships, as well as certain #$Intangible spatial things, like the #$Equator. Also included are all #$Events that can be pinned down to specific places (see #$Event-Localized), and thus all #$PhysicalEvents. But note that many events are non-examples, such as the event of a certain law coming into effect and (presumably) purely mental events as well, at least in most contexts. Also excluded are #$SpatialThings that are _not_ localized, such as purely abstract geometrical figures (e.g. a Platonic sphere). All instances of #$SpatialThing-Localized are temporal things, and thus have finite lifespans (the upper bound of which is the lifespan of the universe itself). Finally, note that imaginary entities like Frodo, Captain Queeg, and #$HAL9000-TheComputer may be localized within the (imaginary) universes attaching to the fictitious contexts in which they are defined, and so would be instances of #$SpatialThing-Localized within those microtheoretic contexts. NOTE: because Cyc 'SpatialThing-Localized' includes intangible spatial things, this is not identical to the purely physical objects such as 'Oject' in SUMO. In COSMO,purely physical objects are categorized in the Type 'PhysicalObject', which is a subtype of this 'SpatialThing-Localized' category. A SpatialRegion can be of any dimension, though the ones of most interest are three-dimensional in our real world. All Regions must have their location referenced to some definable object, whether abstract or physical. In theory, it may be possible to consider the whole universe as an Object and define 'absolute' regions based on locations in the whole universe, but that may not be useful for any practical purpose. The regions of greatest interest to people are regions defined relative to the Earth's surface, which forms a moving rotating frame of reference, which we treat as stationary for most purposes. NOTE: The BFO 'SpatialRegion' is closest to the COSMO 'PhysicalSpaceRegion' which is a subtype of this Type. PhysicalSPaceRegion is a portion of the there-dimensional space of our real world space-time universe. This is considered equialent to\the BFO 'Volume' COSMO Note: SpaceRegion in OpenCyc is not an Object, but pure space. Objects may be located in space. This region is part our our Space-Time This concepts is roughly equivalent to the OpenCyc 'ChunkOfSpace-Empirical', but we allow space regions to be defined by their relation to physical objects - therefore they may not be 'immobile' as the Cyc documentation suggests for 'ChunkOfSpace-Empirical'. For simplicity, the Cyc concept 'SpaceRegion-Empirical' has been merged with this concept, as the distinctions did not seem to have sufficient importance to justify the complexity. BFO: the BFO Type 'SpatialRegion' appears to have the same intent as this Type. The BFo subtypes of Line and Surface appear to be isentical to the subtypes of this Type: SpaceLine-Empirical, SpaceSurface-Empirical, BFO Definition ('SpatialRegion'): A continuant at or in which other continuants can be located. BFO Examples ('SpatialRegion'): the space occupied by an appendix, the space that was occupied by an appendix prior to its removal Cyc comment for 'ChunkOfSpace-Empirical': A specialization of #$SpaceRegion-Empirical, #$ChunkOfSpace, and #$SpatialThing-Localized (qq.v.). Instances of #$ChunkOfSpace-Empirical are three-dimensional portions of the intangible space of the empirically-observable universe. This is the kind of space that physical objects occupy. Cyc comment for 'SpaceRegion-Empirical': A specialization of #$SpaceRegion, #$SpatialThing-Localized, and #$IntangibleExistingThing (qq.v.). Instances of #$SpaceRegion-Empirical are intangible regions of space located in the empirically observable universe. A space region might or might not be connected (see #$SpatiallyContinuousThing). It might be partially or completely filled with (occupied by) #$PartiallyTangibles, or it might be completely empty (but cf. #$EmptySpaceRegion). In any case, the space region itself is not to be confused with a physical object or other spatially localized (non-space-region) thing that might happen to be #$cospatial with it. A given space region can be characterized fully merely by specifying its location and dimensions. Thus (although this is not the case with spatial things in general), space regions are identical (#$equals) if and only if they are #$cospatial. #$SpaceRegion-Empirical is in a way the spatial analogue of #$TimeInterval, whose own instances can be fully characterized by specifying their temporal properties; these two collections can be used, respectively, to talk about space and time as dimensions . Specializations of #$SpaceRegion-Empirical include #$SpacePoint-Empirical, #$SpaceLine-Empirical, #$SpaceSurface-Empirical, and #$ChunkOfSpace-Empirical. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 A specialization of #$SpatialThing whose instances are regions of space that exclusively act as locations for other spatial objects, and thus are immobile. Instances of #$SpatialThing are said to occupy some region of space. Three dimensional regions of space [#$ChunkOfSpace] can be occupied by solid objects, see the specialization #$ChunkOfSpace-Empirical for the regions of space occupied by physical objects. Purely two-dimensional objects occupy a #$SpaceSurface, see also #$SpaceLine and #$SpacePoint-Empirical for objects of lower dimension. Note that an object of a given dimension cannot truly be located [#$exactlyLocatedAt-Spatial] at a region of space of lower dimension, but only partially or incidentally. For more information on location and occupancy, see #$AbsoluteLocationalPredicate and its instances that relate objects in space and their regions. An important specialization of #$SpaceRegion is #$SpaceRegion-Empirical, whose instances are pieces of the embedding space where spatio-temporal objects are empirically localizable [#$SpatialThing-Localized]. Note that SpaceRegion in SUMO is an object viewed as a location. A GenericAgent is an aggregate concept representing things that can be linguistically categorized as agents, that is they are the causative subject of an action. One difficulty comes when including Organizations as Agents; Organizations are not actual physical Objects, therefore cannot literally do things to change the physical world. Rather, people who belong to Organizations, or their 'agents' do the actual moving and lifting that are the causes of actions in the real world. Nevertheless we talk of organizations as though they were somehow objects that did the actions themselves. A second problem arises when inanimate objects take the linguistic form of agents: 'The rock broke the window' or 'The knife cut a deep gash in his arm'. By themseles, those sentences would have the rock or the knife as agents, and the window or arm as patients. If more detail were given: "Tom broke the window with a rock'; 'Tom cut a deep gash in Mike's arm with a knife', the agent now shows up as Tom, and the rock and knife are instruments. For that reason, an instrument (a Role) is categorized in COSMO as a subtype of GenericAgent, to accommodate the linguistic structures where instruments take on the synactic/semantic role of an agent. This category is here to provide a place for the linguistic notion of 'Agent' that can include 'social agents' such as organizations. In this classification we adopt a broad view of agents, allowing inanimate things like hurricanes and tornadoes to be classified as AgentiveObjects. Role is a high-level concept that aggregates several primitive notions, and is difficult to describe analytically, but has a necessary property that, as a subtype of TemporalThing, every instance has a beginning time and an ending time. For Roles that are created by an Event and last forever, (The Father of PrinceWilliam), the ending time can be TheEndOfTime. @ToDo: Certain type of Roles (such as Part) may relate abstract entities that are not located in time, and should not be subtypes of TemporalThing. A differentiation of time-dependent and time-independent Roles should be added. The notion of Role is related to the more general notion of a semantic relation, and in some knowledge representations the relations are called 'roles'. In COSMO there is s difference, as a Role is a type, though every Role may in fact imply the existence of some semantic relation that relates the role to another entity with respect to which it plays a role. The details of how to relate these notions is left to a later stage of development of the ontology. For case roles in a specific Event, the Role lasts no longer than the duration of the Event (but may last for less than that time, for participants who participate only for part of an Event). The most common use of 'Role' is for concepts that exist in dependence on other concepts, such as 'Mother', which implies a child, or 'President' which implies some organization. But grammatical roles such as the cases of verb case frames will also fit under this broad category. When a phrase such as 'The ?X of ?Y' is encountered, almost invariably the ?X is a Role of some kind, which also includes parts. In COSMO 'Role' is broad enough to include Events; for example, 'Choice' is a Role, and some Events may fill the Role of 'Choice' - those thing a Person chooses to do. NOTE importantly: that HumanRole is a subtype of this category, and also a subtype of Person, so Person and Role are not disjoint. This allows HumanRoles (janitor, President) to serve in the same relations that people themselves would serve, but they are also recognizable as Roles because they will be subtypes of the Role category. The mathematical and logical 'equals' can be used to equate a unique Role with its filler, but only if the time interval during which that relation hodls is specified. In that case, the Role and its filler can be used interchangeably, but only in the base 'all-knowing' context NOTE that Roles may not be 'transparent' in referential contexts asserting beliefs or possible worlds. A person who does not know the filler of a Role may express opinions about the Role, which are inconsistent with their opinions about the filler of the Role. For example, a man who loves his wife may assert that he hates the murderer of a friend, not knowing that his wife is the murderer of his friend. If the Role and role filler were asserted to be mathematically identical in all contexts, this would entail a contradiction, assuming that love and hate are disjoint for this example. An individual assertion by a Person needs to be treated as a part of a belief system. NOTE also that when used as a pure OWL ontology, it will be necessary for every subclass of Role should to be an instance of RoleType, so that it can be used as an argument for the relation 'isServingInTheRoleOf'. If, in other formats, this condition is not explicit, the translation should add the Type when converting into OWL format. For Roles that are merged with other Types, such as HumanRoles, each should have its own explicit relation indicating when the role-filler started in that role and when (it/he/she) ended. If it is possible to fill a Role for multiple non-continguous periods of time, then the begin and end time of each continuous segment of 'Role' will define individual instances of that Role; as a reault, the relation 'isServingInTheRoleOf' cannot be functional. NOTE also that the use of 'Role" in the COSMO is still being developed, and is likely to be seen to be inconsistent in application (though not logically inconsistent) as of v 0.49. The issue not yet resolved is whether the subtypes of 'Role' as here used would be better categorized as 'playing a role' rather than 'being a role'. Although this quasi-philosophical issue is not yet clear, this vagueness does not appear to cause any logical inconsistencies in usage. An AttributeValue is the actual value of some AttributeType possessed by some object, such as six feet for a length, or red for a color. Individual AttributeValues are represented as Types (classes) in COSMO, not as instances. IMPORTANT NOTE: the values represented by each of these AttributeValue Types are here viewed as a region ('Quality Space') in which the actual particular value (see Type 'Quality') is located. Thus one may say an object has a 'Red' color, but later refine the description to say it has a 'Fire Red' color. The 'Fire Red' is also a color region, contained within the 'Red' color region. For quantitative measures, representing attributes as classes allows approximate measures to be built in to the ontology itself. One may specify a range for a measure, and any other measure within or overlapping that range can be considered as 'indistinguishable from' (not 'equal to') the other measure. NOTE: under consideration - the possibility of expressing the possession of an attribute for some interval of time by creating instances of AttributeValue or of Attribute that are also TimeSlices, with the time interval of the TimeSlice representing the time interval during which the Attribute was had. This has an advantage over using TimeSlice to create 4D TimeSlices of an object, and then attributing an Attribute to it - in that one need not create new instances of an Object, which may not be easily associated with the 3D object. GenericSubstance List name: GenericSubstance_COSMO-added__not_an_object__includes_chemicals_ COSMO: GenericSubstance is an abstract notion of Substance as the stuff of which objects are composed. It is not an object, even though the 'Substance's in OpenCyc and SUMO are actually classes of objects of some particular (homogeneous) composition. In COSMO, we make this provision, among other reasons, to allow abstract 'substances' to compose abstract objects. In COSMO 'Substance' is a concept that is analogous to the derivative of an object with respect to volume, i.e. it acts like an abstract density (of some substance type). For COSMO version 0.01 (COSMOtopOWL03: 2006-01-01) the required axioms for a proper definition have not been added. For more discussion see: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/reference/DimensionsOfProcessAndEvent.doc takesValue relates an AttributeType to the AttributeValues that instantiate the AttributeType. For example, the AttributeType Length will be instantiated by an instance of the type 'LengthMeasure'; thus {Length takesValue LengthMeasure} But because QualitativeAttributeValues are types in COSMO, instances of AttributeValueType may also instantiate an AttributeType. This relation is in some respects reminiscent of the 'instance' relation, but is specific to the relationship between AttributeTypes and AttributeValues (qualitative and quantitative), used to implement the specific method of representing attributes that is adopted for COSMO.. The inverse of 'takesValue'. An AttributeType is a general category of attribute, i.e. some property that adheres in an object, such as length or mass or color or shape for physical objects. More abstract objects such as sets or groups may have more abstract attributes such as cardinality. The distinction between attributes and relations between entities is not absolute. COSMO note: The use of two distinct trees of attribute-related types (AttributeType and AttributeValue) is intended to enable assertions with a linguistic form such as: {Jack has Height {6 feet}) where the second argument 'Height' specifies the general type of attribute, and the value '{6 feet}' specifies the specific attribute value, where 'feet' is a function returning a distance measure. This generic attribute assertion can then be used with other types of attributes, such as: {Jack has Weight {60 kilograms}) and {Car037 has Color RedColor). Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'attribute' and sense 3 and 4 of 'property' in WordNet: 1. (2) property, attribute, dimension - (a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished; 'self-confidence is not an endearing property') WN noun 'Property': 3. (138) property - (a basic or essential attribute shared by all members of a class; 'a study of the physical properties of atomic particles') 4. (32) property, attribute, dimension - (a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished; 'self-confidence is not an endearing property') attribute attribute attribute1n property property property3n property4n COSMO note: a Place can be a PhysicalObject or a Region. This category is very generic, but is more specific than 'GenericLocation' in that the Place should be stationary, and not an arbitrary PhysicalObject such as a vehicle.. Cyc: A specialization of #$EnduringThing-Localized. Each instance of #$Place is a spatial thing which has a relatively permanent location. Thus, in a given microtheory, each #$Place is stationary with respect to the frame of reference of that microtheory. Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'position' and sense 3 of 'place' and sense 1 of 'spot' and sense 1 of 'location' in WordNet: WN 'position' 1. (39) position, place - - (the particular portion of space occupied by something; 'he put the lamp back in its place') WN 'spot' 1. (26) topographic point, place, spot - - (a point located with respect to surface features of some region; "this is a nice place for a picnic") WN 'location': 1. (992) location - - (a point or extent in space) bd58d3b4-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 position position position1n place place place3n spot spot spot1n location location1n Each SituationalContextComponent is one of the components of the situation in which an IntelligentEntity finds itself, of which it must be aware in order to act or respond appropriately so as to fulfill its goals. Each SituationalContextComponent is defined relative to a particular CognitiveAgent whose actions are being represented in the ontology. GenericLocation is the Type representing the most general notion of location, which can be abstract or concrete, a region of space (including an abstract space, such as the Internet considered as a set of nodes and links, where the nodes can represent computers whose physical location may vary), a point in space, or a physical object (e.g. building, ship, room). NOTE that an Address is not a location, but a label for a location. See 'Address'. NOTE: although *almost* all GenericLocations are exclusively spatial in some way, there is one 'TimeAndPlace' that is spatiotemporal, being a region of space-time that specifies some region of space over some interval of time. Use of an instance of 'TimeAndPlace' as an argument of a location relation allows one to include the important time interval qualifier in location relations, even though one is using only binary relations. this would not be necessary in a representation with higher-arity relations. This is somewhat similar to the Cyc 'Location-Underspecified' Cyc comment: The collection of locations, tangible or otherwise, which are typically conceptualized by human beings for purposes of common-sense reasoning as 'locations'. This collection thus includes tangible Places such as #$Ireland-TheIsland, as well as metaphoric locations. For instance, many states-of-being are conceptualized as abstract locations, such as Trouble ('he saw trouble ahead'), Depression ('she fell into a ...'), #$Happiness ('they found bliss together'). Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'location' and is somewhat broader than noun sense 1 of 'position' in WordNet; WN 'location' 1. (992) location - (a point or extent in space) WN 'position' 1. (39) position, place -- (the particular portion of space occupied by something; "he put the lamp back in its place") be14f511-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 location location location1n position position position1n place place place3n Each Attribute is an entity that has an AttributeType and some form of AttributeValue; it can serve as the value of a 'hasAttribute' relation. There are three subtypes of Attribute: QuantitativeAttribute, QualitativeAttribute, and IntensiveAttribute. In COSMO, the representation of 'attributes' (properties in informal terms) includes two or three aspects, depending on whether the Attribute is qualitative or quantitative, respectiely: (1) the AttributeType (Color, Length, Flexibility). The AttributeType specifies the kind of attribute that is being represented. Every instance of Attribute must specify the AttributeType (2) the AttributeValue (Color -Red; Length - 10 feet; Flexibility - high) for quantitative attributes (10 feet, 30 pounds) the AttributeValue is composed of both a number and a UnitOfMeasure. The UnitOfMeasure values include 'Dimensionless', a pure number (e.g. as an attribute of 'Cardinality' for a Group) In the case of quantitative attributes, rather than pointing from an instance of Attribute to a QuantitativeAttributeValue, the relations 'hasUnit' and 'hasQuantifier'can point directly to the UnitOfMeasure and the Quantifier. An instance of QuantitativeAttributeValue can be represented as the UnitOfMeasure and the quantifier, separately, specified by relations 'hasUnit' and 'hasQuantifier'. If the implementation allows use of functions, a QuantitativeAttributeValue can be represented as a function term such as {25.6 feet}. For QualitativeAttributes the AttributeValue may be directly represented. For IntensiveAttributes, the AttributeValue can have interal-type intensity values such as 'Low', 'Medium', 'High'. The type of an Attribute is specified as the value of the 'hasType' relation. Corresponds to a combinatiin of noun senses 1 and 2 of 'attribute' in WordNet: 1. (2) property, attribute, dimension - (a construct whereby objects or individuals can be distinguished; "self-confidence is not an endearing property") 2. (1) attribute - (an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity) attribute attribute1n attribute2n Every Group consists of one or more entities considered as one unit, and is related to the component entities by the relation 'hasComponentElement'. A Group is not an abstract or mathematical concept - every group derives its properties solely from the entities that are its component elements. Thus a group of solid objects would be a solid object, and the mass of that object would be equal to the sum of the masses of the component objects. It has *some* similarity to the 'mereological sum' of mereologists. However, a Group may have component elements of very diverse kinds - there is no restriction on the membership of a Group, though one element can only count once in the cardinality of the group. A Group is somewhat similar to a Cyc 'Group', but is not restricted to physical things, and has relations to its members named differently than in Cyc. NOTE: A Group that has one component element is identical to that single element; in this respect it is similar to the mereological notion of a 'mereological sum'. The only group that can have itself as a component element is the group of one element. This latter property is the peculiar characteristic of this concept of 'Group', in contrast to other aggregates except, as noted, for 'mereological sum'. This concept of 'Group' makes certain representations covenient. In some cases, we want to define a function that may return one or more elements, but if there is one element, we also want that single element to be identical to the single element, and not encapsulated in an enveloping element. Returning a Group will allow that behavior. Note that a relation on a Group that can be applied to individuals (i.e. is not specifically defined on the type 'Group' or a subtype thereof) will only sometimes apply both to the Group and to its idividual elements. For example, if a Group is wholly located in some Place, then each element is wholly located in that Place. But the Group may have a mass, and no element will have thesame mass if the Group has more than one element. Those relations will have to be specified for each relation individually, where such a relation holds. Cyc Documentation for 'Group' (**NOTE*** some differences from COSMO 'Group'. In Cyc a Group must consist of Temporal Objects, but in COSMO it is more general. The Group membership relation also differs.) OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 A collection of temporal objects. Each instance of #$Group is a composite object made up of one or more individual objects or events. A group is related to each of its members by the predicate #$groupMembers (q.v.) [COSMO: 'hasComponentElement'] Note that instances of #$Group are _not_ collections. A group has temporal extent [COSMO: a Group may be abstract] and might have spatial location, while a collection is timeless and nonspatial. It is of course possible to define a collection parallel to any given group, so that the instances of the collection are exactly the group-members of that group; e.g. each toe on my left foot (and nothing else) is both an instance of the collection of my left toes and a member of the group of toes on my left foot. But that group (of my left toes) is a spatiotemporal thing while the correlated collection (of my left toes) is not. Similarly, if a certain flock of pigeons is considered as having a location, a spatial extent, and a time of existence, then the flock is being considered a _group_ and not a collection. Finally, unlike a collection, a group cannot be empty, but must have _at_least_one_ group-member. As a default, a group whose group-members all are instances of #$SomethingExisting is itself an instance of #$SomethingExisting, and a group whose group-members all are #$Events is itself an #$Event. Instances of #$Group include #$QueensGuard, #$ThreeWiseMen, #$SantasReindeer, and #$InternationalCommunity. A CompositeConcept is a Group that consists of component elements of different basic types, such as a System (which see). The notion of a CompositeConcept provides a way to represent things like situations that have essential elements of different type (such as States and FunctionalProcesses). A TimePoint is a closed interval of time having zero length. The beginning TimePoint and Ending TimePoint are identical for any given TimePoint. The representation of a TimePoint as a zero-length time interval is only an alternate view of a TimePoint. (=> (isanInstanceOf ?TP TimePoint) (and (hasStartingTimePoint ?TP ?TP) (hasEndingTimePoint ?TP ?TP))) A TimePoint is classified here as a subclass of TimeInterval because we adopt the interpretation that a time interval of zero length duration is indistinguishable from a time point. We know from special relativity that time may proceed at different rates in objects that are moving relative to each other, so all time values must be relative to some clock. In the absence of any explicit clock designation, the NIST atomic clock signals transmitted from Boulder Colorado are considered as the clock of reference. A TimePoint may be represented by a limit expression, e.g. 'before Jan 1 2008', or by a range ('some time point between Jan 1 200 and Jan 1 2008'). This allows incomplete time information to be entered when not known exactly. This may be implemented by a functional expression, but is not yet formalized in COSMO version 0.44. ******* COSMO NOTE on BFO 'TimeInstant' ************ COSMO note: in COSMO, time points are subtypes of TimeInterval, so the 'disjoint' relation in BFO between TimePoint and TimeInterval was removed. BFO: owl:disjointWith rdf:resource= '#TemporalInterval' BFO rdfs:subClassOf rdf:resource= '#ConnectedTemporalRegion' BFO Definition: A connected temporal region comprising a single moment of time. BFO Examples: right now, the moment at which a finger is detached in an industrial accident, the moment at which a child is born, the moment of death ******* COSMO NOTE on BFO 'TimeInstant' ************ Corresponds to noun sense 6 of 'point' and sense 1 of 'point in time' and includes sensse 6 of 'time' in WordNet: 6. (9) point, point in time - (an instant of time; "at that point I had to leave") WN 'time': 6. (35) clock time, time - (the time as given by a clock; "do you know what time it is?"; "the time is 10 o'clock") point point point6n point in time point in time1n time time time6n A specialization of the 'finishes' relation which points from a TemporalThing (TimeInterval or Event) to the TimePoint at which that TemporalThing ended. A specialization of the 'starts' relation which points from a TemporalThing (TimeInterval or Event) to the TimePoint at which that TemporalThing started.. An Entity that has a beginning point in time and an ending point in time. The usage of this term in COSMO differs from the usage in OpenCyc, in that it does **not** include PhysicalObject as a subtype, though the two categories are not disjoint. The purpose of the cyc concept appears to be to permit relating both PhysicalObjects and Events to their time location. In COSMO, that purpose is served by the relation 'hasTemporalLocation' (which see) which has as its domain the union of Events and PhysicalObjects.and 'wasCreatedDuring' and 'wasDestroyedDuring', There is, however, a subtle issue in that the beginning and ending time of a 'TemporalThing' may be the same time, i.e. the instance may be an instantaneous time slice of a time-extended entity. Since in COSMO zero-interval extended entities are indistinguishable from point entities, this means that a '3-D' endurantist object can be an instance of 'TemporalThing' just as a HumanRole, a '4-D' perdurantist object can be an instance of the typically '3-D' Person. In Opencyc a 'TemporalThing' is very generic, it is anything that has a beginning point in time (and presumably an ending point, though it may not be known for existing things). Thus physical objects, which must come into existence at some time (perhaps the beginning of time), as well as events, are 'TemporalThings'. In COSMO, TemporalThing is reserved for TimeIntervals and Events, and PhysicalObjects are not classified as subtypes of TemporalThing. The creation and destruction time of PhysicalObjects will use different relations. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of all things that have temporal extent or location, i.e. things about which one might sensibly ask When? . #$TemporalThing thus contains many kinds of things, including events, physical objects, agreements, and abstract pieces of time. Note that #$TimePoint is a specialization of #$TemporalThing, since time points have temporal location, although they arguably lack temporal extent. Abstract things that are timeless - such as mathematical sets, attributes, and numbers - are of course _not_ instances of #$TemporalThing. NOTE that although every TemporalThing must have a starting and ending TimePont, that notion is not represented as an existential restriction so that it will not be necessary to explicitly represent the starting and ending times of intervals whose starting and ending times can be calculated from the name. This is a pragmatic and implementational, not a theoretical consideration. 'Individual' is a Cyc concept used to distinguish abstract sets and collections (classes) from things that are individuals. Interestingly, groups of things can be individuals - if they are defined as distinct from sets (see 'Group'). About the only type in COSMO that could not be considered as a subtype of this type is 'SetMathematical'; but maost types are not listed as subtypes of 'Individual', though they could be - just to avoid confusing the ontology with mostly useless relations. Any instance that is considered as a 'unit' by the knowledge engineer can be made an instance of this type, which is not disjoint with anything other than 'SetMathematical" This class may be superfluous, but in COSMO is a convenient catch-all for some aggregate Types that would merely serve to clutter the top level and obscure the structure of the ontology if exposed at the top level directly under 'Thing'. Conversely, Some of the subtypes of the Cyc 'individual' have also been subclassed directly to 'owl:Thing' to expose those common concepts at the highest level, to make the structure of the ontology easier to see. NOTE that some of the concepts mentioned in the Cyc documentation differ significantly in COSMO from related concepts in Cyc. But the Cyc documentation is given here to describe how the similar Cyc notion of Group is described in that ontology. From OpenCyc: OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 #$Individual is the collection of all individuals: things that are _not_ sets or collections. Individuals might be concrete or abstract, and include (among other things) physical objects, events, numbers, relations, and groups. An instance of #$Individual might have parts or structure (including discontinuous parts); but _no_ individual has elements or subsets (see #$elementOf and #$subsetOf). Thus, an individual that has parts (e.g. #$physicalParts or #$groupMembers) is _not_ the same thing as either the set or the collection containing those same parts. For example, your car is an individual, but the collection of all the parts of your car is not an individual but an instance of #$Collection. This collection (unlike the car itself) is abstract: it doesn't have a location, mass, or a top speed; but it does have instances, subcollections, and supercollections. In partial contrast, the #$Group (q.v.) of parts of your car (while also not the same thing as the car itself) _is_ an individual that has location and mass. Another example: A given company, the group consisting of all the company's employees, the collection of those employees, and the set of those employees are four distinct things, and only the first two are individuals. Corresponds to noun sense 2 of 'unit' in WordNet: 2. (16) unit - (an individual or group or structure or other entity regarded as a structural or functional constituent of a whole; "the reduced the number of units and installations"; "the word is a basic linguistic unit") unit unit unit2n 'ExternalReferringThing' is an artificial class created to provide a domain type for certain relations without referring to those specifictypes. This is solely an administrative tactic to improve modularization of the ontology COSMO: SituationProcessEventOrState is a broad category that includes Events, FunctionalProcesses, and PersistentStates,all of which are different aspects of the same fundamental conceptual entity, commonly called an 'Event'. Each instance of 'SituationProcessEventOrState' in COSMO is a Group of TimeIndexedAssertion, in aggregate representing the changes (if any) to the properties (attributes and relations) of one or more objects over some interval of time, An InstantaneousState may have only one TimeIndexedAssertion, but Events and FunctionalProcesses will have at least two. Event is a Group of 'TimeIndexedAssertion's containing the component elements: (1) InstantaneousState at the starting time (2) InstantaneousState at the Ending time (3) The FunctionalProcess that describes the intermediate states between the starting and ending times. **Informally**, a state,process, or event is interpreted as the set of *values* of some 'fluents' (attributes or relations that may change over time), but the actual *formal* representation is a Group in which the group elements are the *LinguisticAssertions* specifying the values of the fluents pertaining to some Group of Objects. Each LinguisticAssertion specifies the value at some time point (or time interval). The differences in State, Process,and Event are: State: The Group of Assertions that hold at one time point (InstantaneousState), or persist without change of value over some contiguous interval of time (PersistentState). No value can chage within a State. FunctionalProcess: The full set of LinguisticAssertions specifying the values of fluents at each time point or smaller TimeInterval within a TimeInterval in which the Process is defined. The set of LinguisticAssertions relate times to values,and in that respect is analogous to a mathematical function. In analogy to a mathematical function, one can derive a 'rate' for a Process (in cases where the values are quantified) by taking the ratio of (difference in value) to (difference in time) for any TimeInterval in which a change of value is specified. This rate may change from time to time during a FunctionalProcess. Event: focuses on the values of the fluents at the beginning and ending of some TimeInterval, but also includes the FunctionalProcess that specifies the fluent values at times between the beginning and ending. Since the focus of an Event is on the change from one time point to the next, one cannot specify a 'rate' in the same sense as for a FunctionalProcess, where the rate may change many times during the FunctionalProcess. For an Event, one can derive a single 'rate' value that specifies the overall ratio of change of fluent value to time, between the beginning and ending points, and for an Event, only one such 'rate' can be defined. NOTE: In COSMO a Situation is classified as a CompositeConcept because it is considered as a composite of the InstantaneousStates at the beginning and ending times of the Situation (which can be the same time), plus the FunctionalProcess that describes the states intermediate between the beginning and ending times. Called: Situation-Temporal(Cyc) perdurant(DOLCE) ***** Special COSMO NOTE on BFO 'ProcessualEntity' ***************************** In BFO the Type 'ProcessualEntity' appears to be most closely similar to COSMO 'SituationProcessEventOrState'. However, the division of the BFO Type into 'FiatProcessPart' and 'Process' has no corresponding division in Cyc or SUMO. In COSMO we include a FiatProcessPart for compatibility, but do not use it (no subtypes), and do not use the BFO partition of 'ProcessualEntity'. BFO Definition: An occurrent that exists in time by occurring or happening, has temporal parts and always involves and depends on some SNAP entity. Examples: the life of an organism, the process of meiosis, the course of a disease, the flight of a bird ***** End Special NOTE on BFO 'ProcessualEntity' ***************************** Cyc 'Situation' is indistinguishable from 'Situation-Temporal' except for the possible inclusion in 'Situation' of abstract situations not enclosed in a time interval. The term 'Situation' has been interpreted in COSMO as strictly temporal, and the more abstract things that resenble situations have been aggregated under 'AbstractEvent'. Cyc ('Situtation') A subcollection of both #$IntangibleIndividual and #$TemporalThing. #$Situation subsumes #$Event and #$StaticSituation. Each instance of #$Situation is a state or event consisting of one or more objects having certain properties, or bearing certain relations to each other. OPENCYC 1: (Situation-Temporal) MAY 23, 2002 A subcollection of both #$Situation and #$TemporalThing. #$Situation-Temporal is the collection of all instances of #$Situation that have duration or other temporal properties . Thus, #$Situation-Temporal subsumes #$Event and #$StaticSituation, as well as some other specializations of #$Situation. It does _not_ subsume any specializations of #$Situation that have atemporal instances. DOLCE: Perdurants (AKA occurrences) comprise what are variously called events, processes, phenomena, activities and states. They can have temporal parts or spatial parts. For instance, the first movement of (an execution of) a symphony is a temporal part of the symphony. On the other hand, the play performed by the left side of the orchestra is a spatial part. In both cases, these parts are occurrences themselves. We assume that objects cannot be parts of occurrences, but rather they participate in them. Perdurants extend in time by accumulating different temporal parts, so that, at any time they are present, they are only partially present, in the sense that some of their proper temporal parts (e.g., their previous or future phases) may be not present. E.g., the piece of paper you are reading now is wholly present, while some temporal parts of your reading are not present yet, or any more. Philosophers say that endurants are entities that are in time, while lacking temporal parts (so to speak, all their parts flow with them in time). Perdurants, on the contrary, are entities that happen in time, and can have temporal parts (all their parts are fixed in time). Corresponds approximately to noun sense 1 of 'thing' in WordNet: 1. (404) thing - (a special situation; 'this thing has got to end'; 'it is a remarkable thing') thing thing thing1n connected_spatiotemporal_region BFO Definition: A space time region that has temporal and spatial dimensions such that all points within the spatiotemporal region are mediately or immediately connected to all other points within the same space time region. Examples: the spatial and temporal location of an individual organism's life, the spatial and temporal location of the development of a fetus. @ToDo: COSMO note: in COSMO, the type TimePoint (instant) is a subtype of TimeInterval, whereas in BFO interval and instant are disjoint. The BFO interval, therefore must be a non-zero length. For simplicity, COSMO does not yet have a non-zero-length instant (no need yet), and when that is added the BFO 'SpatiotemporalInterval' neeeds to be equated with the non-zero-length interval, and the subtype relation of 'SpatiotemporalInstant' and 'SpatiotemporalInterval' must be removed.. BFO Definition: A space time region that has spatial and temporal dimensions and every spatial and temporal point of which is not connected with every other spatial and temporal point of which. Examples: the space and time occupied by the individual games of the World Cup, the space and time occupied by the individual liaisons in a romantic affair. scattered_spatiotemporal_region Definition: A connected space time region at a specific moment. Examples: the space time region occupied by a single instantaneous temporal slice (part) of a process. COSMO note: It is unclear why this is not identical to a region of space at some particular moment. spatiotemporal_instant COSMO note: in COSMO instants are not disjoint from intervals, they are merely the limiting case of intervals of zero lenght. A 'proper interval' is a legitimate concept, but would just be superfluos in COSMO, so this Type will include proper intervals and instants. BFO Definition: A connected space time region that endures for more than a single moment of time. BFO Examples: the space time region occupied by a process or by a fiat processual part spatiotemporal_interval A 'Scope' can be a physical area within which something operates or is effective, or a more abstract thing, such as a Context, as in the scope of some law. This is a broad and hetergeneous category use to represente the notions od 'range; or 'scope' or 'compass'. When posssible, more specific types should be used. Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'range' and sense 1 of 'scope' in WordNet: 1. (47) scope, range, reach, orbit, compass, ambit - (an area in which something acts or operates or has power or control: 'the range of a supersonic jet'; 'the ambit of municipal legislation'; 'within the compass of this article'; 'within the scope of an investigation'; 'outside the reach of the law'; 'in the political orbit of a world power') range range range1n scope scope1n COSMO: Context is a very general class of entities that can affect the truth of a logical sentence; within any given Context, the factual assertions should all be logically consistent. A Context may be relevant to the internal states and processes of a computational system, or may more generally describe the broad situation in which an Agent finds itself when processing information for the purpose of making a decision. For the latter agent context, the subtype 'SituationalContextComponent' is relevant. A Context can be a time interval, location, belief system, fictional world, theory, hypothetical world, counterfactual situation, segment of text, DatabaseGroup, or the state of our own real world, among other things. Contexts can be nested, combined, or intersected. For example, a Context consisting of a TimeInterval can be intersected with a Context consisting of a GeographicalArea to make a Context within with assertions are explicitly true only in that time and place. That does not mean, of course that the assertion cannot be true elsewhere; it just doesn't guranteee truth elsewhere. Every assertion in the COSMO ontology is implicitly true only in the context of the COSMO ontology, which is itself a theory. But that implicit qualification does not appear directly in any asertion - it can be explicitly mentioned if and when COSMO assertions are referenced in other ontologies. The nesting of Contexts provides a mechanism to create a 'lattice' of theories. In a subcontext for any given Context, all the assertions of the parent Context will be true in the subcontext, and additional assertions may also be true. In this respect, a Context is similar to the 'Microtheories' of the Cyc ontology system; it also has some resemblance to the 'Environments' discussed by Ballim and Wilks ('Artifical Believers', Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991). One specialized example of Context is a 'DatabaseGroup'. In a particular Organization, its set of Databases, if intended to represent some consistent group of facts, can be viewed and represented as a Context within which reasoning may be performed. NOTE that OpenCyc spatialThing does not necessarily have to be in our Space-Time; it can be in an abstract space. So this is not identical to DOLCE 'spatio-temporal-particular', which is a subclass. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of all things that have a spatial extent or location relative to some other #$SpatialThing or in some embedding space. Note that to say that an entity is a member of this collection is to remain agnostic about two issues. First, a #$SpatialThing may be #$PartiallyTangible (e.g. #$Texas-State) or wholly #$Intangible (e.g. #$ArcticCircle or a line mentioned in a geometric theorem). Second, although we do insist on location relative to another spatial thing or in some embedding space, a #$SpatialThing might or might not be located in the actual physical universe. It is far from clear that all #$SpatialThings are so located: an ideal platonic circle or a trajectory through the phase space of some physical system (e.g.) might not be. If the intent is to imply location in the empirically observable cosmos, the user should employ this collection's specialization, #$SpatialThing-Localized. A #$SpatialThingTypeByDimensionality and a specialization of #$SpatialThing, each instance of which is either a one- or two- or three- (or higher-) dimensional spatial object. Examples include tangible or intangible spatially-localized dimensional objects, such as the edge of a tabletop, the surface of the tabletop, and the table itself, as well as abstract geometrical objects that are at least one-dimensional, such as a Platonic circle or cube. Specializations of this collection include #$ExtendedSpaceRegion, #$ShapedThing, and #$TwoOrHigherDimensionalThing. A #$SpatialThingTypeByDimensionality and a specialization of #$SpatialThing, each instance of which is either a two- or three- (or higher-) dimensional spatial object. Examples include tangible or intangible spatially-localized polydimensional objects, such as the flat surface of a tabletop and the table itself, as well as abstract geometrical objects that are at least two-dimensional, such as a Platonic cube. Specializations of this collection include #$PartiallyTangible, #$BilateralObject, and #$TwoDimensionalGeometricThing. A PhysicalObject is an Object that has mass. The mass is relativistic, i.e. the Object does not have to have rest mass; so, a photon and other fundamental particles are 'PhysicalObject's, just as are the ordinary objects like rocks, baseballs, and automobiles. In COSMO some *quantity* of substance (e.g. the water in a glass of water) is also a PhysicalObject (more specifically, an instance of the subtype 'LiquidObject'). Quantities of gas are also PhysicalObjects (more specifically, 'GaseousObject's such as the 'EarthsAtmosphere'). NOTE that a PhysicalSubstance such as Air or Water is not a PhysicalObject, but is the material of which PhysicalObjects consist. See 'PhysicalSubstance' for more detail on the relation of substances and objects in COSMO. Because the determining characteristic of a PhysicalObject is that it has some mass, COSMO has a restriction that all instances of PhysicalObject must specify the mass, using the relation 'hasMassInGrams'. This can be a nuisance when the mass is unknown, and the convention is adopted that a mass of '-1' will be interpreted as an unknown mass. The mass figures can be very approximate - at the OWL phase, the value of the relation 'hasMassInGrams' should be interpreted as only an approximation within an order of magnitude. When more precise mass figures are needed, the relation 'hasMass' can be used (with an instance of MassMeasure as the value), and this relation allows specifying a range of values, or a statistical variance for the numberical portion of the mass value. Using 'hasMass' does not (in the OWL version) eliminate the need to specify some mass by the 'hasMassInGrams' relation, but it soed allow the specification of units of measure other than grams and number ranges for the quantifier. NOTE on '3D' vs '4D' objects: Some ontologists prefer to represent PhysicalObjects as extended in time, thereby forming a '4-dimensional' object ('perdurantism'). Others prefer only 3D objects ('endurantism'), with the time explicitly specified when relations hold on an object. In COSMO this category of 'PhysicalObject' is indeterminate as between a Perdurant and an Endurant - that is, the instances are not necessarily zero-duration time slices, nor are they necessarily time slices of finite duration. An instance of 'PhysicalObject' can be used in relations where the valid time interval for the relation is explicit, in which case it behaves syntactically like a 3D object; or an instance can also be specified to be an instance of 'TimeSlice', in which case that instance is a 4-dimensional TimeSlice of a PhysicalObject, and any relations defined on that 4D instance hold only during the TimeInterval of the TimeSlice. See 'TimeSlice' for more detail on that type and its use. As a result, Roles such as 'Student', which are TemporalThings with a beginning and end time, can be classified as subtypes of this category. Corresponds to a supertype of noun sense 1 of 'object' in WordNet; this COSMO type includes Objects that are not visible, as long at they have mass: 1. (64) object, physical object - (a tangible and visible entity; an entity that can cast a shadow; "it was full of rackets, balls and other objects") object object object1n hasMassInGrams relates an Object to its mass measured in grams. This is a shortcut to using more general functional mass measures, and is used here only for illustration, to permit some specifics in instances. The values given should be taken as crude estimates (order of magnitude estimates, possible error over 100%), particularly since no time interval is given by this relation. Relations expressing more exact values of mass have not yet (v0.45) been written in COSMO. This is mostly a placeholder for more meaningful relations. NOTE: for objects whose mass is unknown, a value of '-1' will serve as the code for 'unknown mass'. Since, as of v0.49, a mass value is required in COSMO for PhysicalObjects (mass is the characteristic property of PhysicalObjects), an explicit value must be provided even if it is unknown. If an approximate value can be guessed within +- 100% (as with human weights),a value should be entered so that the reasoner will have some information with which to make inferences. For example, a car mass of 1,000,000 grams (one ton) will allow the reasoner to infer 'too heavy for a person to lift'. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of wholly intangible individuals, a specialization of both #$Intangible and #$Individual. Instances of #$IntangibleIndividual are immaterial, and thus do not have mass, color, or other tangible qualities. Examples include mathematical objects (such as numbers, functions, and relations), attributes, time intervals, space regions, and events. Excluded are sets and collections because, although intangible, they are not individuals. IntangibleIndividual A MentalObject is an Object that does not have mass and was created by an IntelligentAgent (usually a Person.or Organization). This is a very broad and primitive category comprehensible mostly by inspection of a list of subtypes. Since this is not physical, instances of this Type are not observable, but physical representations of instances of this Type (such as a specific copy of 'Gone With the Wind') can be weighed and felt. Abstract texts, musical compositions, propositions, theories, plays, poems, speeches, rights - all are MentalObjects. They will invariably have a physical representation in some PhysicalObject (including brains, light waves and sound waves). But the MentalObject itself has no physical (material) component. This corresponds closely to what in some systems (e.g. the Ontology Works top ontology) is called an 'AbstractArtifact' - something created by a Person that is not a PhysicalObject. We adopt the convention that an individual MentalObject exists only so long as there is some PhysicalObject that represents it. That PhysicalObject could be the brain of a Person, some sound or electromagnetic waves encoding that MentalObject, or some piece of paper with markings on it. When the last physical object representing that MentalObject ceases to exist, that MentalObject also ceases to exist. A new MentalObject indistinguishable from a previously existing one can always be created (even by the original creator), but it would be a different individual with a different identity. NOTE that a MentalObject is a subtype of 'AbstractEntity', but we adopt the convention that it can hava a location in space-time, being the collection of locations where its physical representations are located. Thus a Belief or a Proposition may be located in the brain of one or more IntelligentAgents, or in physical documents describing the belief symbolically. This 'location' differs from the location of any individual physical object, because the location is the collection of all physical objects containing representations of the Mental Object. This notion of 'abstract' is not the same as the traditional 'abstract' which cannot be located in space-time. Other subtypes of 'AbstractEntity' such as MathematicalObjects will be more traditionally abstract in that way. An idiosyncratic 'location' for a MentalObject is the location of a GeopoliticalEntity, which is located in the region controlled by the GeopoliticalEntity. Equivalent to the Cyc #$Artifact-Intangible OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002: A specialization of both #$IntangibleIndividual and #$Artifact-Generic. Each instance of #$Artifact-Intangible is an intangible thing intentionally created by an agent or agents. Important specializations of #$Artifact-Intangible include #$ComputerLanguage, #$ConceptualWork, and #$Agreement. This is the most general Type in which to collect patterns of different kinds - visual, sound patterns, numerical patterns, behavioral patterns, etc. In COSMO, a Pattern is a Specification, which means that it is a kind of MentalObject. That means that Patterns do not have existence unless created by IntelligentAgents. This will probably seem odd to some people, who would prefer to think that patterns have an independent existence - especially when geometric figures are subtypes of 'Pattern'. At this point, there is no reason to classify Patterns in any way other than as specifications that people create to classify some types of relations that obejcts within groups of things may have to each other. If some reason is presented to consider patterns as independent of the way people use them, that may be a different concept, or may warrant reclassification. This is the most general Type in which to collect visual patterns - geometric designs, fingerprint patterns, artifact structural patterns, appearances, shapes, outlines, etc.. NOTE that an abstract image itself (e.g. an image of a fingerprint) can be a pattern. A subcollection of #$SpatialThing. Each instance of #$GeometricallyDescribableThing is a spatially-connected spatial thing (of 0, 1, 2, or 3 dimensions) that either (i) has or approximates a simple geometric shape (e.g. it is a #$Line or a #$Hemisphere) or (ii) consists of a number of (connected) parts in a relatively stable geometric configuration, where each such part has or approximates a simple geometric shape (e.g. a table consisting of a 3-D-disc-shaped top and four cylindrical legs). A #$GeometricallyDescribableThing might be tangible (see #$PhysicalObject) or intangible (see #$GeometricallyDescribableThing-Intangible). Note that what counts as approximating a given simple geometric shape -- and thus what spatial things count as #$GeometricallyDescribableThings - varies with context. In a context that was so fine-grained shape-wise that even the shapes of the individual molecules on the surface of an object were considered relevant to the object's shape, perhaps nearly every (connected, solid) tangible object would be geometrically-describable. In more everyday contexts, on the other hand, an unopened can of soup would be geometrically-describable (as a cylinder), while a telephone or an animal's body would probably not. bd58c42e-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of both #$GeometricallyDescribableThing and #$IntangibleIndividual (qq.v.). This is the collection of all intangible, geometrically-describable things, whether spatially localized or not. #$GeometricallyDescribableThing-Intangible is the intersection (see #$collectionIntersection) of #$GeometricallyDescribableThing and #$Intangible. Examples include any spatially-connected, intangible thing that has or approximates (or which consists entirely of parts that all have or approximate) a simple geometric shape, such as the intangible space determined by a particular Egyptian pyramid, an abstract Platonic sphere, or the center of mass of the solar system (a point) at the first instant of the Twentieth Century in Greenwich, England. Important specializations of this collection are #$GeometricThing-Localized (which includes all spatially localized instances) and #$GeometricThing-Abstract (which includes all instances not spatially located in the empirically-observable universe). c12c73ef-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 An instance of #$GeometricShapeType and a specialization of #$GeometricallyDescribableThing-Intangible and #$HomogeneousExtendedSpaceRegion (qq.v.). This is the collection of geometrical figures, conceived of as bounded (one- or higher-dimensional) regions of space. Neither a single point (see #$GeometricalPoint), nor a sum of scattered points, is an instance of #$Figure-Geometrical. Note that this collection includes line segments, but not unbounded lines. An important specialization of this collection is #$PlaneFigure-Geometrical. The class of all geometric figures, i.e. the class of all abstract, spatial representations. Instance of GeometricFigure are abstract mathematical objects which can be considered as independent of anything in our material universe. They are therefore not MentalObjects, which must be created by people. The instances of this class are GeometricPoints, TwoDimensionalFigures or ThreeDimensionalFigures or any other Object that can be represented as being a distribution of points, lines, planes, volumes, or hypervolumes in some abstract space. be91f0ad-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$Situation. Each instance of #$Situation-Localized is a situation whose temporal extent occurs at a specific location in space. Notable specializations of #$Situation-Localized include #$PhysiologicalCondition and #$Event-Localized. 71236476-8636-41d7-88b4-b7549eb3213c A FunctionalProcess corresponds to the linguistic intuition of something happening at some point in time, rather than something that has happened in some interval of time, which is an Event. Intuitively, it may be considered as the time derivative of an Event: a Process occurring over some interval of time gives rise to an Event, which is a change (or series of changes) in the properties of some Objects during some interval of Time. Every FunctionalProcess is intimately associated with some Event as one of the components of that Event (see 'Event'). NOTE that this differs from the notion of 'process' used in Cyc, where a Process is a kind of Event that can be subdivided and still result in an Event of the same kind. In COSMO taking some temporal part of a FunctionalProcess does not necessarily result in a FunctionalProcess of the same kind. **NOTE** A FunctionalProcess may also be defined, not by specifying the individual values of the fluents at points in time, but by specifying the manner in which a fluent can change over time. One specific example of this is a **differential equation** which can be used to take the value of a fluent at some starting point in time, and calculate the values at subsequent points in time. Thus a FunctionalProcess can have, as its TimeIndexedAssertion, a differential equation. This is an important difference between Event and FunctionalProcess. @ToDo: the specifics of how a differential equation are to be represented have not been elaborated as of v0.50. Formally, a FunctionalProcess is a Group consisting of one or more TimeIndexedAssertions, where each TimeIndexedAssertion is an InstantaneousState or PersistentState. Each State contains a Group of assertions specifying the values of the fluents that hold at that TimePoint; if only one Object is a participant in the FunctionalProcess, thre may be only one TimeIndexedAssertion in each State. A TimeIndexedAssertion can be a differential equation relating a fluent to time. Thus if, at some point in time, someone is Running, one can say that a Running process exists at that point, and that person is a participant in the process. The 'existence' of an instance of Process at some time point implies that some Event has taken place (or is taking place) in the time interval including that time point, and vice-versa, each Event implies existence of some corresponding FunctionalProcess at every time point during the interval between the beginning and end of the Event (**but see next paragraph**). But for linguistic purposes, it may be more convenient to represent just the Event or just the FunctionalProcess, and not explicitly represent the corresponding entity, which is nevertheless implied. The list of States over time has some similarity to a ValueTimeEntry, though the former relates the state assertions themselves, rather than the values. **It is possible for a FunctionalProcess to be discontinuous, such as an 'eating' process during which one is not actually ingesting anything - perhaps reading a paper in the intervals between taking bites of a meal; or a 'going to school' process during which one sleeps, watches television, etc., other than actually being in the school or studying. One may formally say that the process continues int the intervals when the relevant fluents are not changing, but that the intervals between actual progression of the process each consists of a null process (PersistentState) which is part of the whole process, and give rise to null events which are parts of the whole event.** The term 'process' has been often used to refer to Procedures, (see 'Procedure') which are specifications for some sequence of actions that accomplish a goal. That is a distinct, though somewhat related concept. In some ontologies, (such as Cyc) a 'process' is a type of Event which has some uniform character throughout the Event. Because of the variant usage, the bare term 'process' is not used in this ontology to avoid confusion. Thus this base Type is called 'FunctionalProcess' to specifically refer to its similarity to a mathematical function. It resembles a mathematical function in certain respects: a FunctionalProcess can be said to describe the state of some system as a function of time. Like a function, a FunctionalProcess can have properties, and one important property will be the Rate at which the represented change is occurring. A characteristic of a FunctionalProcess is one can specify a Rate at some time point, or an average rate in some time interval. There is no corresponding Rate that can be specified for an Event, even though the two concepts are otherwise very similar. Most ontologies deal with Events, and ignore Processes of this type. For representing certain linguistic phrases, however, this type is better suited than the Event type. Most FunctionalProcesses are not represented explicitly in COSMO at version 0.3, but when needed may be generated by a function (not yet defined) that takes an Event and returns the Process that is operating to generate that Event. One issue not yet dealt with in COSMO v0.3 is whether a function that can generate a Process from the corresponding Event can handle Events whose definition specifies more than one Fluent as changing during the Event. In such cases, to have a clear relation, the multiple fluents must be ordered similarly in the representation of the Event and its corresponding FunctionalProcess. An Event in COSMO can be represented as a Group of component subevents, or as a Group of TimeIndexed Assertions, each of which specifies some property of one or more compnents of the system, in some time interval. The grounding of the meaning of an Event rests on the specification of the properties and relations ('fluents') of the Objects participating in the Event at times during the course of the Event; this is accomplished by specifying a Group of 'TimeIndexedAssertion's, which in aggregate represent the changes to the fluents of one or more objects over some interval of time, and containing the component elements: (1) InstantaneousState at the starting time (2) InstantaneousState at the Ending time (3) The FunctionalProcess that describes the intermediate states between the starting and ending times. Events that are represented as a Group of subevents do not need to specify the FunctionalProcess, but should specify the starting and ending InstantaneousStates. **Informally**, a state,process, or event in COSMO is interpreted as the set of *values* of some 'fluents' (attributes or relations that may change over time), but the actual *formal* representation is a Group in which the group elements are the *TimeIndexedAssertions* specifying the values of the fluents pertaining to some Group of Objects, at some TimePoint or TimerInterval. he differences between State, Process,and Event are: State: The Group of Assertions that hold at one time point (InstantaneousState), or persist without change of value over some contiguous interval of time (PersistentState). No value can change within a State. NOTE that one can represent the state of an individual relation or attribute for some Object, without specifying how other attributes may or may not change. Therfore one can, for example, represent a Feeling as a PersistentState that continues without change in value over some interval of time, while other attributes or relations on the same Person change dramatically. Each attribute of each Object represented in a State can be represented as a State separately from the states of other Objects. FunctionalProcess: The full set of LinguisticAssertions specifying the values of fluents at each time point or smaller TimeInterval within a TimeInterval in which the Process is defined. The set of LinguisticAssertions relate times to values,and in that respect is analogous to a mathematical function. In analogy to a mathematical function, one can derive a 'rate' for a Process (in cases where the values are quantified) by taking the ratio of (difference in value) to (difference in time) for any TimeInterval in which a change of value is specified. This rate may change from time to time during a FunctionalProcess. **NOTE** A FunctionalProcess may also be defined, not by specifying the individual values of the fluents at points in time, but by specifying the manner in which a fluent can change over time. One specific example of this is a **differential equation** which can be used to take the value of a fluent at some starting point in time, and calculate the values at subsequent points in time. Thus a FunctionalProcess can have, as its TimeIndexedAssertion, a differential equation. @ToDo: the specifics of how a differential equation are to be represented have not been elaborated as of rev837. **Linguistically** an Event may be labeled by a verb or a noun. The arguments to an event (e.g. the participants) may be implied by use of some linguistic terms (e.g. 'skating' implies the use of skates as a tool). Any given event type may subsume many subtypes, each being an Event with some different type of participant. Whether or not to represent such subtypes explicitly will depend in part on whether the participants are mentioned explicitly in a linguistic text, or whether there are linguistic terms that implicitly assume a certain type of participant. As of rev835, there is no systematic criterion for deciding whether to explicitly represent events with a certain type of participant as subtypes of the more general type, other than whether there are English words that imply a certain type of participant without that participant being mentioned explicitly in text (e.g. 'Baking' is a subtype of 'HeatingProcess', using an Oven as an instrument). Event: focuses on the values of the fluents at the beginning and ending of some TimeInterval, but also includes the FunctionalProcess that specifies the fluent values at times between the beginning and ending. Since the focus of an Event is on the change from one time point to the next, one cannot specify a 'rate' in the same sense as for a FunctionalProcess, where the rate may change many times during the FunctionalProcess. For an Event, one can derive a single 'rate' value that specifies the overall ratio of change of fluent value to time, between the beginning and ending points, and for any instance of Event, only one such 'rate' can be defined. Although logically included in each Event are the starting and ending times, (see relations hasStartingTimePoint and hasEndingTimePoint), these may not be known, and creating an instance of Event does not require specifying those times if not known. NOTE that the FunctionalProcess which is a component of the Event *contains* all of the elements contained in the Event, in that it contains itself, and also contains the states at the beginning and end. While *containing* all of those elements, however, it is nevertheless a distinctly different concept, since the 'Event' specifically selects out of the FunctionalProcess the beginning and ending states as characteristic of the Event. The Event is not a FunctionalProcess, but *contains* a FunctionalProcess as a component element. A FunctionalProcess can be derived from an Event, and an Event can be derived from a FunctionalProcess that is defined over some interval of time. A 'FunctionalProcess' that has only one time point in it also represents a special kind of Event, the limiting case of an InstantaneousState. NOTE also that an instance of FunctionalProcess that is defined by a mathematical function relating properties to time must have associated with it some time interval during which it is asserted to be valid, in order to be an instance. NOTE also that this representation of Event does not resemble a perdurantist 'history' which focuses on some region of space-time. Regions of space-time are represented as 'SpatiotemporalRegion' in COSMO, but the only spatial regions of relevance to an Event are those that can be derived from the locations of the Objects that participate in an Event. The significant conceptual components of an Event are the properties ('fluents') of the Objects that participate in the Event, and insofar as the locations of the Objects may be, but are not necessarily, represented in the Event, those locations may be significant, but except in Events solely depicting motion, the locations are incidental rather than central to the changes represented by the Event. Each Event represents one or more changes that occur to the attributes or relations ('fluents') of one or more objects during some defined interval of time (or for abstract Events, within some interval on the dimension of causality); the net changes are represented by the state at the beginning of the event and the state at the end of the Event. In the physical world, real Events typically have multiple intermediate stages, and nothing occurs instantaneously, but some non-physical Events such as a change of title for a Person may occur at a precise moment by prior arrangement. The representation of intermediate stages of an Event can be explicit, with the included events related to the whole event by the 'hasSubEvent' relation or 'hasTemporalPart' relation. The first can be more specific about one of serveral fluents that vary during an event. The temporal part relation between Events must relate a subevent that includes alll of the fluents represented in the whole Event. Each Event includes implicitly a Process that specifies the course of each fluent between the start and end times. At this point (v0.39) there is no explicit representation of the included Process, but each FunctionalProcess will, if represented explicitly, have an associate time granularity indicating the minimal intervals over which the change in the fluents are represented. The size of the granularity intervals during which FunctionalProcess states are represented will depends on the discretion of the ontologist for the purposes of the representation. COSMO note: note that in some ontologies (and situation logics) , 'Event' is used to refer to a change in state that is considered instantaneous. In COSMO, such an 'Event' is a subtype of the more general event, which is a change in state that occurs over some interval of time (which, for instantaneous changes would be a zero-length time interval). NOTE also that for some Events, such as cyclic Events, merely representing the starting and ending states - which may be identical - loses the whole meaning of the Event; so intermediate states must also be represented in some manner to provide meaning to the Event. Called: Event(Cyc); Process(SUMO); event(DOLCE); Processual(SPAN-BFO) ************ NOTE on BFO 'Process' ****************************** COSMO: BFO the Type most closely representing COSMO 'Event' is 'Process', so that BFO type is made synonymous with ''Event'. BFO makes teh distinction between 'Fiat' events (FiatProcessPart = parts of events) and complete events. This Type represents the complete Event with well-defined beginnings and ends. The FiatProcessPart event is included for compatibility, though not yet used. BFO ('Process') Definition: A processual entity that is a maximally connected spatio-temporal whole and has bona fide beginnings and endings corresponding to real discontinuities. BFO Examples: the life of an organism, the process of sleeping, the process of cell-division ************ NOTE on BFO 'Process' ****************************** Cyc comment: An important specialization of #$Situation and thus also of #$IntangibleIndividual and #$TemporallyExistingThing (qq.v). Each instance of #$Event is a dynamic situation in which the state of the world changes; each instance is something one would say happens . Events are intangible because they are changes per se, not tangible objects that effect and undergo changes. Notable specializations of #$Event include #$Event-Localized, #$PhysicalEvent, #$Action, and #$GeneralizedTransfer. #$Events should not be confused with #$TimeIntervals (q.v.). The temporal bounds of events are delineated by time intervals, but in contrast to many events time intervals have no spatial location or extent. COSMO note: 'Event' was merged with Cyc 'PhysicalEvent' and Cyc 'Event-Localized' The Cyc 'StrictlyMentalEvent' is classified as a PhysicalEvent in COSMO. Cyc: (PhysicalEvent') A specialization of #$Event-Localized. Each instance of #$PhysicalEvent is a spatially localized event involving one or more physical objects or stuffs. #$PhysicalEvents typically involve interaction among #$PartiallyTangibles. But note that a physical event might consist in the creation, destruction, movement, or a change in some physical feature of a single salient physical object. (See #$PhysicalCreationEvent, #$PhysicalDestructionEvent, #$MovementEvent, and #$IntrinsicStateChangeEvent.) For a contrasting (though not necessarily disjoint) collection, see #$StrictlyMentalEvent. For events that have both physical and mental components, see the collection #$CompositePhysicalAndMentalEvent. Cyc ('Event-Localized'): A specialization of #$Event. #$Event-Localized is the collection of all events that occur at a specific location in space. Notable specializations of #$Event-Localized include #$PhysicalEvent and #$AnimalActivity. bd58800d-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 Each PhysicalSubstance is an abstraction representing the properties of aggregates composed of multiple small objects of a common type; the notion of a PhysicalSubstance includes any of the common 'substances' we encounter every day: water, air, sugar, salt, coffee (ground or as a drink), beer, meat, steel, plastic, etc., as well as less common substanes such as ion plasma and groups of elementary particles. Every PhysicalSubstance has some basic unit which is the smallest object that can be considered as composed of that substance. For chemical elements the basic unit is an atom; for chemical compounds, the molecule; for sand, one grain of sand, etc. For PhysicalSubstances that are composed of mixtures (e.g. concrete), the formal notion of a 'grain' is used, the 'grain' being the size of the smallest object composed of a substance, that can be subdivided so that the pieces are still objects composed of the same substance. The 'grain' will in general be eight times the size of the 'unit' (allowing division in any of three planes) , but for mixtures the 'unit' may be difficult to identify, and the 'grain' will be the only object identifed as characterizing the PhysicalSubstance. For mixtures, the size of the grain will depend on the sizes and proportions of the constituent objects. Thus in concrete, the grain will have to be at least several times as large as the largest pebble of gravel used in the mixture. Some quantity of a PhysicalSubstance will comprise a HomogeneousObject; in Cyc substances are represented as objects, comparable in meaning to 'HomogeneousObject' in COSMO. The commonly understood properties of substances such as water are characteristic only of aggregates of the basic units (atoms, molecules, grains). To approximate the commonly measured properties (boiling point, melting point, density, etc.) the number of basic units may need to be fairly large; this will also vary with the substance. As of v0.52 this issue is not addressed. This concept must not be construed as a physical object made of some substance (which is the way substances are represented in Cyc - see CycNote below).. PhysicalObjects which are relatively homogeneous (the atmosphere, the ocean) can be construed as consisting of one or more PhysicalSubstances, but they are not substances per se, but specific quantities of a substance, which is one way to view a PhysicalObject. For generality in COSMO, a 'PhysicalSubstance' is the material of which anything with mass is composed, including quantities of subatomic particles that are contained in a certain region of space (such as a plasma in a Tokomak, or a group of electrons in a particle accelerator). However, the term is usually applied only to 'ordinary matter' (solid, liquid, gas); in those cases the unit is an atom or molecule, and the 'grain size' of any PhysicalSubstance that is 'ordinary matter' must contain at least 8 atoms or 8 molecules (so that it can be divided in two in any axis and still have multiple units in the resulting parts). IMPORTANT NOTE: PhysicalSubstances are categorized by the main consitutent. Therefore 'SeaWater' is considered as a subtype of 'Water'. The pure chemical substances can be represented when desirable by creating a 'Pure' category under the general heading (or, if functions are used, by using a '(Pure X)' function.) Thus we have a Type called 'PureWater'. Steel with iron as the majority constituent might be considered as a subtype of 'Iron'. COSMO note: Because substances are represented in COSMO as Types (classes) rather than instances, the specification of properties of substances gets involved, and the intended meanings cannot be specified fully without the use of FOL. As placeholders, some relations between substances are specified, and in OWL these will be interprted as applying only to those specific Substances (Type that are instances of SubstanceType), while the intended meaning is that the relation applies not only to the particular Type but to all subtypes as well. The translation of the OWL ontology to FOL should carefully handle these placeholder relations to be sure they are translated properly. . The restriction on hasGrainDiameter for SubstanceTypes (which see) should require subclasses rather than instances of LengthMeasure - instances may have to be created as a workaround. (still not decided, v0.43). NOTE that a substance at some particular concentration is a subtype of that substance. To expresss that an object contains a particular concentration of a substance, one can create a subclass of that substance having the appropriate concentration attribute, and relate the object to that concentration of substance by the relation 'hasConstituentSubstance'. This representation solves some logical problems, but creates implementation problems in restricted logics such as OWL. COSMO uses relations such as 'hasComponentSubstance', which takes PhysicalSubstance types (instances of the metatype 'SubtanceType') as the 'range' restriction. There are also relations which have subtypes of 'PhysicalSubstance' (instances of 'SubstanceType') as the domain restriction. This can be accommodated in OWL. However, in order to have restrictions apply to subtypes of types, the OWL restriction mechanism interprets the restriction as applying to instances of the type (OWL class). There are no instances of PhysicalSubstance types in COSMO, and the restriction is intended to apply to the subtypes, not to instances. Such restrictions on PhysicalSubstances will have to be interpreted by applications as meaning that the substance represented by the class has those properties. One way to solve the problem might be to create a metatype for each substance Type (i.e. for each of millions of substances), and have the restriction apply to the metatype - but this duplicates Types as metatypes, and is unworkable. COSMO leaves the proper implementation to the application, at least until it is converted in to an FOL version, where the proper interpretations can be specified by rules. CycNote: In Cyc, PhysicalSubstance's are not represented by a tree in the hierarchy, but are represented by types that are physical objects ('Partiallytangible') and also instances of 'ExistingStufType'. In effect, Cyc considers a 'substance' as the type consisting of all PhysicalObjects that are homogeneous (down to a certain granularity) and having a certain composition. This can be translated into the COSMO representation at the type and instance level, but the Cyc metatypes are not represented in COSMO. See 'HomogeneousObject' Cyc: 'ExistingStuffType' A collection of collections, and a specialization of #$TemporalStuffType. Each instance of #$ExistingStuffType is a collection of things (including portions of things) which are both temporally and spatially stufflike. Division in time or space does not destroy the stufflike quality of the object (down to a certain granularity). (#$isa STUFFTYPE #$ExistingStuffType) implies both (i) for most instances STUFF of STUFFTYPE, for any proper physical part (see #$physicalParts) PART of STUFF, PART is also an instance of STUFFTYPE and (ii) for all instances STUFF of STUFFTYPE, for most proper physical parts PART of STUFF, PART is also an instance of STUFFTYPE. For example, every piece of wood is temporally stufflike: if W-168 is a piece of wood during 1996, then it's also a piece of wood for the one-minute time-slice 9:05am 7/7/96. It's also spatially stufflike: if we take that piece of wood W-168 and cut it in half, we have two things which are both pieces of wood. Since every piece of wood is both temporally and spatially stufflike, #$Wood is an instance of #$ExistingStuffType. Other instances of #$ExistingStuffType include the collections #$AppleJuice, #$IceCream, #$Diamond, #$WaxedPaper, and #$StriatedMuscle. See the comment for #$StuffType to learn more about the distinctions between, and the need for, these four collections: #$StuffType, #$ObjectType, #$ExistingStuffType, and #$ExistingObjectType. The senses 1 and 2 of 'matter' in Random House Webster are conceptually the same as this type, where COSMO interprets sense 2 is the most generic 'matter' of which the instances of sense 1 are subtypes: 1. the substance or substances of which any physical object consists or is composed: the matter of which the earth is made. 2. physical or corporeal substance in general, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, esp. as distinguished from incorporeal substance, as spirit or mind, or from qualities, actions, and the like. Corresponds to noun sense 2 of 'substance' and sense 1 of 'stuff' and sense 1 of 'matter' and sense 1 of 'material' in WordNet; however, 'substance' is not related to 'stuff' and 'stuff' is not related to 'matter' in WordNet, and 'matter' is not used typically as a synonym of 'substance' in ordinary speech. This difference in usage reflects a difference in the way 'substances' are conceived - as either some abstract stuff of which objects consist, or of the collections of all objects of that composition, as in Cyc. COSMO chooses the notion of an abstract 'stuff'. A noun like 'matter' which, if it were taken to have a collective reading as 'all physical objects, collectively' would thereby conform to the Cyc method of representing PhysicalSubstance, and would then consistently be reinterpreted in COSMO as the same concept as 'PhysicalSubstance'. WN 'substance': 2. (4) substance - (the stuff of which an object consists) WN 'stuff': 1. (6) material, stuff - (the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object; 'coal is a hard black material'; 'wheat is the stuff they use to make bread') WN material: 1. (448) material, stuff - (the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object; 'coal is a hard black material'; 'wheat is the stuff they use to make bread') WN 'matter': 1. (41) substance, matter - (that which has mass and occupies space; an atom is the smallest indivisible unit of matter') matter material substance substance2n stuff stuff1n material material1n matter matter1n hasAttributeValue relates an Object or Substance or Event to some AttributeValue which the Object may have. Each AttributeValue will be a value for at least one AttributeType, but this relation does not specify the AttributeType. For cases where an AttributeValue may measure more than one AttributeType (such as LengthMeasure, which can specify length, width, height, altitude, distance, etc.), using this relation may leave ambiguity as to its precise meaning. COSMO Note: AttributeValues may be either classes (instances of AttributeValueType), or instances of AttributeValue. This allows one to express an attribute as a region (e.g. colors will bw classes, not instances, to permit subclassing), or for quantitative measures as instances (e.g. '25 feet'). For quantitative measures, the representation of measurements as classes would be conceptually permissible (the class representing the set of possible values, determined by the measured value and possible error), or as instances of measure to which an uncertainty value has been attached. The specific subrelations (subproperties, in OWL) of 'hasAttributeValue' will in some cases have their range restricted to AttributeValueType of AttributeValue. isAnAttributeValueOf is the inverse of 'hasAttributeValue'. This relation will be used explicitly only in special cases where particular AttributeValues are appropriately applied only to specific types of things. hasQualitativeAttribute relates individual Objects or substances to some qualitative attribute (a subclass of QualitativeAttributeValue) that the object has. The accurate use of this property for substances is difficult to express in OWL. Since Substances are classes, to describe a qualitative attribute of a substance, in OWL one would need a metatype specifically for each substance, which multiplies reified entities unnecessarily. A FOL rule would be easy to construct to correctly relate the substances to their properties, but for COSMO version 0.2 a work-around for such a rule is not yet on hand. The restrictions on substances should be interpreted as meaning necessary conditions on all subclasses of the substances. A QualitativeAttributeValue is the value of some AttributeType which is not expressed in quantitative measures. NOTE: without an objective quantitative measure, the meaning of many QualitativeAttributeValues can be very sensitive to context, in particular the type of thing that is being modified by the QualitativeAttributeValue, or the agent assigning the attribute (such as evaluative attributes - 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'). @ToDO: it may be possible to specify some subtypes of QualitativeAttributeValue that are not context-sensitive (perhaps colors), but an analysis of this question has not yet (rev833) been performed. It can be an attribute of an abstract thing or of a concrete physical object. NOTE that adjectives expressing qualities in English often have a nominalized form: 'Red-Redness' or 'Beautiful-Beauty'. When linguistically to 'have @Att-nom' (@Att-nom is the nominalized form of an attribute) is the same as 'to be @Att' where @Att is the adjectival form, the concept will be represented only once, usually in the adjectival form, and nominalized form needs to be referenced to the adjectival by the linguistic processor. Corresponds most closely to part of noun sense 1 of 'value'and includes noun sense 2 of 'attribute' in WordNet: 1. (73) value - (a numerical quantity measured or assigned or computed; 'the value assigned was 16 milliseconds') WN noun 'attribute': 2. (1) attribute - (an abstraction belonging to or characteristic of an entity) value value value1n attribute attribute2n Each PertainingAttributeValue is an AttributeValue that is related to some other type by the relation 'pertainsTo'. The exact manner in which a 'PertainingAttributeValue' can be related to the object of the 'pertainsTo' relation can vary with the noun (often representing a type) that the adjective (represented by the PertainingAttributeValue) modifies. Thus an 'historical town' would be a town in which something of sufficient interest or significance occurred to justify the mention of the town in some history book; An American president will be some person who served as President of America (not just an American who was a President of some organization). The meanings of the individual 'pertaining' relations will vary with the word modified and the adjective modifying that word. . 'pertainsTo' relates an AttributeValue to some other type. This relation is used to relate AttributeValues that serve to represent adjectives to other types, so as to indicate that the word modified by the adjective is related to that other type in one of several direct ways. In dictionaries this relation is often expressed, in definitions of adjectives, by the phrase 'of or pertaining to'. In WordNet such adjectives are described as related to other words by the phrase 'pertains to'. For example, 'historical' pertains to 'history'. 'Physical-Material' is the attribute of objects that have mass, of energy, of space in out universe, and of Events and processes that involve objects with mass. This is the attribute of phenomena that can be detected by measuring instruments, and are susceptible to study by experimental techniques because they follow physical laws. This is the sense used for types 'PhysicalObject' , 'PhysicalSubstance', and most other types that include Physical in the name. Corresponds to adjective sense 3 of 'physical' in WordNet: 3. (6) physical - (having substance or material existence; perceptible to the senses; 'a physical manifestation'; 'surrounded by tangible objects') . physical physical physical3adj hasParticipant relates an Event to the things (Objects, Substances) that participate in the Event in some role, as causative agents, or as instruments, or as products or in other roles (e.g. as witnesses). This is the most general 'case' relation that is conceptual rather than strictly grammatical. It can be used to express a relation between types or instances. It will usually be used to refer to past Events, but may refer to future or hypothetical Events.. Participants include the inputs and outputs of Events that are creation or destruction events. See, for example, 'produced'. COSMO note: Objects may 'participate' in an Event without being a 'patient', for example in a BeliefState the Belief involved is a participant in the Event, but the properties of the belief involved are not among the fluents that are affected by the Event. Rather, in that case, the relationship between the Agent and the belief is the fluent. the inverse of 'hasParticipant'. This relation points from an instance of Object (physical or abstract) to an Event in which the Object participated (in any role). hadResult relates a PhysicalEvent to something that resulted from that Event. This is the most general 'result' or 'creation' relation. See also 'wasCreatedbyEvent' and 'produced'. There may be many things resulting from a given Event (creation or destruction of something, initiation of a Process or another Event, a PersistentState). It is useful also to state a restriction on Event types, specifying the kind of result that an Event may or must have. This is a relation that is called 'result' in SUMO, and is one of the CaseRole relations in that ontology. The Inverse of 'hadResult'. produced relates an Event to something that is produced in the Event. It is the inverse of 'isTheProductOf'. NOTE that 'produced' does not necessarily mean 'created' in the sense that the thing produced did not exist before the Event: Bleeding is an Action that 'produced' Blood, and the Blood existed before the Bleeding, but it was part of an animal before the bleeding and became independent of the animal as a result of the Bleeding process (which is a subtype of EmittingStuff). Creating in the sense of something going from nonexisting to existing is represented by the subproperty 'causedCreationOf'. THe thing produced can be abstract, such as a Thinking event producing some InformationObject - which can be a Proposition or some AbstractRepresentatikonof a Proposition, e.g. an AbstractText. In Cyc, a similar but not identical relation is called 'outputs'. Cyc ('outputs'): This predicate relates a particular creation or destruction event to any of its outputs . (#$outputs EVENT OBJECT) means that OBJECT is an output of EVENT. That is, OBJECT is either created/produced as a result of EVENT (see the specializations #$outputsCreated, #$products, #$byProducts) or something left after another thing was destroyed in EVENT (see the specialization #$outputsRemaining). For example, silicon chips are both #$outputsCreated in and #$products of a chip manufacturing process, while a hunk of scrap metal is an #$outputsRemaining after a car is put through a crusher. When appropriate, instead of using #$outputs, use one of its specializations (of which those mentioned above are the nearest). Includes verb senses 1 and 2 of 'produce' in WordNet: 1. (76) produce, bring forth - (bring forth or yield; "The tree would not produce fruit") 2. (42) produce, make, create - (create or manufacture a man-made product; "We produce more cars than we can sell"; "The company has been making toys for two centuries") produce produce produce1v produce2v 'typicallyProduces' is a type-level relation that can be used to specify that most instances of an Event result in production of some type of Object or Substance - but is used at the type level so that there will be no need to specify an instance of the object produced, nor an automatic skolemization of such an instance 'produces' is a type-level relation that can be used to specify that every instance of an Event results in production of some type of Object - but is used at the type level so that there will be no need to specify an instance of the object produced, nor an automatic skolemization of such an instance. Includes verb senses 1 and 2 of 'produce' in WordNet: 1. (76) produce, bring forth - (bring forth or yield; "The tree would not produce fruit") 2. (42) produce, make, create - (create or manufacture a man-made product; "We produce more cars than we can sell"; "The company has been making toys for two centuries") produce produce produce1v produce2v An Event in which some Agent plays a causative role. NOTE that an Agent may cause an action indirectly and with a time delay, via some device - and that action, controlled largely by the device, is still considered as an Action of that Agent in COSMO. This means that the 'action' set in motion by an Agent may continue even after the death of the Agent. Thus, the fire in an oil burner, being controlled by the Agent that controls the oil burner, is considered as an Action here, even though the burner continues for a long time automatically. The Action in such cases of indirect and delayed effects extends from the time at which the Agent started the action until the end of the time when the predictable immediate consequences occur. At some point it will probably be worthwhile distinguishing the Action of setting a Device from the Events controlled by the device, but as of v0.43 that distinction is not encoded. For Actions directly including only the immediate motion of an animal and its direct, almost simultaneous consequences, use 'AnimalActivity'. NOTE that a MentalEvent such as a feeling or Emotion is also considered an Action,as it is performed by a CognitiveAgent. In different ontologies, the same notion has different names: Action(Cyc) IntentionalProcess (SUMO) action(DOLCE) Activity(ISO15926). NOTE: in COSMO we classify an 'Experience' as a subtype of 'Action' to indicate that the focus of the subject is an Agent, even though no Events external to the Agent may be caused by the Experience. Cyc comment: The collection of #$Events (q.v.) that are carried out by some doer (see #$doneBy). Instances of #$Action include any event in which one or more actors effect some change in the (tangible or intangible) state of the world, typically by an expenditure of effort or energy. Note that it is not required that any tangible object be moved, changed, produced, or destroyed for an action to occur; the effects of an action might be intangible (such as a change in a bank balance or the intimidation of a subordinate). Note also that the doer of an action, though typically an #$Agent (q.v.), need not be (e.g. a falling rock that dents a car's roof). Depending upon the context, doers of actions might be animate or inanimate, conscious or nonconscious. For actions that are intentional, see #$PurposefulAction and #$performedBy. SUMO: A 'Process' that has a specific purpose for the 'CognitiveAgent' who performs it. DOLCE: A Perdurant that exemplifies the intentionality of an agent. Could it be aborted, incomplete, mislead, while remaining a (potential) accomplishment ... The point here is that having a result depends on a method, then an action remains an action under incomplete results. As a matter of fact, if we neutralize intentionality, a purely topological, post-hoc view is at odds with the notion of incomplete accomplishments. Includes noun sense 1 of 'action' and sense 2 of 'thing' in WordNet: 1. (632) action - (something done (usually as opposed to something said); "there were stories of murders and other unnatural actions") WN 'thing' 2. (279) thing -- (an action; "how could you do such a thing?") WN 'act': 2. (26) act, human action, human activity - (something that people do or cause to happen) bd58a841-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 action action action1n act act act2n thing thing thing2n A common term, also used in ISO15926, for 'Action'. A specialization of both #$Action (q.v.) and #$Event-Localized. Every instance of #$AnimateActivity is a spatially-localized action, each of whose doers (see #$doneBy and #$animateDoers) is either a #$BiologicalLivingObject or a group of BLOs (i.e. a #$Group all of whose members are BLOs). Specializations of this collection include #$AnimalActivity, #$BiologicalEvent, and #$PhysiologicalProcess. SUMO A normal process of an Organism or part of an Organism. 31d87aae-5580-41d7-8025-c8e9f7c3ffca NOTE: name changed in COSMO. In Cyc this is 'AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent'. Cyc: A collection of events. Each instance of #$AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent is an event involving the mental functions of a participant or group of participants (see #$actors) in that event. The collection includes such things as dreaming, perceiving, sensing, theorizing about something, having a realization, making a decision, building something, designing something, and consciously carrying out a task. Note that the above list includes both purposeful events and non-purposeful events that involve mental functions. Note also that any event that has a mental component is also an instance of this collection, so that events like preparing lunch would be classified as instances of #$AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent. In entering knowledge, it is almost always possible and preferable to use one of the specializations of #$AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent. If an event seems mostly mental in nature, modulo neurons firing and related brain activity, use #$StrictlyMentalEvent or one of its specializations. If it essentially involves both mental and physical activity, see #$CompositePhysicalAndMentalEvent or #$PurposefulPhysicalAction. For mental events that are intentionally and purposefully performed, see the specialization #$PurposefulMentalActivity. COSMO note: this appears to be similar to SUMO 'PsychologicalProcess', which is a subtype of Event. SUMO: A BiologicalProcess which takes place in the mind or brain of an Organism and which may be manifested in the behavior of the Organism. bd588615-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: Every 'MentalSituation' is an Event, Process, or State that occurs in some Mind. Since every Mind is located in a Brain, MentalSituations also must occur in some Brain (meaning in some animal). Cyc: A specialization of #$Situation. Each instance of #$MentalSituation is a mental situation such as a person seeing the color red, or believing that his enemies control the CIA, or desiring that Fidel Castro shave his beard. An important subcollection of this collection is #$AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent whice is the collection of mental situations that are events, such as thinking about something or tasting something. Other instances of #$MentalSituation are more long-standing and stable, and hence also instances of #$StaticSituation, e.g., believing something, or having some goal. Cf. #$MentalSituationFn. bee2989e-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent. Each instance of #$CompositePhysicalAndMentalEvent is an event that involves some mental event(s), as well as some interaction between physical objects. Each instance will thus have at least one #$PhysicalEvent as a sub-event. (It may or may not itself be an instance of #$PhysicalEvent, depending on whether it occurs at a specific spatial location.) Examples include a news broadcast program, a court trial, someone inheriting property, someone writing a letter, a physical examination, and a charity ball. Notable specializations of this collection include #$PurposefulPhysicalAction and #$SensoryEvent. bd588d27-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The collection of #$CompositePhysicalAndMentalEvents that are performed purposively (see #$performedBy). This collection is the collection-intersection of #$PurposefulAction and #$CompositePhysicalAndMentalEvent. Since each instance of #$PurposefulPhysicalAction is also an instance of #$CompositePhysicalAndMentalEvent, each instance has both a mental and a physical component. Driving a car would be an instance of #$PurposefulPhysicalAction since it involves mental and physical functioning on the part of the performing agent and is done purposively. Crashing a car, conversely, would not normally be an instance (unless the driver purposefully caused the crash). beb39562-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 'hasIntendedAudience' relates a Communication to one or more IntelligentAgents to whom the agent performing the Communication intends to transfer information. The object of this relation may or may not be the same as the object of the 'hasEndingPlace' relation, if the Communication reaches its intended audience (and no others). . The transfer of information from one or more IntentionalAgents or Automatons (e.g. automated communications devices) to one or more other IntentionalAgents. NOTE that a Communication need not be linguistic, nor necessarily symbolic (such as gesturing). It can be an Action, such as putting on camouflage, that is intended to convey some information to another agent. So this is a broad range of actions, but there has to be an intention to convey information - inadvertently conveying information is not a Communication in this sense. The restriction requires that some InformationObject - an AbstractText or a Meaning - be specified as the content of the communication. If they are known, both the AbstractText and the propositional information content can be specified; the latter would use relation 'hasAbstractRepresentation'. NOTE that although Communication in SUMO is a SocialOccurence, in COSMO 'SocialOccurence' is restricted to humans, while Communication can be accomplished also by non-human IntentionalAgents. Some subtypes of Communication will be SocialOccurrences. COSMO NOTE: that 'Communication' in COSMO is a subtype of 'InformationTransferEvent' in which some IntelligentAgent must be the intented recipient. Not every creation of an Information BearingThing (IBT) is a 'Communication', but jotting a note for one's own purposes is a Communication, even if no one else is intended to see it, because there is an intended recipient - but the creator and recipient are the same agent. Communication(SUMO) communication-event(DOLCE) SUMO: ('Communication') A SocialInteraction that involves the transfer of information between two or more CognitiveAgents. Note that Communication is closely related to, but essentially different from, ContentDevelopment. The latter involves the creation or modification of a ContentBearingObject, while Communication is the transfer of information for the purpose of conveying a message. SUMO partitions 'Communication' into: Stating Supposing Directing Committing Expressing Declaring. SUMO: relatedInternalConcept Communication ContentDevelopment. In Cyc called 'Communicating': Cyc: A specialization of #$PurposefulAction and characterized by one or more #$InformationTransferEvent sub-events. Each instance of #$Communicating is an event in which the transfer of information between or among agents is a focal action; communicating is the main purpose and/or goal in the event. That may be contrasted with events which involve communication but wherein the focus is different, e.g., playing cards (wherein the progressive actions - and winning - of the game are focal). Since #$Communicating is a specialization of #$PurposefulAction, each #$Communicating event must be intentional on the part of the #$communicatorOfInfo; it may or may not be intentional on the part of the agent playing the #$infoCommunicatedTo role. Hence, a speaker on a soapbox haranguing an indifferent crowd is performing an instance of #$Communicating. In contrast, Juliet soliloquizing on her balcony, unaware that Romeo is listening to her, is not #$Communicating; rather Romeo (and Juliet, unaware) are engaged in an #$Eavesdropping. Communicating may be either a one-way or a two-way transfer of information (cf. #$CommunicationAct-Single, #$MultiDirectionalCommunication). Every event belonging to #$Communicating contains at least one transfer of information between at least two agents who participate in the event. (Note that the latter requirement excludes reading and writing from #$Communicating, when those events are just the private accessing or generating of information.) Communicating may be specialized in various ways, such as, by the method or medium used (e.g., #$AudioCommunicating, #$NonVerbalCommunicating, #$FaceToFacePresenceCommunicating); by the type of information involved (e.g., #$MakingAnAgreement); by the purpose of the communication (e.g., #$Teaching, #$Negotiating); by the agents involved (e.g., #$IntraOrganizationCommunication, #$StageProduction). Examples of #$Communicating include a symphony performance, an email message, a telephone call, a speech, a handshake, issuing a traffic ticket - all of which normally, and focally, involve communication between two or more agents. bd589f07-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The SUMO term for the general event of 'Communication'. hasRepresentation is the most general relation that points from some concept or thing - of any type - to another thing (abstract or physical) that represents it in some way. This relation will be used, if at all, less frequently than the more specific 'representation' relations, and may be useful primarily to collect those more specific relations in one location to make the representation relations easier to understand. The related relation 'hasURL' points to a datatype string that is the address of some file relevant to the subject entity. As a datatype relation, Corresponds aproximately to verb senses 1 and 2 of 'represent' in WordNet: 1. (39) represent, stand for, correspond - (take the place of or be parallel or equivalent to; "Because of the sound changes in the course of history, an 'h' in Greek stands for an 's' in Latin") 2. (30) typify, symbolize, symbolise, stand for, represent - (express indirectly by an image, form, or model; be a symbol; "What does the Statue of Liberty symbolize?") represent represent represent1v represent2v hasAbstractRepresentation relates some entity - concrete or abstract - to a MentalObject that represents - or contains a part that represents - that entity. The mental object is itself abstract in the sense of having no mass. A common example of an abstract representation is the word (string of characters) 'cat', representing a small furry animal. NOTE that a document may have more than one abstract representation; for example, the content could be represented by an abstract formatted text, or by an unformatted text, or by the logical content of the text. NOTE that an AbstractRepresentation (such as an AbstractImage) of a person will contain an abstract representation of that person, but may also contain (and thus be, in this sense) an abstract representation of the clothing or accessories that person is wearing, or of the chair s/he is sitting in, or of the cat next in his/her lap, or of anything else in that image. NOTE also that, just as the representation pointed to by this relation may only have a part that actually represents the subject matter (other parts may represent other subject matters), the subject of the inverse relation 'isanAbstractRepresentationOf' may only have a part that is the representation of the object - for example, an abstract image may have many people in it, and it will be an abstract representation of each of those people, individually. of that relation. Corresponds aproximately to part of verb senses 1 and 2 of 'represent' in WordNet: 1. (39) represent, stand for, correspond - (take the place of or be parallel or equivalent to; "Because of the sound changes in the course of history, an 'h' in Greek stands for an 's' in Latin") 2. (30) typify, symbolize, symbolise, stand for, represent - (express indirectly by an image, form, or model; be a symbol; "What does the Statue of Liberty symbolize?") points from an abstract representation (for example, an AbstractString or AbstractImage) of something to that thing it represents. The abstract string 'the cat' could point to a specific instance of a cat A DateTimeExtendedGroup string would point to a TimeInterval. represent represent represent1v represent2v A LinguisticAssertion is sentence or combination of sentences in some language which expresses in linguistic symbols the content of a logical Assertion (which is an abstract Proposition). The Assertion may be a complex combinations of simple (atomic) assertions. In COSMO every LinguisticAssertion is a topic of some 'Communication'. The reason for this is that the act of creating an assertion in linguistic format entails that the creator had some audience in mind - even if that audience was the creator him/herself. This may leave out mindless rambling speech, but that kind of speech can be represented by a more general linguistic entity, such as 'Statement'. NOTE that the restriction here requires that a LinguisticAssertion be mentioned in some communication (not necessarily part of a communication). It can be mentioned without being part of a Communication if it is referred to or summarized without being presented in full in that communication. isaPartOf is a very general 'part' relation applicable to spatial regions or objects in some space. This relation has no axioms associated with it because it is only an 'umbrella' relation that gathers together other relations having different meaning, so as to provide an anchor point for the ambiguous linguistic notion of 'part' It cannot be transitive, because it subsumes the relation of a member to the group, which is not transitive. But some of its subrelations are transitive. NOTE that to say that something is a part of something else - or inversely, that something has a part - can present issues of implementation and some nuances of interpretation. Regarding implementation, if one asserts that every object ?O of type ?T has a part of type ?P, then for each individual of the ?T type it follows that some part of type ?P must exist. Then the reasoner must be instructed what to do if there is no individual of type ?P that is specifically asserted to be a part of object ?O. One option is to refuse to accept data asserting exstence of object ?O because no part is instantiated. Another option is to automatically instantiate *every* implied part - this can be done in a FOL reasoner by 'Skolemization' - creating a Skolem function that returns the individual. One may want alternative options - to be able to assert a necessary part relation, but *not* to create a Skolem individual if the part itself is not also asserted. In interpretation, it will be necessary to decide whether, for a type ?T that has necessary parts, whether the parts must be in place for an instane of type ?T to exist. If a musical instrument is borken down into its parts in a carrying case, is there a musical instrument in the case, or doe the instrument only exist when it is assembed and functional? These issues are not decided in COSMO, but the 'part' relations can be asserted at the individual or type level, and the proper interpretation of such relations will need to be determined before an implementation can reason accurately with the knowledge in the ontology. NOTE: this and its subproperties are usually instance-level relations, but types are included because they are used in some of the subrelations. To express that some physical object type is *typically* (but not necessarily) a part of another physical object type, use the type-level relation, 'isTypicallyaPhysicalPartOf'. An example would be a limb of an animal, which can be severed, and when thus separated may still be properly called a animal's limb - but not normally connected. isaProperPartOf is a very general 'part' relation applicable to spatial regions or objects in some space. See the parent property 'isaPartOf' for more detail. the inverse of 'isaPartOf', a very general relation applicable to spatial regions, events, or objects in some space. Non-standard usage: 'PhysicalSubstance' is added, though there are no instances in COSMO. This is a device to allow inheritable use of relations on substances. Needs to be carefully translated into FOL 'hasProperPart' is added to clearly distinguish the 'part' relation that could include the whole, useful for some logical and philosophical properties of the 'part' relation. A Communication that involves the transfer of information via a LinguisticExpression. An AssertingEvent is a linguistic Communication in which an Agent creates a communication whose content is predominantly one or more LinguisticAssertions (LinguisticAssertion is an abstract MentalObject, an abstract representation of a Proposition). refersToExternalEntity relates a MentalObject (e.g. a document, goal, fear) or a Communication to some external entity that is explicitly referenced in the MentalObject or Communication. The external entity may be any kind of entity: physical object, topic of study, event past or future. A Goal may, for example, focus on some Event or State that the agent wants to happen. @@@ToDo NOTE that by allowing 'Communication' and InformationTransferEvent, an Event, to be a subject of this relation we are to some extent conflating the Communication act with the subject of the communication. These parts should be distinguished, but because of the limnited expressivity of OWL, at v0.36 this conflation is allowed, to make the ontology easier to work with until a better tool is adopted. mentionsTopic relates an AbstractDocument, abstract Proposition, or InformationTransferEvent to one or more topics discussed in the document, or transferred in the Event. The Topic can be of any type. There may be more than one topic, but there should be at least one. Peripheral or insignificant topics could be, but would not usually be expected to be mentioned using this relation. The domain is 'AbstractDocument' but the range - the topic - could be of any type at all. isMentionedIn relates an entity of any type - class, individual, relation, proposition - to some form of communication or text in which it is mentioned.. hasTopic relates a Document, Text, or InformationTransferEvent to one or more topics discussed in the Message. This is a specialization of 'mentionsTopic', and the Topics related by this relation would be expected to be more in focus than the Topics related by the 'mentionsTopic' relation. There may be more than one topic, but there should be at least one. Peripheral or insignificant topics are less likely to be mentioned using this relation than when using the 'mentionsTopic' relation. The more specific domain here is 'Message' but the range - the topic - could be of any type at all. NOTE that any of the arguments of a RelationInstance (subject, value, other arguments) is a topic of that Assertion. Linguistically, this relation can be phrased as (Doc is about Topic). A Proposition is the abstract propositional content (i.e. the 'meaning') of some sentence, formula, or combination of sentences in any language. A Proposition is the actual meaning of a sentence or sentences in any language, and is independent of the language and of the symbol system used to encode the meaning. A related collection of Propositions is still considered as a Proposition; a prominent example is the body of accepted lore in some FieldOfStudy. Every Proposition has at least one topic related by the 'hasTopic' relation. There may be some temptation to use the subtypes of Proposition (Assertion, Axiom, Rule) as though they are symbolic objects - perhaps AbstractTexts. In casual conversation this will create no problems, and in fact it may not create problems in reasoning with the COSMO either, since both are abstract entities and not PhysicalObjects, and thus not disjoint. But it will be good practice to keep the propositional meanings separate from what are explicit though abstract linguistic representations of the meanings, wherever the distinction is clear. NOTE that this abstract notion of Proposition should not be conflated with an AbstractText that expresses that Proposition in symbols (usually linguistic symbols). An abstract 'Proposition' is related to such a symbolic representation by the relation 'hasAbstractRepresentation'. SUMO: Propositions are Abstract entities that express a complete thought or a set of such thoughts. As an example, the formula '(instance Yojo Cat)' expresses the Proposition that the entity named Yojo is an element of the Class of Cats. Note that propositions are not restricted to the content expressed by individual sentences of a Language. They may encompass the content expressed by theories, books, and even whole libraries. It is important to distinguish Propositions from the ContentBearingObjects that express them. A Proposition is a piece of information, e.g. that the cat is on the mat, but a ContentBearingObject is an Object that represents this information. A Proposition is an abstraction that may have multiple representations: strings, sounds, icons, etc. For example, the Proposition that the cat is on the mat is represented here as a string of graphical characters displayed on a monitor and/or printed on paper, but it can be represented by a sequence of sounds or by some non-latin alphabet or by some cryptographic form. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002\n A collection of intangible individuals. Each instance of #$Proposition is an abstract propositional thing that has some truth value in some context or world. A proposition is assumed to be representable (at least in principle) by a sentence in some formal or natural language. But it should _not_ be assumed that propositions are themselves intrinsically linguistic items in the way that sentences or formulae are. Indeed, propositions are often viewed as extra-linguistic, intensional entities that (while not sentences themselves) are represented or expressed by meaningful sentences (or, on some versions of this view, by concrete tokens of sentences). On such a view it is possible for distinct sentences (either from the same language or from different languages) to express the very same proposition; e.g. 'Snow is white', 'White is the color of snow', 'Schnee ist weiss'. (in German), and (arguably) '(#$relationAllInstance #$objectHasColor #$SnowMob #$WhiteColor)' (in CycL). Similarly, it is sometimes the case that a single sentence - when used in different contexts - will express distinct propositions; e.g. 'I am hungry.' said by you and said by me. Most formal languages (such as a first-order predicate calculus) and natural languages (such as English) include the resources for composing expressions that represent propositions from component expressions (that might or might not themselves represent other propositions).\n\nDOLCE: The abstract content of a proposition. Abstract content is purely combinatorial: from this viewpoint, any content that can be generated by means of combinatorial rules is assumed to exist in the domain of quantification (reified abstracts). COSMO: An InformationObject is a MentalObject created by an IntelligentAgent that contains Information in some form. The name 'Information-object' is from DOLCE. Comparable to the OpenCyc '#$AbstractInformationalThing'. This subsumes both the symbolic objects that people may create as well as the yet more abstract informational content ('propositional content') which may be viewed as existing independent of the symbols used to encode it. 'Information' has not been well defined yet, so this category does not have clear defining conditions of its own, but subsumes things like AbstractSymbolicObjects, Propositions, and Languages. Every Communication transfers some InformationObject. DOLCE; Information objects are social objects. They are realized by some entity. They are ordered (expressed according to) by some system for information encoding. Consequently, they are dependent from an encoding as well as from a concrete realization.They can express a description (the ontological equivalent of a meaning/conceptualization), can be about any entity, and can be interpreted by an agent.From a communication perspective, an information object can play the role of 'message'. From a semiotic perspective, it plays the role of 'expression'. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 A heterogeneous collection of abstract objects that pertain to information. Subsumes not only #$Proposition, but also the collections #$Sentence, #$CharacterString, #$AtomicSymbol-Abstract, #$Microtheory, #$PropositionalInformationThing, and #$ConceptualWork. Note that while all #$AbstractInformationalThings are abstract objects (this collection is disjoint with #$SpatialThing-Localized), most instances of this collection can have multiple concrete 'embodiments';. A single instance of #$Sentence can be written on several peices of paper (see #$instantiationOfAIS); a #$PropositionalInformationThing may be the content of several concrete documents, such as instances of #$BookCopy (see #$containsInfoPropositional-IBT); and several events, such as spoken utterances, may have a certain #$Proposition as their content (see #$containsInformation). Note that some instances of #$AbstractInformationalThing have temporal extent. Examples include all instances of #$Novel-CW and #$Movie-CW. Others specs are disjoint with #$TemporalThing. Examples include all instances of #$Character-Abstract and #$Proposition. Frrom Cyc: OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002\nA specialization of #$AbstractInformationalThing. Each instance of #$Information-Content is an abstract object that can be the content, or meaning, of some token in some language. A pair of tokens of linguistic objects mean the same thing just in case each has the same content as the other. Instance of this collection can be used to represent the content of an instance of #$ConceptualWork. An assertion is a Proposition that is expressed in one logical sentence, which can be a complex sentence formed by an 'and' (a conjunction) or by an 'or' (disjunction'), or any combination of those. It stands by itself as being evaluable as true or false. It cannot have variables in it. Factual assertions in a knowledge base will be instances of this Type. NOTE that this Type represents the abstract *content* of an Assertion, not the symbolic representation. The symbolic representation of an Assertion, in a human language or logical language, is an instance of 'LinguisticAssertion'. For rules in the form if-condition-then-condition, use 'Axiom'. COSMO we add the parent 'AbstractSymbolicObject' to the Cyc concept 'Statement', which makes it clearly a mental object, rather than a physical object. This is interpreted as the abstract symbolic representation of a statement, not any physical representation, and not the propositional (logical) content of the statement. NOTE that a Statement does not necessarily have to have an audience in mind (it could be demented rambling speech), and therefore is not necessarily part of a Communication. The subtype 'LinguisticAssertion', however, must have an audience in mind, and is therefore constrained to be mentioned in (it might also be a part of) some Communication. The propositional content of a Statement is a Proposition. Cyc: A #$Statement is the #$InformationBearingThing created in a #$StatingSomething. An #$Agent must create the #$Statement and it contains propositional information. The illocutionary force of its contents are an #$Inform. bd620a66-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 isaComponentElementOf relates some entity to a Group of which it is a member. It is the inverse of 'hasComponentElement'. Since Groups are not defined arbitrarily, and seldom defined automatically, this relation will typically be used only when it makes sense to do so. For example, one may define a Group of 'attendees' of some particular meeting. Then to say that a Person is a member of that Group would allow inference that that Person was in a particular place at a particular time.. A Sign is something that refers to something other than itself; it may be a single entity or a group of entities. It can be an Object, an Event, a Process, or an Attribute. This is a very general category. A Sign may be Physical or Abstract or Mental. 'Sign' is a very general concept, and is used primarily through its specialized subtypes. A physical phenomenon (smoke) can be a sign (of a smoke-producing process), and an AbstractSymbolicObject such as the abstract string 'cat' can be a sign that refers to some animals in the real world. A GenericLabel is either an abstract or a physical artifact that is created with the intention of designating some entity or type of entity. Because it is a thing that points to something other than itself, it is a 'Sign'. This Type corresponds with the English word 'label' which is ambiguous as to abstract or physical labels. A designator (abstract) is an instance of this GenericLabel type, and a physical label that is attached to an individual object (such as the computer I am typing this on) is also an instance of this Type. A GenericLabel may be iconic or symbolic in a non-linguistic way, and therefore does not have to be a word or phrase. This includes senses 1 and 4 of 'label' in WordNet. These senses are distinguished by the subtypes 'Designator' and 'PhysicalLabel' respectively. 1. (3) label - (a brief description given for purposes of identification; 'the label Modern is applied to many different kinds of architecture') 4. (1) label - (an identifying or descriptive marker that is attached to an object) label label1n label4n A Designator is an AbstractSymbolic that is created as a means of reference to some entity other than itself; in addition to being an AbstractSymbolicObject, it plays a Role in designating some other entity, and is therefore also a Role. The most common kinds of Designators are names of people and places, but many other kinds of Designators exist, in particular Identifiers that are numbers or have a numerical component. Every word in a language, natural or artificial, is a Designator of some kind of entity. Designators do not have to be strings or words in a language: symbolic objects such as icons can also be Designators. This corresponds to sense 1 of 'label' in WordNet. 1. (3) label - (a brief description given for purposes of identification; 'the label Modern is applied to many different kinds of architecture') label label1n A List is a MentalObject, i.e. an Object without mass created by an IntelligentAgent, with the distinctive character that it is a linearly ordered arrangement of AbstractSymbolicObjects. A List may be empty, and has its own properties in addition to the properties of the constituent elements, therefore it is not a Group. Note that AbstractStrings are subtype of List. A List is ordered, and it can have the same entity in different positions in the llist. It is not a type of Set. A List has a 'first' and 'rest' component. The 'rest' can be another list, or null. Therefore a list may have one element (or none) Cyc comment: A specialization of #$Tuple. Each instance of #$List is a finite sequence of things with a first and last member-position, with each member-position other than the last having a successor member-position. As with tuples generally, lists allow for repetition of their members, so that the same item can appear at multiple member-positions in the same list. A list can be represented formally as a function from a finite index set of counting numbers, beginning with one, into the domain of all #$Things (but note that #$Lists are _not_ explicitly represented as functions in the Cyc ontology). Unlike an instance of #$Series (q.v.), a list is purely abstract (i.e. both aspatial and atemporal), and the only implied relation between an item and its successor in a list is the successor relation of the list itself. Technically, #$List is more specific than #$Tuple only in that the index set (see #$tupleIndexSet) for a given list must be the counting numbers in their usual order (or some initial segment thereof), whereas the index set for a tuple, generally speaking, might be any set whatsoever. isInList relates some symbol to a List that contains that symbol as an element. SUMO (named 'inList' in SUMO): The analog of 'element' and 'instance' for Lists. (inList ?OBJ ?LIST) means that ?OBJ is in the List ?LIST. For example, (inList Tuesday (ListFn Monday Tuesday Wednesday)) would be true. A AbstractSymbol is a unit mental object which is created to serve as a Symbol, and cannot be broken in parts without destroying much of the meaning of the symbol. Examples are single characters in some language or graphical icons representing ideas or objects. The more interesting Symbols are texts and images. An AbstractCharacter is an AbstractSymbol that is one of the symbols contained in some linguistic alphabet, or any other symbol used in typography or in the control of format during electronic transmission of information. In information processing systems, any sequence of bits having the proper length for use in strings (e.g., seven bits or eight bits or sixteen bits) can count as an AbstractCharacter, the length depending on the computational context. An AbstractCharacter will have a graphical representation (may have multiple different representations in different fonts), and the graphical representations can be distinguished from each other by their shape, but as an AbstractCharacter per se, it can have properties that are independent of the shape, such as the fact that a certain sequence of characters form a certain word. Therefore it is necessary to maintain the distinciton between an AbstracgtCharacgter and its graphical representation. For example, a pdf document may have page images that consist wholly of representations of text - yet it is stored as an image. The distinction has to be made between such images of text and the AbstractText that is represented by that image, and the distinction must be in the way the image is composed - of lines, pixels, or other graphical elements, whereas the text is a linear arrangement of abstract characters, requiring no specification of graphical form for the characters. Specifying the graphical representation of an AbstractCharacter is not essential to distinguish one AbstractCharacter from another, at the abstract level. An AbstractString is a linear array (A List) of basic characters in some character set (not necessarily just an alphabet). It is the abstract representation of the characters, and the base string will not have any formatting, either of font or size or capitalization. Formatting can be represented as attributes of a String. Every defined instance of AbstractString should be represented by a datatype String using the relation 'hasStringRepresentation', unless it is a binary string, or has a number of bits that is not evenly divisible by 8 (in which case, a BinaryString should be used). The name of the AbstractString in the ontology can be very much shorter than the actual String represented; e.g. the string representation of AbstractString 'WarAndPeace' might be the full text of a long book.. Cyc: A specialization of #$PartiallyIntangibleIndividual. Each instance of #$InformationStore is a tangible or intangible, concrete or abstract repository of information. The information stored in an information store is stored there as a consequence of the actions of one or more agents. Wholly intangible instances of #$InformationStore include instances of #$AspatialInformationStore and #$PropositionalInformationThing. Some instances of #$InformationStore - namely, instances of #$InformationBearingObject, such as copies of a newspaper at a newsstand - are only partially intangible. beefff28-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$AspatialInformationStore. Each instance of #$LinguisticObject is an intangible object that is part of some language or other, in a broad sense of part whereby #$LinguisticObject's specializations include such diverse collections as #$Title, #$WordSense, #$SententialConstituent, and #$NonlexicalLinguisticObject. NOTEP: in SUMO a LinguisticExpressi0on is concrete, but in COSMO it is interpreted as Abstract. SUMO: (LinguisticExpression) This is the subclass of ContentBearingObjects which are language-related. Note that this Class encompasses both Language and the the elements of Languages, e.g. Words. bd58d0fb-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 An AbstractWordString, consists of one or more AbstractSymbols (which can be phonetic or, as in Chinese, pictophonetic, or any symbols used to compose words) A term of a Language that plays the Role of Designator for some concept. It is an AbstractString, even if it consists of a single ideogram or hieroglyph. It is an AbstractString that, in any given usage, is intended to symbolize a single concept - though in different contexts the same Word may have different meanings, and in puns the meaning may be intended to be ambiguous or fluctuating. It is also an AbstractSymbol. There is some debate over what should linguistically constitute a Word. At a minimum, in the English language, a string of characters that is not broken by spaces can be considered an 'Word', even if it is nonsensical . Tightly linked groups of character strings that have meaning that cannot be constructed from the individual character strings (e.g. idioms that are not sentences) can also be considerd here as 'Word's; if the meaning of a Word with spaces in it is deducible from its components, it should be classified as a 'Phrase'.. A sequential group of Words or other symbols (such as punctuation or logical symbols) in a Language, which function as a unit, i.e. as a unit they express some meaning in the Language. A Phrase is the abstract symbolic content (not the propositional content) of some act that creates language - a speech act, a writing act, or any other act (such as punching a telegraph key) that creates some physical representation of a group of words that together have meaning in a language. It is an AbstractString consisting of substrings that are words and punctuation. To be a Phrase it must have some meaning beyond the content of a single word; a Phrase can consist of a single word ('Yes.'), but in such cases the meaning must be derived from the context surrounding that word, as well as the word itself. Expletives are borderline, but the context and punctuation of an expletive provides meaning not contained in the lexical unit alone. A Phrase represents the abstract linguistic content of some act of producing language. In representing the content of some speech or writing act, a Phrase may be a literal transcription, or may be a summary, or merely a brief description of the gist of some statement. Allowing paraphrases will allow direct attribution of a Phrase to its original source, even though the exact original words are not known and only a summary of the content is available. The distinctions between these properties of a Phrase are not yet (v0.55) represented in COSMO. @ToDo - this type needs properties (enumerated?) to express those distinctions. A Phrase may be parsed in more than one way, and a Word may be defined as more than one lexical unit, having embedded spaces. Therefore a given string may be represented by more than one Phrase. A Phrase can be a single word (e.g. 'Yes.'). Therefore it cannot be an OrderedGroup, which must have more than one element. It is a subtype of both Group and List (a List can have one element in it). The value (object) of the relation 'hasTopic' is not restricted to any set of entities in the ontology. This sense of 'Topic' is more specific for a topic that may be defined with respect to some particular text, such as the list of Topics in a library catalogue. NOTE that the 'subject' of a sentence, viewed as an abstract InformatioObject, might be viewed as a Topic, but the 'SubjectOfaSentence' is actually a subtype of 'AbstractString'. @ToDo: the main subject is not the same as the set of sentences discussing that subject - this needs differentiation. A Topic is a MentalObject which consists of a group of MentalObjects (possibly one MentalObject) including one or more of (1) assertions (not necessarily true) about something - anything at all (2) questions about something; (3) pointers to entities of interest. The label for a topic is the common element (explicit or indirectly implied) around which the assertions, questions, or focus pointers are centered. Any category, any word in any language, anything that can be discussed, is a potential topic. A Topic may also be a genre of writing. The subtypes of this type deal with narrower classes of topics. NOTE that in COSMO a formal Database is classified as a subtype of Topic. Corresponds to noun senses 1 and 2 of 'topic', which are also senses 1 and 2 'subject' in WordNet: 1. (326) subject, topic, theme - (the subject matter of a conversation or discussion; 'he didn't want to discuss that subject'; 'it was a very sensitive topic'; 'his letters were always on the theme of love') 2. (165) topic, subject, issue, matter - (some situation or event that is thought about; 'he kept drifting off the topic'; 'he had been thinking about the subject for several years'; 'it is a matter for the police') topic topic topic1n topic2n subject subject subject1n subject2n BodyOfAcceptedLore is the type that represents all bodies of knowledge in some FieldOfStudy - whether scholarly or less formal - that are generally accepted by the practitioners in that field. A BodyOfAcceptedLore is lne component of a FieldOfStudy - the other component being he methods of that field. A 'Representation' is any Entity - Object or Event, created by or performed by a CognitiveAgent that is intended to represent something other than itself. An Event can be a 'Representation' in several ways; a play or skit may represent some real-world event; a bee's dance may represent the location of food. More common representations are physical objects such as linguistic objects that represent some words or conceptual content. AbstractTexts are also representations of things, and mathematical equations may be representations of Physical phenomena. This is very broad, and most uses of the term 'representation' will be for more specific subtypes. For a Representation that is an Object, use 'RepresentationObject'. Corresponds to noun sense 2 of 'representation' in WordNet. 2. (10) representation - (a creation that is a visual or tangible rendering of someone or something) representation representation representation2n A 'RepresentationObject' is a 'Representation' that is an Object. This includes physical and abstract Objects. Corresponds to part of noun sense 2 of 'representation' in WordNet. 2. (10) representation - (a creation that is a visual or tangible rendering of someone or something) representation representation representation2n A collection of spatially-localized individuals, including various actions and events as well as physical objects. Each instance of #$InformationBearingThing (or IBT ) is an item that contains information (for an agent who knows how to interpret it). Examples: a copy of the novel Moby Dick; a signal buoy; a photograph; an elevator sign in Braille; a map; a US dollar bill; a resume; a musical score; copies of the #$CycProgram. For representations of the propositional content of information bearing things, see #$PropositionalInformationThing; but note that not all IBTs have a propositional content (cf. #$ArtObject). An important specialization of #$InformationBearingThing is #$InformationBearingObject, which comprises all of those IBTs that are also physical objects (i.e. #$PartiallyTangibles). Though often a subtle task in particular contexts, it is important to distinguish the various specializations of #$InformationBearingThing from those of #$AspatialInformationStore (whose instances are the chunks of information instantiated in particular IBTs; see #$instantiationOfAIT) and from those of #$ConceptualWork (whose instances are the conceptual or artistic creations that are instantiated in particular IBTs; see #$instantiationOfWork). For instance, #$TextString is a specialization of #$AspatialInformationStore, #$TextualMaterial is a specialization of #$InformationBearingThing, and #$TextualPCW is a specialization of #$ConceptualWork; to conflate any of these with another would be to make a category error . Also note that events in which information is transferred (see #$InformationTransferEvent) are not considered instances of #$InformationBearingThing. Rather, such transfer events have as one of their participants (see #$actors) some instance of #$InformationBearingThing; though in cases where IBTs are themselves events this will require distinguishing very finely between the event that encodes the information and the event that is the information transfer. See also the sense-modality-based specializations, #$SoundInformationBearingThing and #$VisualInformationBearingThing. be436e7e-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A AbstractSymbolicObject is a mental object which is created to serve as a Symbol, i.e. to represent something other than itself. This is not a physical object, but more abstract, such as the letter 'a', which may have representations in billions of different physical objects, but retains its identity as the unique (Roman alphabet) letter 'a'. Every SymbolicObject is represented in at least one PhysicalObject, even if only the brain of the person who created it. The more interesting SymbolicObjects are texts and documents. This Type is approximately equal to,and merged with, the Cyc 'AbstractInformationStructure' From Cyc: OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002\ A subcollection of #$AbstractInformationalThing whose instances involve symbols standing in certain relations to one another. Important specializations include #$CharacterString and #$Sentence. #$AbstractInformationStructure also includes abstract diagrams, graphs, and bit strings. The collection can be more precisely defined as follows: Each #$AbstractInformationStructure is such that each of its physical instantiations (see #$instantiationOfAIS) consists of instantiations of instances of #$AtomicSymbol-Abstract, arranged in a certain way. For example, the abstract sentence 'The pig flies' is an #$AbstractInformationStructure. Each written instantiation of it consists of an instantiation of the words (symbols) 'The', 'pig' and 'flies', written in that order. (If the #$AbstractInformationStructure 'The pig flies' were spoken, the same words would appear in the same order, i.e. 'The' first, etc., but the sequence would be determined by the arrangement of the words in time, rather than space.) Likewise with abstract diagrams, graphs, etc. Each of these is such that their physical instantiations consist of arrangements of instantiations of instances of #$AtomicSymbol-Abstract. A hard copy of a wiring diagram consists of a group of concrete symbols representing various circuit components, in which these symbols are spatially arranged in a certain in way. The arrangement of the concrete symbols in an instantiation of an #$AbstractInformationStructure is not always a simple matter of arrangement in space or time. The sequence of symbols '0010010111011001' can be instantiated in written, spoken, or electronic forms. In the last case, the order of the symbols is determined by conventions concerning the electronic medium in which it is stored, rather than by any common criterion for precedence or subsequence in space or time. An AbstractText is the abstract representation of some linguistic expressions. An AbstractText need not have some representation in a PhysicalObject, it can have a physical representation in some spoken words or otherwise briefly communicated linguistic expressions that are not recorded; this is a string of linguistic symbols that represent the yet more abstract propositional content of some linguistic phrase. A written text may have formatting, such as columns and rows, beyond simple linear text. Any AbstractText has parts which are also AbstractText - an AbstractText need not be a complete document, but can be part of a document. ConceptualWork[Cyc] In COSMO a 'ConceptualWork' (a MentalObject) is classified as an AbstractSymbolicObject, since such works are always created in symbols, though the symbols may have information content - the 'meaning'. COSMO differs somewhat from the Cyc description in that we consider Codes to be included, but have a different usage of the term 'Code'. Cyc: OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of abstract works which are the deliberate creations of one or more individuals working in concert, have instantiations [#$instantiationOfCW] which are #$InformationBearingThings, and associated #$AbstractInformationStructures. This is a specialization of #$DevisedPracticeOrWork [q.v.]. For works with propositional content see the more specific collection, #$PropositionalConceptualWork (PCW). Positive examples include: #$MobyDickNovel (as opposed to any instances of #$BookCopy such that (#$instantiationOfCW #$MobyDickNovel BOOK_COPY)), Beethoven's 9th Symphony (as opposed to any performance of this symphony or any copy of its score). Negative examples include: games (performances are not IBTs), awards (they do not have associated #$AbstractInformationStructures), paintings (not abstract), customs (not deliberate creations), natural languages (not a deliberate creation), and codes (their uses, not instantiations, are IBTs). description (from DOLCE-D_S) From DOLCE (Descriptions and Specifications): A description is a social object which represents a conceptualization (e.g. a mental object or state), hence it is generically dependent on some agent and communicable. Descriptions define or use concepts or figures, are expressed by an information object and can be satisfied by situations. The typology of descriptions is still preliminary. In COSMO, a Description is somewhat more specific: it is two or more assertions that all include the same entity as one of the arguments, and it is a MentalObject created to enable an Intelli"gentAgent to understand the nature of that entity. Specification[COSMO-suggested] COSMO: A Specification is a broad category of intentionally created abstract informational artifacts whose purpose is to describe the desired structure or attributes of a thing or a series of steps that may be taken to construct a thing or to accomplish a goal or purpose. It is a mental object having ordered components,the order of which is designed to accomplish a purpose. The ordering may be spatial, temporal, or conceptual. The steps may be abstract things like computational events or game rules, or physical things such as in industrial processes. The format of a formatted document is a specification,i.e. it specifies how a document of that type is to be constructed. Likewise a grammar or computer program is a specification. A specification does not necessarily require that the steps be in sequence. If they must be in sequence, it is a procedure. This differs somewhat from the Cyc 'Specification': Cyc comment: A specialization of #$ConceptualWork. Each instance of #$Specification is an abstract work that constitutes a description of the properties of a #$Situation or a #$SomethingExisting, and sometimes even entire collections of such things. Things are made, bought, and searched for according to specifications, which can be instantiated as printed instructions or as diagrams. This collection is modally neutral with regard to the descriptive character of its instances. Thus, it includes descriptions of how things are, were, should be, must be, etc. wasCreatedBy relates an Artifact (concrete or abstract) to the Agent or Agents who created it. Knowing the identity of one creator (e.g. of an artifact) does not guarantee that one knows the identity of all creators. @ToDo: NOTE: as of v0.52, ArtificialSubstance is included in the domain as a subtype of 'Artifact-generic', but this should be restricted to objects, since it is quantities of ArtificialSubstance that are actually created by agents, not the abstract substance. Change the range to some subtype of 'Artifact-generic'?? NOTE that the range includes an AbstractString, which is semantically nonsense, but is included as a pragmatic tactic to allow subrelations of this relation to be used in mapping database records to their creators. The creators will sometimes be represented in the database only as a string, and in such cases an implementing system, at its option, can avoid creating a new Person object (instead creating an AbstractString object), when the system cannot identify the 'creator' of the record. This tactic may change as the ontology is further developed, and experience with mapping databases increases.. An Artifact-Generic was anything created by an Agent. More useful categories will be the more specific Types. Original COSMO Indented List name: Artifact-Generic_includes_conceptual_works__laws__information_objects_ OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 A collection of things created by #$Agents. These creations may be either tangible (like a hammer, a bowl, or a bridge) or intangible (like a set of laws, a #$KnowledgeBase, or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Thus, the collection of #$Artifact-Generics is partitioned into #$Artifact and #$Artifact-Intangible (q.v.). Agent-Generic[Cyc]%Agent[DOLCE]%SentientAgent[SUMO] An IntentionalAgent is an Agent that (typically) has the capacity to form a plan of action. Therefore an IntentionalAgent is an Agent to whom some purpose may be assigned - even if only the purpose of survival. The level of intentionality required to belong to this category is not as high as that required to belong to the more specific category of 'IntelligentAgent'. Therefore computer programs that do not approach human-level linguistic capacity, but have some level of intentionality (in this ontology 'SoftwareAgents') will fit in this category. But to belong to this category a computer program must have a high degree of autonomy - it must be able to reason about situations and form plans that were not directly preprogrammed. As of 2008 it is uncertain whether any such programs exist. @ToDo: NOTE that an IntentionalAgent does not necessarily have to be a PhysicalObject (as of v0.52) because the subtype SoftwareAgent is not a PhysicalObject, and spirits that in religion or folklore have agentive powers are also not PhysicalObjects.. IntentionalAgent is disjoint from Artifact-NonAgentive. This category will also include some non-human animals that can be said to be able to form some plans, however primitive. As of COSMO version 0.3, we include only mammals under this class. If it is shown that other animals can form primitive plans, at that time they may also be added as subtypes of this category. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 #$Agent-Generic is the collection of all agents, or things (like #$Animals, #$Robots, #$DivineBeings, etc.) that have desires and intentions and the presumed ability to act on them. An instance of this collection may be an instance of #$AgentiveArtifact or #$Agent (but not both). In SUMO, 'CognitiveAgent' appears to be the approximate equivalent. SUMO: An Agent that has rights but may or may not have responsibilities and the ability to reason. If the latter are present, then the Agent is also an instance of CognitiveAgent. Domesticated animals are an example of SentientAgents that are not also CognitiveAgents. DOLCE: agent: A catch-all class used to join agentive objects (either physical or social). Agents are dispositionally so, in the sense that they internally represent descriptions, and in particular plans, goals and possible actions, but they do not necessarily act. In everyday language, agent is used in this sense, but also to tell that something has acted in a certain way, or to say that something has an initiator or leading role in some action. In DLP, the performs relation encodes these notions. The SUMO approximate equivalent of Cyc 'IntentionalAgent'. An IntelligentAgent is an agent (Person, Organization, GroupOfPeople, or possibly spirits or an intelligent machine) that can form plans, use knowledge in plans, and can communicate in language. Some activities, such as buying things, can only be performed by an IntelligentAgent. Among the natural animals, only people qualify for this status - in this respect, this category differs from the definition given by Cyc (below). Groups of people, or organizations whose acts are in fact carried out by people (or machines directed by people), can be considered as IntelligentAgents - by the convention that the acts carried out by people who are authorized to act in the name of an organization are acts of the organization. (see Organization). To some degree, existing or future computers may also have such a capacity, and would fit into this category, even if the range of linguistic inputs that would generate an appropriate response may be much more limited than for an adult human;'intelligence' is therefore a quantitative attribute, which has a range of values. NOTE that this category needs to be carefully axiomatized so that the system will recognize blocking conditions that may prevent the understanding of language in specific circumstances: for example, an individual person will only understand one or a small number of languages; a person will understand language only when conscious and awake, and able to perceive the input. A human baby will not understand language at birth, and will develop that capacity gradually; nevertheless a human baby is an instance of this Type. Implementing the use of such blocking conditions will be complex, but including any agent type that can normally understand some human or near-human language appears to be preferable to creating a subtype of human that can qualify absolutely as understanding language, without conditions. NOTE that a Person is an IntelligentAgent, and therefore a DeadPerson is also an IntelligentAgent. In most circumstances, one would not consider a DeadPerson as being able to understand language, unless one is within a belief system where spirits survive bodily death. Death is one of the potential blocking conditions for language understanding that will need to be interpreted in context. NOTE that as of 2008, there were no machines that acted on their own behalf, and any action taken by a machine is to be attributed to the agency of the person, organizaton, or GroupOfpeople who directed that machine to act. This is similar to the Cyc #$IntelligentAgent, but COSMO 'IntelligentAgent' excludes non-human animals: Cyc: A specialization of #$Agent-Generic (q.v.) whose instances are all agents capable of knowing and acting, and of employing their knowledge in their actions. An intelligent agent #$knowsAbout certain things, and having #$beliefs (and possibly #$goals) concerning those things may influence its actions. As with agents generally, an intelligent agent might be a single individual or might consist of a group of individual agents (see #$MultiIndividualAgent). Thus persons are intelligent agents, and so are certain social beings like business and government organizations. Some non-human instances of #$Vertebrate that seem to be sentient and somewhat intelligent, such as (arguably) dogs and horses, can also be considered intelligent agents. A Methodology is not a specific Procedure, but a set of procedures which may be applied individually or collectively to accomplish some general category of tasks. A specific example is the 'Scientific Method' in which hypotheses are created and verified or disproved by experiment or observation. A FieldOfStudy is a composite object, including both the accepted knowledge - the lore - of some recognized field of knowledge, and also the theories and the methodology that the practitioners in the field use to discover or create new information in that field. The paradigms discussed by Thomas Kuhn in his book 'The Structure of Scientific Reolutions' is included in the 'methodology' component, and also contains the models an exemplar experiments and results. The representations in SUMO and Cyc do not correspond exactly to this representation. Termed 'FieldOfStudy' in both Cyc and SUMO. NOTE: what might be considered as instances of this Type, e.g. Chemistry, Physics, are represented as subtypes. This is to allow specializations of the broad fields (e.g. Biochemistry, NuclearPhysics) to be properly represented as subtypes, and those especializations might in turn have specializations. Fields of study are not considered as conceptual individuals in COSMO. This differs from the Cyc documentation. Note also that because there are no instances, the restrictions below will never apply to any specific thing - rather, they are placeholders for axioms that can be used in inferencing on classes of things, when this ontology is ported to FOL, and are also intended to clarify the intended meaning. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002: A specialization of #$AbstractInformationalThing. Each instance of #$FieldOfStudy is a particular area of study, with its own distinctive set of theories, hypotheses, and problems. Instances of #$FieldOfStudy are typically the subject of teaching and/or research within instances of #$AcademicDepartment (q.v.), although one #$AcademicDepartment may cover several instances of #$FieldOfStudy. Instances of #$FieldOfStudy include #$ArtHistory, #$Physics, and #$ArtificialIntelligence. SUMO: An academic or applied discipline with recognized experts and with a core of accepted theory or practice. Note that FieldOfStudy is a subclass of Proposition, because a FieldOfStudy is understood to be a body of abstract, informational content, with varying degrees of certainty attached to each element of this content. Corresponds to noun sense 4 of 'field' and sense 3 of 'subject' and sense 1 of 'discipline' in WordNet: 4. (18) discipline, subject, subject area, subject field, field, field of study, study, bailiwick, branch of knowledge - (a branch of knowledge; 'in what discipline is his doctorate?'; 'teachers should be well trained in their subject'; 'anthropology is the study of human beings') field field field4n subject subject subject3n discipline discipline1n field_of_study field_of_study1n SUMO; Any FieldOfStudy which tests theories on the basis of careful observations and/or experiments and which has a cumulative body of results. Cyc: A specialization of #$FieldOfStudy. Each instance of #$ScientificFieldOfStudy is a specialized body of knowledge, theory, hypotheses, observations, and problems, which together constitute the informational content of a systematic endeavor to explain (some part of) the natural world by rational (and frequently, quantifiable) methods, including, but not limited to, induction, falsifiable hypotheses tested by repeatable physical experiments, and deductive proof. Instances of #$ScientificFieldOfStudy include the traditional hard sciences (e.g., #$Physics, #$Chemistry), the life sciences (e.g., #$Biology, #$Genetics, #$Toxicology), and #$Mathematics. Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'science' in WordNet: 1. (9) science, scientific discipline - (a particular branch of scientific knowledge; 'the science of genetics') bd58b7fc-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 science science science1n The Cyc term for 'Science'. the science concerned with studying the structure of matter and the manner in which energy is transformed, or affects matter. Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'physics' in WordNet: 1. (10) physics, physical science, natural philosophy - (the science of matter and energy and their interactions) physics physics1n An AbstractObject is an entity which does not exist in space or time. This is more stringent than merely not having mass, the criterion for belonging to 'AbstractEntity'. This category is mostly for mathematical concepts. Under 'AbstractEntity' we also have 'MentalObjects', which do exist in space and time. COSMO Note: the notion of 'Abstract' has historically been somewhat vague. It is often defined by saying that it represents things 'not located in space or time' - but then subclasses are defined which are clearly mental constructs with a defined creation time (e.g. musical compositions) - which means that they must indeed be located in time and space. In this ontology we distinguish generically 'Abstract' things from 'MentalObjects' - the latter are things created by IntelligentAgents (people) that have no mass, and therefore would traditionally be categorized as 'Abstract'. 'AbstractObject' here is used mostly to categorize mathematical things such as numbers, which arguably do not depend on intelligent entities for their existence. But 'AbstractEntities' and 'MentalObjects' are not considered disjoint here, so there is room for people to argue whether mathematical concepts are created or merely discovered by mathematicians - we take no position on that issue. See the note under 'AbstractEntity' to see how 'Abstract' is used in this ontology. The current (20061027) arrangement here is provisional, keeping some of the terminology from Cyc and SUMO for alignment - but it may be changed slightly in the future in a way that will not affect inferencing. Intangible_Cyc__Abstract_SUMO__abstract_object_ISO15926 ISO15926 An Abstract-object is a thing that does not exist in space-time. (COSMO note - this is not the interpretation in COSMO - MentalObjects are abstract, but they do 'exist' in our ordinary space and time.) SUMO: Abstract : Properties or qualities as distinguished from any particular embodiment of the properties/qualities in a physical medium. Instances of Abstract can be said to exist in the same sense as mathematical objects such as sets and relations, but they cannot exist at a particular place and time without some physical encoding or embodiment. #$Intangible: OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 The collection of things that are not physical - are not made of, or encoded in, matter. Every #$Collection is an #$Intangible (even if its instances are tangible), and so are some #$Individuals. Caution: do not confuse 'tangibility' with 'perceivability' - humans can perceive light even though it's intangible--at least in a sense. For more on this issue, see the relevant #$cyclistNotes. Quantities can be numbers (integer, real, imaginary) or number ranges or approximate numbers, or distributions, or restricted ranges (greater than or less than), or PhysicalQuantities, which are measures. Numbers may have different qualitative dimensions (scales), and quantitative comparisons will generally only be meaningful when two numbers are expressed on the same scale. An attribute of Actions that specifies that an Agent performed the Action with the purpose of achieving the result expected or accomplished. This contrasts with actions that are accidental, unconscious, or automatic (such as Consciousness, which is an Action in COSMO). There is only one relevant sense in Random Hose Webster; 1. done with intention or on purpose; intended: an intentional insult. The 3 WordNet senses of 'intentional' are difficult to tell apart, except that part of sense 2 in which 'designed' is used appears to have a different meaning. This type includes all 3 WordNet senses, but does not include the sense of 'designed' that is represented by the examples. 'willful' is sometimes used in a similar sense, as indicated by the quote for sense 1 of 'willful' in RHW: 1. deliberate, voluntary, or intentional: The coroner ruled the death willful murder. . . . however, the example for 'willful' in WN sense 3 of 'intentional' is a different sense, corresponding to sense 2 of 'willful' in RHW and sense 2 in WN: 2. unreasonably stubborn or headstrong; self-willed. Therefore WN sense 3 of 'intentional' is a mixed sense In COSMO 'Willful' represents an attribute that includes not only intention, but defiance (knowing that someone else objects), so is a subtype. This corresponds to all 3 adjective senses of 'intentional', adjective sense 1 of 'deliberate', adjective sense 2 of 'knowing' and in WordNet: 1. (2) deliberate, intentional, knowing - (by conscious design or purpose; 'intentional damage'; 'a knowing attempt to defraud'; 'a willful waste of time') 2. designed, intentional - (done or made or performed with purpose and intent; 'style...is more than the deliberate and designed creation'- Havelock Ellis; 'games designed for all ages'; 'well-designed houses') 3. intentional, willful, wilful - (done by design; 'the insult was intentional'; 'willful disobedience') Corresponds to adjective sense 1 of 'conscious' and sense 2 of 'witting' in WordNet, and partly to sense 2 which is a mixed sense; 1. (7) conscious, witting - (intentionally conceived; 'a conscious effort to speak more slowly'; 'a conscious policy') conscious intentional intentional1adj conscious conscious1adj witting witting2adj willful willful1adj wilful wilful1adj deliberate deliberate1adj knowing knowing2adj This is the collection of all activities which are performed in a state of consciousness, that is, the animal performing the action is not sleeping, in a coma, or otherwise unconscious. a8eb2b06-d712-41d6-8443-9a24c2022ade A specialization of both #$Action and #$AtLeastPartiallyMentalEvent. Each instance of #$PurposefulAction is an action consciously, volitionally, and purposefully done by (see #$performedBy) at least one actor. In SUMO, equivalent to 'IntentionalProcess'. SUMO: A Process (Event) that has a specific purpose for the CognitiveAgent who performs it. bd589e3f-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: use 'hasStartingPlace' and 'hasEndingPlace' or some subproperty to specify the 'places' (abstract or concrete) from which the thing being transferred begins and ends during the GeneralizedTransfer. In the case when an intangible thing is 'transferred', as when an academic degree is awarded, the agent from which the intangible comes may not have lost anything in the process; this abstract type should not be viewed as an object moving from one place to another and no longer being in the original place, though subtypes for transfer of PhysicalObjects do have that property. The relation 'hadTransferredItem' can be used to specify what is transferred, physical or abstract. In addition to starting and ending places, there may be an intermediary path that is explicit in assertions of GeneralizedTransfer - for movement events, 'by way of' is one linguistic marker for such an intermediary stage. In the case of some giving events, the intermadiary may be implied less directly,such as in the sentence 'Jack bought the book for Mary on Amazon.com' in which origina is Amazon.com, the intermediary is Jack, and the final destination is Mary. Likewise, 'Jack sent the book to Mary by parcel post' specifies the three participants in a transfer. 'Jack drove from Philly to New York on I-95' specifies a path, I-95, which is elongated and not a compact object. Cyc: A specialization of #$Event. Each instance of #$GeneralizedTransfer is an event in which something (tangible or intangible) is transferred from one 'place' to another. #$GeneralizedTransfer includes changes in physical location, in ownership or possession, transfer of information, and propagation of wave phenomena through space. See also the related predicate #$transferredThing, and the specializations of this collection. bd588eb6-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 go go go1v COSMO note: a TransferIn may be a transfer of something intangible that is not actually possessed in the same way by an agent doing the transfer - awarding a degree, honor, or praise is a 'TransferIn' though nothing is lost by the agent doing the awarding. In a TransferIn, an agent or locatkion may 'have; something it didn't have, but that does not require a loss for any other agent or location. This is pretty abstract, and is useful mostly as a type that can be the domain of some special relations. Cyc: A collection of events. Each instance of #$TransferIn is a #$GeneralizedTransfer (q.v.) for which there is a well-defined thing that it is a transfer to (see #$to-Generic), but not necessarily a well-defined thing that it is a transfer from (see #$from-Generic). Subcollections of #$TransferIn include #$Collecting, #$GainingUserRights, and #$AccessingAnIBT. At the end of a #$TransferIn, the thing transferred (see #$transferredThing) is in some sense located at the #$to-Generic. Non- examples of #$TransferIn include instances of #$AbandoningSomething (when there is no prospective owner) and of #$IBTGeneration (when the information may go to various unspecified locations). bd631969-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: GeneralizedTransfer in COSMO is required to have an origin and destination, so this Cyc type has been reinterpreted as a subtype of Event, so that no ending place is required. Cyc: A specialization of #$GeneralizedTransfer. #$TransferOut includes all instances of #$GeneralizedTransfer in which some object plays the role of #$from-Generic, but in which there may or may not be any object playing the role of #$to-Generic. At the start of a #$TransferOut, the object playing the role of #$transferredThing is 'located' at the object playing the role of #$from-Generic. The collection #$TransferOut includes, among other things, all instances of the collections #$Emission, #$LosingUserRights, and #$DistributionEvent. Negative examples of #$TransferOut include some instances of #$AppropriatingSomething (when there is no previous owner) and some instances of #$Hearing (when the sounds may come from various unspecified locations). bdc16356-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 'hasEndingPlace' relates a GeneralizedTransfer to the 'Place' to which the transferred thing is transferred. The companion relation 'hasStartingPlace' specifies the 'place' from which it originates. Since 'GeneralizedTransfer' is a broad type including transfers of abstract thing (e.g. information) as well as PhysicalObjects, the 'place' of origin or destination can be abstract as well. More specialized relations can be more specific as to the kind of 'place' for origin and destination of a GeneralizedTransfer. NOTE that even an OrientationMeasure can be an absgtract 'place' from which or to which something is transferred. This corresponds to Cyc relation 'to-Generic': Cyc: (#$to-Generic GEN-TRANS THING) means that the #$GeneralizedTransfer GEN-TRANS has a destination or endpoint THING. Because #$GeneralizedTransfer covers many kinds of transfer, both physical and abstract, this endpoint can be of many types. In a #$Translocation it is a #$PartiallyTangible location (see #$toLocation), while in #$TransferringPossession it is an #$Agent (see #$toPossessor). #$to-Generic encompasses all kinds of endpoints; as a rule, it is better to use more the specific predicates when possible. This relation can be used to express the concept 'into' when something (concrete or abstract) is placed into something else. bfd50815-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 into 'hasStartingPlace' relates a GeneralizedTransfer to the 'Place' from which the transferred thing originates. The companion relation 'hasEndingPlace' specifies the 'place' to which it is transferred. Since 'GeneralizedTransfer' is a broad type including transfers of abstract thing (e.g. information) as well as PhysicalObjects, the 'place' of origin or destination can be abstract as well. More specialized relations can be more specific as to the kind of 'place' for origin and destination of a GeneralizedTransfer. NOTE that even an OrientationMeasure can be an absgtract 'place' from which or to which something is transferred. This corresponds to Cyc relation 'from-Generic': Cyc: (#$from-Generic GEN-TRANS THING) means that the #$GeneralizedTransfer GEN-TRANS has an origin or starting point THING. Because #$GeneralizedTransfer covers many kinds of transfer, both physical and abstract, this starting point can be of many types. In a #$Translocation it is a #$PartiallyTangible location (see #$fromLocation), while in #$TransferringPossession it is an #$Agent (see #$fromPossessor). #$from-Generic encompasses all kinds of starting points; as a rule, it is better to use more the specific predicates when possible. c00cab61-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 hadTransferredItem relates a GeneralizedTransfer event to the thing transferred during the Event. Note that more than one thing may be transferred in an Event, and in particular each Transaction has at least two things transferred. This is a Case role for the GeneralizedTransfer event, which includes specializations such as Communication or property transfer. Things that are tranferred may be abstract or tangible, so the range is not restricted. 'wasTransferredInEvent' is the inverse of 'hadTransferredItem', This relation relates something (no restriction on the domain) to a GeneralizedTransfer event. A specialization of #$GeneralizedTransfer. Each instance of #$InformationTransferEvent is an event in which information is transferred from a source (#$informationOrigin) to one or more destinations (#$informationDestination), where the source and the various destinations are either intelligent agents or #$InformationBearingThings (IBTs). Examples include reading a book (transfer of information from the book to the reader), saying something to someone (transfer of information from the speaker to the listener), machine translation (transfer of information from an encoded IBT in the source language to an encoded IBT in the target language), OCR scanning (transfer of information from a visual information source to another IBT in a different format), carving initials in a tree (transfer of information from an agent to an IBT), and making a speech (transfer of information from an agent to other agents). See also the specialization #$InformationTransferPhysicalEvent. NOTE that information can be transferred from a person's mind to a piece of paper, so the destination of the transfer does not have to be an IntelligentAgent, and an InformationTransfer does not have to be a 'Communication'. COSMO note; why is information transfer not always a PhysicalEvent in Cyc see 'InformationTransferPhysicalEvent'? Perhaps so that spirit communication can be included? In SUMO the appproximate equivalent of 'ContentBearingProcess'. SUMO: ('ContentBearingProcess') Any Process, for example ManualHumanLanguage, which may contain a Proposition. bd589f07-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 'hadInformationTransferred' relates an InformationTransferEvent to one or more InformationObjects transferred in the Action. . The collection of #$Intangible things that are intrinsically mathematical (see #$MathematicalThing) or computational (see #$ComputationalObject). Instances of #$MathematicalOrComputationalThing are abstract in the very strong sense of being nonspatial, atemporal, and massless. Examples include numbers, sets, collections, relations, algorithms, and abstract character strings. bd58e31f-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$MathematicalOrComputationalThing. Each instance of #$MathematicalThing is an atemporal, nonspatial, purely mathematical thing. #$MathematicalThing is partitioned into two main specializations, #$MathematicalObject and #$SetOrCollection (qq.v). bd58e5b6-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of both #$MathematicalThing and #$IntangibleIndividual. Each instance of #$MathematicalObject is a purely abstract mathematical thing which is also an individual (see #$Individual). Specializations of #$MathematicalObject include #$Quantifier, #$RealNumber, #$Triangle, and #$TruthValue. Note that instances of #$SetOrCollection are not instances of #$MathematicalObject, since they are not instances of #$Individual. bf461f37-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 containsSymbolicObject specifies that some AbstractSymbolicObject (such as a text) contains some other AbstractSymbolicObject. This relation may be used to specify that some type of text must always contain an instance of another type of text. NOTE that this is not a subproperty of 'contains' because the definition of 'contains' requires that the contained thing is not a part of the containing thing. For this symbolic containment, we allow the contained thing to be a part of the containing thing An AbstractDocument is an abstract symbolic object that has at least one part that is an AbstractText. Note that this 'document' is abstract, not a physical document. Each AbstraactDocument has at least one physical object that represents that document. Note that a one-way message can be considered as a complete document, but is more specific in having a sender and a list of intended recipients. wasCreatedDuring relates a PhysicalObject or an Artifact to the time interval (or Event) during which it was created. This is the companion to 'wasDestroyedDuring', specifying the ending time (if the entity is no longer in existence). For cases where the creation or destruction times are vague, broad time intervals can be used. NOTE that this can be used to represent the fact that something was craeted within the time interval in which some Event occurred, even if one does not know the actual time interval in which the Event happened. If in fact the Object was created as a result of an Event, the subproperty 'wasCreatedByEvent' should be used. wasCreatedByEvent relates an instance of PhysicalObject or Artifact to the specific Event as a result of which it was created. NOTE that this is a subproperty of 'wasCreatedDuring' - if an object was created as a result of an Event, it was created during the time interval in which the Event took place. It may be possible to use this OWL relation inappropriately by error (if the Event is represented as one time interval, and the actual time of creation was sometime later). A rule to test for such discrepancies should be included in the CL version of COSMO. the inverse of 'wasCreatedByEvent'. This relation points from an Event to an Object (physical or abstract) which was created as a result of that Event. This relation is more specific than 'produced', in that the thing created went from nonexisting to existing as a result of the event which is the subject in the assertion using this relation. This relation is related to the type 'Creation' and its subtypes, by directly specifying the relation between participants in a Creatkion action. Includes verb senses 1 and 2 of 'produce' and senses 2,5, and 6 of 'create' in WordNet: 1. (76) produce, bring forth - (bring forth or yield; 'The tree would not produce fruit') 2. (42) produce, make, create - (create or manufacture a man-made product; 'We produce more scars than we can sell'; 'The company has been making toys for two centuries') WN 'create': 2. (40) create - (bring into existence; "The company was created 25 years ago"; "He created a new movement in painting") 5. create, make - (create by artistic means; "create a poem"; "Schoenberg created twelve-tone music"; "Picasso created Cubism"; "Auden made verses") 6. produce, make, create - (create or manufacture a man-made product; "We produce more cars than we can sell"; "The company has been making toys for two centuries") produce produce produce1v produce2v create create create2v create5v create6v A SolidObject is a PhysicalObject that retains its shape with less than 30% distortion in any one dimension when placed on a surface in air *or in water* in Earth's gravitational field. This means that reasonably solid but compressible gels qualify as SolidObjects. For objects that are less distortable than gels, use 'RigidObject'. NOTE that a SolidObject does not have to be rigid. All Organisms are SolidObjects, even jellyfish. To be solid, and object may distort, but cannot flow as a liquid or disperse as a gas. COSMO note: PhysicalPartOfObject is here interpreted as a Role, which means that anything classified under this category must have as part of its definition that it is necessarily a part of some larger physical object, in the sense specified in the ontology.. Cyc: The collection of things that are best thought of as parts of other things, and about which we might have something useful to say. Think of table legs, sleeves of garments, etc. This is just to make it easier to search through all this part stuff when someone needs to do so. None of us (#$Guha, Karen, Nick ...) are very happy with this collection ... Corresponds to noun sense of 'part' in WordNet, and sense 3 and part of sense 1 of 'Piece' (unclear from the eaxmaple how broad sense 1 of 'piece' is):: WN 'piece': 1. (25) piece -- (a separate part of a whole; "an important piece of the evidence") 3. (8) part, piece -- (a portion of a natural object; "they analyzed the river into three parts"; "he needed a piece of granite") bd589de9-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 Each class of a ColorAttribute forms a region with more specific classes of ColorAttribute forming subregions. The actual instances are the indicidual unique colors of specific objects, but those instances are not typically reified (they are similar to 'tropes' in some treatments), rather the subtype of 'ColorAttribute' representing the class of all similar colors is used as the value for 'hasColor'. Each color has its own values of hue, saturation, and brightness (intensity). At this point (r863), the manner of mixing those facets of color to form a specific color is not represented in COSMO. The attribute of being Opaque, i.e. of not permitting light to pass through. Specifying this can be useful in rendering objects in images, but perhaps it should be the default? NOTE that this is a ColorAttribute, and objects and substances can possess this attribute while also possessing other color attributes. COSMO note: Opacity is an attribute only of objects that have a certain size, or of solid substances; at molecular dimensions, almost nothing will absorb all of the light impinging on it. Cyc comment: #$Opaque is a #$PhysicalAttribute representing a specific degree of #$Transparency. #$Opaque objects do not transmit light. See also #$transparencyOfObject. hasColor relates abstract symbols (abstract representations of things), substances, substance types, or individual objects to one or more colors that characterize the way that light is reflected from or passes through the object. For real-world objects, the color value will be a color region, which could be further restricted to a more specific color, down to a monochromatic color of specific saturation and intensity. The colors are represented as Types. COSMO note: Opacity is an attribute only of objects that have a certain size; at molecular dimensions, almost nothing will absorb all of the light impinging on it. Cyc comment: #$Opaque is a #$PhysicalAttribute representing a specific degree of #$Transparency. #$Opaque objects do not transmit light. See also #$transparencyOfObject. bd5138d4-74ba-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae hasComponentSubstance is used to specify that some particular substance necessarily contains within it a component which is another substance. This is very broad, and can be used to specify multiple heterogeneous types of substance components, such as mixtures, pure chemicals, or elements. Thus we can say that blood contains protein, or that protein contains nitrogen. In addition to substances that are composed of whole molecules, we also permit representation of 'Substances' that are parts of molecules, such as 'phosphateGroup'. The latter type of substance will be represented by the Cyc 'MolecularComponent'. >> This relation is transitive. In order to specify a relation that points only to some primary component(s) (e.g. a polymer contains a unique type of monomer unit), a non-transitive relation such as 'hasMainComponentSubstance' must be used. Linguistically this relation is expressed by phrases such as 'the medicine contains . . .'. Corresponds to part of noun sense 1 of 'contain' in WordNet: 1. (119) incorporate, contain, comprise - - (include or contain; have as a component; "A totally new idea is comprised in this paper"; "The record contains many old songs from the 1930's") contain contain contain1v 'hasChemicalGroup' relates a ChemicalSubstance or ChemicalObject to some ChemicalObject that is part of or contained within the larger ChemicalObject or within some object that is a defining component of that substance. Corresponds to part of noun sense 1 of 'contain' in WordNet: 1. (119) incorporate, contain, comprise - - (include or contain; have as a component; "A totally new idea is comprised in this paper"; "The record contains many old songs from the 1930's") contain contain contain1v 'hasSolute' is used to specify that some Solution necessarily contains some specific substance dissolved in it. This relatkon might be made specific for 'Solution', but some Sollution's may not be explicity represented as such. @ToDo: consider whether it should be required that all solutions be represented as 'Solution's? contain contain contain1v hasMainComponentSubstance is used to specify that some particular substance necessarily contains within it a dominant component which is another substance. The 'Main Component' substance pointed to will not necessarily be more than 50% of the total, but it will usually be percentage-wise greater than the other Substance components, and in rare cases (such as concentrated solutions of highly soluble solids) when another substance is of greater percentage weight, it should contribute significantly to the properties of the whole Substance; this is the case in some solutions, where the solvent will be pointed to by this relation, even though the solvent will occasionally not be the main constituent by weight. An example of this relation would be to point to Gold as the 'main compnent substance' even for 10-karat gold, where the Gold is less than 50% of the total weight of the Substance, but is the most salient component in terms of properties. For the case when a Substance has some significant properties that characterize a mixture, but may not necessarily be a significant fraction of the weight, the relation 'hasMainActiveIngredient' should be used. 'containsChemicalElement' is used to specify that some particular substance necessarily contains within it some specific 'ChemicalElement' hasComponentElement relates a Group to the individual elements of which the group consists. Any entity can be aggregated with another entity to form a conceptual Group. NOTE: this 'element' is not the chemical 'element'! See also the specializations of this relation, for OrderedGroups, indicating the location in the OrderedGroup of a particular element. See 'hasFirstElement' and 'hasSecondElement'. COSMO note: This is similar to the Cyc concept 'OrganicMaterial' but has been reinterpreted in COSMO as a substance, not an object. Also, in COSMO cellular substances suc as animal and vegetable materials are subtypes of OrganicSubstance, even though they contain up to 80% by weight of water. So it is not necessary that a substance be composed mostly of organic chemicals to qualify as an 'OrganicSubstance', but the organic compoounds should comprise most of the non-solvent portion of the substance.. Other than the object/substance distinction, it is close to 'OrganicMaterial', but whether there is any useful distinction has not been resolved as of COSMO version 0.48. For ***objects*** that are composed predomintly from stuff derived from living things, see 'OrganicObject'. NOTE that an OrganicSubstance can be complex, and can include inorganic substances such as water. For substances composed predominantly of organic chemicals, use 'OrganicCompound' COSMO: An OrganicSubstance is a PhysicalSubstance (not an Object) whose molecules (other than inert solvent such as water) are composed predominantly of carbon atoms bonded directly either to other carbon atoms or to hydrogen atoms. Many other elements may occur in organic substances, especially oxygen and nitrogen, but the dominant molecules should each have at least one of either a carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen bond. Cyc: A collection of tangible things. Each instance of #$OrganicMaterial is a tangible thing composed of one or more types of organic #$Molecule. Instances of #$OrganicMaterial usually have their origin in the bodies (or other products) of living things. Since some organic substances can be synthesized, #$OrganicMaterial is not a subcollection of #$NaturalTangibleStuff. Chemically, instances of #$OrganicMaterial have fairly (or very) complex carbon-based structures. Examples include all instances of the collections #$Oil, #$DNAStuff, #$Alcohol-Compound, #$Ivory, and #$AnimalBodyPart. bd58c3d0-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A Group consisting exclusively of PhysicalObjects. One may consider the collection of disjoint parts of a physical object as a Group, but in doing so one must ignore the relations among the objects, so the ObjectGroup consisting of the parts of a connected PhysicalObject is not identical to the whole object itself. NOTE: the range includes PhysicalObjectType so that we can point to a necessary element of a certain type without requiring that the inference engine Skolemize that type In SUMO, this is called a 'Collection'. NO identical Cyc class seems to be defined. SUMO: Collections have members like Classes, but, unlike Classes, they have a position in space-time and members can be added and subtracted without thereby changing the identity of the Collection. Some examples are toolkits, football teams, and flocks of sheep. A System consist of a group of two or more physical objects that are designed (by people or evolution) to work together to perform some function, plus the AttributeValues attached to those objects, and the relations among those objects - the attributes and relations are component elements of the Group, thus distinguishing a System from a simple group of Objects. There is therefore some significant relation between any Object in a System and some other Object in the System. The System is an aggregate consisting not only of the Objects, but also of the relations between them. This is the basic Entity that participates in Situations. The Attributes of the System as a whole are not component elements of the Group that comprise the system. A PersistentState of a System may include any subset of the Group of Attributes and Relations that are part of the System, and possibly some relations of the System as a whole to its external environment (e.g. orientation). NOTE: In Cyc something as simple as a shield or TurtleShell can qualify as a 'System' so the requirement for two objects may need to be taken liberally: a shield needs a handle to function, so the handle and plate of the shield can qualify as the two objects. Usually a System has several distinct Objects that interact in some way beyond merely being attached to each other. @@ToDo: Although this generic notion of System is not a PhysicalObject, it can have PhysicalObjects as subypes and instances. Representing a particular PhysicalObject or type of Object as a System is to assert a view of the PhysicalObject as something functional, and to provide a formal mechanism for discussing the structure and states of the System. The restriction that requires specifying an 'ObjectGroup' (or GroupType) will force the ontologist to specify at least some of the components of a System - the ObjectGroup specified should but does not have to include all of the Objects that characterize the System; therefore one may specify that an Object is a System but not be required to describe all of the component objects, just some of them. The view of a PhysicalObject as a System may at first seem to be a contradiciton: how can something be a GroupOfObjects and also be a System, which is a Group containing the same Objects, plus other things -(Attributes and Relations). This is not a Contradiction, precisely because an Object that is viewed as a System is not merely a GroupOfObjects - the view as a System describes the Object as a whole, whereas a View of its component parts is only a partial view of the Object. As of v0.52 this inclusion of different views of a complex object does not appear to be logically incoherent, and it does not appear that these alternate views will cause any problems. This is in a way reminiscent of Cyc's CompositeTangibleAndIntangible category, but judiciously used. Possibly the relations should be considered not as a part of the System, but an attribute, and that could avoid any logical problems.For later. Because a System is more than just the Objects it contains (it includes the relations), it is not represented as an ObjectGroup, but is related to the Objects it contains by the 'containsObjects' relation. Formally, the relations among the objects are part of the system but at this point it is not clear that attempting to represent those relations generically will be useful. Perhaps that will be useful at a future point. Note that a System, whether artifactual or natural, must have a DesignFunction. If the System is broken, diseased, or malfunctioning it may not be able to perform that function, but will still retain its identity as a System because the identity arises from the purpose (human or evolutionary) for which the System was created. Each 'IntensiveAttributeValue' is an AttributeValue that may be qualitative or quantitative, and expresses an intensity of some AttributeType. This is very general. Certain IntensiveAttributeValues may take both verbal intensive values (high'. 'medium', 'low'. and numerical values 'the drug is only 25% effective at preventing cancer'. COSMO: a Capability is an attribute of some physical object or PhysicalSubstance that specifies some role that that object or substance may play in events or processes. This is a very broad concept, including participation in actions (as agent or instrument or object acted on) and passive processes. Linguistically, 'Capability' is a nominalized form of 'capable', but in COSMO the adjective and nominalized form are represented as a single concept. In general, it is not necessary or desirable to list all the roles that an object may play, as in many cases those roles may be very numerous. This 'attribute' would be used rather to indicate the more salient roles that an object can play. For example, a Person who has a particular talent or skill could have that skill specified (e.g. 'AbilityToDanceTheTango'); a company that can make a particular product would have that capability specified (e.g. 'AbilityToManufactureWidgets'). For people, Capabilities to do specific actions often come in a wide range of degrees of expertise. Another important 'Capability' is categorized under the subtype 'Tendency', which specifies the way that an object is likely to behave; the tendency of non-living organic material to decompose when not frozen is an example of such a tendency. See 'Tendency' for additional discussion of that subtype. NOTE that to have a Capability does not mean that it is possible for the agent to perform that action at any time, or even that the agent has performed that action. There may be motivational inhibitions or blocking conditions that prevent an agent from exercising a Capability at any given time and place. Each CapabilityType represents the ability to serve in some Role in some type of Action or Event. The RoleType and ActionType are specified by the relations 'isAbilityToServeInRole' and 'isAbilityToServeInActionType', repsectively. For any given Capability Type, the Roles and ActionTypes specified are interpreted to mean that the entity having that capability can serve in any of those Roles, in any of those Actions. **But** is is understood that for any given situation, there may be circumstances that prevent the Agent or Object from serving in that Role. The Roles may be as Agent, to initiate evens, or as Instrument, to facilitate the actions of an Agent. @ToDO: do **computer programs** have Capabilities or only the computer that runs the program? If the program itself has capability, then this attribute would not be a property only of PhysicalObjects. How to specify that a ComputerProgram enables a computer to do things? Not resolved as of v0.48. Similar to a learned capability? Is a ComputerProgram a form of learning - at least when installed? To dissect individual capabilities, it is useful to create instances of the subtypes of this Type (InstrumentCapability or AgentCapability), and each of those instances should specify exactly what type of Action the role (Agent or Instrument) is effective in. A Capability will usually be labeled with an infinitive verbal form, with or without an object, such as 'ToDance' or 'ToEnableTelecommunication'. Each subtype of Capability is a role in some type of action that some Object can perform or assist in performing. One subtype of this is 'Function', specifically a type of action for which an object has been designed, either by some IntelligentAgent or by Evolution. Capabilities generally have more than one degree - as in 'Intelligence'. In CYC, classes representing types of capability are signaled by making them instances of a metaclass of 'capabilities'. COSMO avoids metaclasses except where necessary to serve as the type restriction on a relation's argument. Thus 'CapabilityType' is defined for that purpose. Instead of asserting a Capability on an Object, where the Role and ActionType are referenced by the CapabilityType, it is also possible oin COSMO to directly specify that an Object can serve as an Agent or Instrument by use of relations on instances or Types of Objects: canServeAsAgentInActionType canServeAsInstrumentInActionType . . . but the rules relating the logical implications of these assertions and those of asserting a CapabilityType are not representable in a simple OWL format. Extensions may use SWRL for this. The relation between a 'Capability' and the actual instance of physical action is 'wasRealizedByAction'. @ToDo: more elaboration needed (v0.45). Higher-arity relations would be useful here: {{?x hasCapability ?y} impliesThat {?x canPerformRole ?ROLE inEventType ?EVENTTYPE}} NOTE the triangular relation: an Artifact hasDesignFunction which is a CapabilityType, A Capability or Function wasRealizedByAction which is an *instance* of an Event or Action Type. see also 'ableToAffect' Cyc NOTE: Cyc has several higher-arity relations that relate an object or person to their ability or intended function. Similar relations may be defined when COSMO is convertable to FOL ******** QuaternaryPredicate rdf:ID='actsInCapacity'> rdfs:comment The predicate #$actsInCapacity indicates the capacity in which an agent participates in certain kinds of actions. (#$actsInCapacity AGENT ROLE SCRIPT-TYPE CAP) means that the agent AGENT plays the role ROLE in instances of SCRIPT-TYPE, and s/he does that role in the capacity CAP. CAP is a #$CapacityAttribute (q.v.) which describes the AGENT's mode of participation-e.g., as a job, hobby, main function, support function, etc. Contrast three cases of acts of #$GreetingSomeone, when #$performedBy: (1) instances of #$Receptionist, in their #$JobCapacity and as their #$MainFunction; (2) instances of #$FlightAttendant, in their #$JobCapacity but as a #$SupportFunction; and (3) instances of #$TrainEngineer, in a #$HobbyCapacity (though they do it while working, it's not part of their job) /QuaternaryPredicate TernaryPredicate rdf:ID='actsInCapacity-IntendedFunction' rdfs:comment: An instance of #$CapacityPredicate (#$actsInCapacity-IntendedFunction AGENT ROLE EVENT-TYPE) holds just in case when AGENT is performing ROLE in events of type EVENT-TYPE the agent is performing the event as one of its intended functions. For instance, if a stock broker is the buyer of stocks in some #$StockTrading, then (#$actsInCapacity-IntendedFunction Bob-TheStockBroker #$buyer #$StockTrading) holds. /TernaryPredicate TernaryPredicate rdf:ID='actsInCapacity-JobCapacity' rdfs:comment(#$actsInCapacity-JobCapacity AGT ROLE EVT-TYPE) holds just in case AGT's ROLE in acts of EVT-TYPE is in the capacity of a job. /TernaryPredicate ****************** Corresponds to parts of noun sense 1 of 'capability' and sensess 1 and 3 of 'power' in WordNet; the more specific ability of agents is represented by 'AgentCapability'.: 1. (674) power, powerfulness - (possession of controlling influence; "the deterrent power of nuclear weapons"; "the power of his love saved her"; "his powerfulness was concealed by a gentle facade") 3. (77) ability, power - (possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done; "danger heightened his powers of discrimination") WN 'capability': 1. (8) capability, capableness - (the quality of being capable - physically or intellectually or legally; "he worked to the limits of his capability") power power power1n power3n capability capability1n A DesignFunction is the ability to do something or to enable doing something by acting as an instrument. This notion encompasses two different roles in an Event, and is therefore an aggregate concept that is high-level in COSMO. Its subtypes will be roles in Events which may be Actions (doing something) or merely non-active participations (being an instrument). This is the function that an artifact is designed to perform, when it is designed to perform a function, or the function that an evolved part of an organism is designed to perform, by evolution. SituationRole is a compound Type representing both a Situation and a Role. This category was created specifically to allow an inherently Ternary relation (the Cyc intendedPrimaryFunction) to be represented as binary. it will include a Situation and a Role which specifies the function of an Object in that Situation. ToDO - to be useful, the structure of this Type needs elaboration. The property of substances or objects that are considered (by their possesor) to have no positive value. This is used for a lack of either monetary, emotional, or social value. Corresponds to adjective sense 1 of 'worthless' in WordNet: 1. (1) worthless - (lacking in usefulness or value; "a worthless idler") An EvaluativeAttribute is a QualitativeAttributeValue for some entity, concrete or abstract, that reflects the judgment of an IntelligentAgent regarding that entity. the judgment may be objective or subjective, but will be relative to some purpose. @ToDo: in assigning an 'EvaluativeAttribute', it should be necessary to specify the agent who has assigned that attribute value - but at this point (rev833) there is no mechanism for specifying the agent directly, other than in a reified assertion. The property of substances or objects that are considered (by their possesor or potential possessor) to have some positive value. This is for both monetary and emotional value. For high levels of value, the monetary and emotional are distinguished as 'Precious' and 'cherished', respectively. Includes both adjective senses 1 and 2 of 'valuable' in WordNet: 1. (16) valuable - (having great material or monetary value especially for use or exchange; "another human being equally valuable in the sight of God"; "a valuable diamond") 2. (5) valuable, worthful - (having worth or merit or value; "a valuable friend"; "a good and worthful man") Anything that has value to a cognitive agent. The value does not have to be monetary, it can be sentimental. The thing can be an object, a right, a substance, or something intangible such as friendship or knowledge. Anything that would cause distress to an agent if it were lost is a valuable thing. Anything that can be used to help an agent achieve desired goals (e.g. food) is also a valuable thing - see the subtype 'Resource'. Anything that an intelligent agent would pay money to obtain is a valuable thing; in this case, the 'value' is at least approximately quantifiable. Artifact* A PhysicalObject taht is and Artifact (creted by an nimal, Organization, or automaton). COSMO note: this class was merged with the Cyc 'Artifact-HumanCreated' because little difference could be discerned, though in COSMO objects crated by animals or automatons are also considered as ArtifactObjects. Most instances of Artifact will be created by humans - people, groups, organizations, or their automaton servants. Artifactual objects created by non-humans (e.g. animals) will also be instances of ArtifactObject (e.g. 'SpiderWeb'). Things made by non-animate natiral forces (e.g. river channels) are not included in this type. Artifact( Cyc and SUMO); material-artifact(DOLCE) SUMO: A CorpuscularObject that is the product of a Making. Cyc comment for ;Artifact-HumanCreated': A collection of individual #$Artifacts. Each instance of #$Artifact-HumanCreated is a tangible thing made by an instance of #$HomoSapiens, or by a (#$GroupFn #$HomoSapiens). Examples include instances of #$Clothing-Generic, #$Automobile, #$DrainageCanal, and #$HydroelectricDam. OPENCYC 1: MAY 23, 2002 A specialization of #$InanimateThing. Each instance of #$Artifact is an at least partially tangible thing which was intentionally created by an #$Agent (or a group of #$Agents working together) to serve some purpose or perform some function. In order to create an instance of #$Artifact, it is not necessary that an #$Agent create the matter out of which the #$Artifact is composed; rather, an #$Agent can create an instance of #$Artifact by assembling or modifying existing matter. Examples of #$Artifacts include a wooden flute that's been whittled from a tree branch, a sawhorse that's been put together out of boards and nails, and a coin that's been minted by embossing or by melting liquid silver into a mold. In addition to the obvious human artifacts (buildings, tools, textiles, power lines), the collection #$Artifact also includes certain sorts of things made by #$Animals, such as bird nests, termite mounds, and beaver dams. Artifacts without any tangible parts are excluded from the collection #$Artifact; they are included in the collection #$Artifact-Intangible. DOLCE: material-artifact: No easy definition of artifactual properties is possible, hence it is better to rely on alternative descriptions and roles: a physical object that shows or is known to have an artifactual origin that counts in the tasks an ontology is supposed to support, will be a material artifact. On the other hand, physical objects that do not show that origin, or that origin is unimportant for the task of the ontology, will be physical bodies. Formally, a restriction is provided here that requires that the collection whose members are (at least some of the) proper parts of a material artifact is *unified* by a plan or project. Corresponds to noun sense 1 of 'artifact' and sense 3 of 'thing' in WordNet: WN 'artifact': 1. (1) artifact, artefact - (a man-made object taken as a whole) WN 'thing': 3. (224) thing - (an artifact; "how does this thing work?") artifact artifact artifact1n thing thing thing3n See also intendedPrimaryFunction - should be merged?? This specifies the Action part of SituationRole, where the Situation is an Action. An axiom should relate them. hasDesignFunction relates a PhysicalObject or Substance (usually an artifact) or a System (i.e. something created for a purpose, which may be a natural biological System) to the action(s) that it is intended to perform, or can help perform. This relation answers the questions 'what is it good for?' or 'What does it do?'. Individual PhysicalObjects that are not artifacts are not included inb the domain of this relation. For natural objects that have a function (e.g. biological), only thtype of object, not the individual oject, can serve as the subjet of this relation. Note that this is close to but not identical to the relation 'enablesOrAssists' for resources. The distinction is threefold: (1) resources do not have to be artifacts; (2) each artifact is classified by its design (intended) function, but it may actually not be useful for that purpose; (3) an Artifact may enable or assist actions that it was not designed to be used for. ***************** CAUTION ********************************* **NOTE** This relation points to an ActionType or EventType. There are instances of ActionType that are subtypes of Action, but also there are Types that are subtypes of 'DesignFunction' which are also instances of ActionType, but these latter types are **note** subtypes of Event, rather subtypes of 'AttributeType'. This is a very unusual use of a relation to point to arguments of very different inherent type. The 'Functions' that are pointed to by this relation may in turn be related to actual instances of Event by the relation 'wasRealizedByAction' (which see), There is thus a triangular relation between Functional objects, the Functional capabilities (attributes) they have, and the actual Actions that may be carried out or assisted by those Objects. These relations Permitting the ontologist to point either directly to Actions, or to Attributes that point to actions, provides some flexibility. it should be underestood and used with care. ***************** CAUTION ********************************* Many artifacts will be related to actions by both relations. If not for caveat (2), 'hasDesignFunction' would be a subrelation of 'enablesOrAssists'. Another difference is that the design function of artifacts will in general be more specific than the actions enabled by resources. 'isInsideOf' is a specialization of 'isLocatedAt' specifying that the subject is located within the Region defined by the outer limits of the containing Object or Region. This includes the notions of being a physical part of something, and being contained inside a container, as well as being within some spatial reagion. Those individual senses are subrelations of this relation. This relation also includes the sense of one substance being contained in another; even though that sense is already represented by 'hasComponentSubstance', the notion of 'inside' can include the notion of being part of a mixture, so it is included here as a way to relate these general notions. inside inside inside2adv 'isContainedIn' is the inverse of 'contains' and expresses a very general notion of some physical entity being 'contained' in some way in something else. This does not apply to abstract entities - see 'isContainedInSymbolicObject'. Although this relation implies that the contained thing 'isLocatedAtOrOn' the containing thing, this cannot be a subproperrty because substances are included in this relation. This generic location relation only specifies that the thing contained is somewhere either (1) within the convex hull of the containing thing, or (2) piled on or resting in an open-top container, being held in place by the force of gravity. Things that are contained in a container must move in synchronization with the container when the container is moved. Thus a flower in a vase, that extends above the top of the vase, 'isContainedIn' the vase. NOTE: the case of something that is partly in an object, extending beyond the limits of the object, but held to the object by some topological constraint is not included in this relation. That relation would be subsumed by 'isConnectedTo'. inside inside inside2adv contains is a very general relation that specifies that some PhysicalObject or PhysicalSubstance.is contained, in some way, in the subject entity. The subject entity does not have to be a Container. For the 'containment' relation between AbstractSymbolicObject's (texts, documents, strings) use 'containsSymbolicObject' or its inverse 'isContainedInSymbolicObject'. @ToDo: needs review for relationship to substance containment (substances may not be needed here). This may be too hetereogeneous. NOTE that a Region of space can also 'contain' something. NOTE that this differs from 'isLocatedAt' in that the containment relation requires that the thing contained is not a part of the containing thing. Thus one PhysicalObject can contain another PhysicalObject only if the containing PhysicalObject has a cavity of some kind. This restriction does not hold for the general 'isLocatedAt' relation. However, 'contains' does not include Events as either subject or object. For Events, use 'occurredAt'. As a generic 'contains' relation, this relation will also include the 'containment' of Substances by PhysicalObjects. The relation on Substances is more properly handled by the specific substance relations 'hasConstituentSubstance' and 'containsSubstance' This 'contains' relation is more generic, to accommodate the ambiguous linguistic 'contains' assertion, to provide a direct conceptual definition of that notion. OBO_REL: 'contains' is similar to this relation, but has some differences OBO documentation for OBO rel 'contained_in': OBO Definition: C contained_in C' if and only if: given any instance c that instantiates C at a time t, there is some c' such that: c' instantiates C' at time t and c located_in c' at t, and it is not the case that c *overlaps* c' at t. (c' is a conduit or cavity.) OBO Comments: Containment obtains in each case between material and immaterial continuants, for instance: lung contained_in thoracic cavity; bladder contained_in pelvic cavity. Hence containment is not a transitive relation. If c part_of c1 at t then we have also, by our definition and by the axioms of mereology applied to spatial regions, c located_in c1 at t. Thus, many examples of instance-level location relations for continuants are in fact cases of instance-level parthood. For material continuants location and parthood coincide. Containment is location not involving parthood, and arises only where some immaterial continuant is involved. To understand this relation, we first define overlap for continuants as follows: c1 overlap c2 at t =def for some c, c part_of c1 at t and c part_of c2 at t. The containment relation on the instance level can then be defined (see definition above) hasConstituentSubstance relates physical objects or regions to the substance(s) which form some part of the composition of the object or region. The component substance pointed to in this relation does not have to be the main component, and the object does not have to have a uniform distribution of substance types. If the component substance does form a larger weight fraction than any other substance, the relation 'consistsMostlyOfSubstance' should be used instead. One could say that a {shovel hasConstituentSubstance Steel}, even if the handle is wooden. We can use a relation which also specifies the actual weight fraction of each substance, but such a relation would be ternary, and cannot be directly supported as an OWL 'property'. NOTE that In Cyc the 'substances' (or stuffs) were represented as objects made of a particular substance. In COSMO we distinguish the object from its composition, and this relation specifies, where it makes sense to do so, what the substance compostion of particular objects is. NOTE that this relation is a subProperty of the generic 'hasPart' relation. The 'hasPart' relation has no implications, and is used only as an umbrella to collect all the 'part' relations that may ber used in language. The notion of a substance being a 'part' of an object may be the least common use of 'part', but it is found, and this subproperty relation allows it to be used in this ontology. COSMO note: adapted from CYC: this diiffers from the more generic 'contains' in that it does not apply to substances, only to spatial regions or objects. CYC: (#$spatiallyContains CONT OBJ) means that #$SpatialThing OBJ is within the convex hull of some other #$SpatialThing CONT. #$spatiallyContains is agnostic as to whether OBJ is a part of CONT, fully inside of CONT (as opposed to sharing an outer surface with it), or moves with CONT (see #$movesWith). #$spatiallyContains is a very general predicate, so a more specific predicate is almost always applicable. For example, if OBJ #$movesWith CONT, the slightly more specific predicate #$physicallyContains is applicable. be21c3b1-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 containsObjects is a specialization of 'contains' that points to an ObjectGroup that is contained in some aggregate entity or region. This relation allows the definition of some Group of PhysicalObjects and relating it to another entity where that group is 'contained' in some sense, without being part of the containing thing. A System can contain other Systems (which contain objects), so the range includes System COSMO note: adapted from CYC, differs from the parent property in that it does not apply to spatial regions, only to physical objects. CYC: (#$physicallyContains CONT OBJ) means that CONT physically contains (i.e., includes or at least partially surrounds) the object OBJ. #$physicallyContains is agnostic as to whether or not OBJ is a part of CONT and as to whether OBJ is fully inside of CONT. (#$physicallyContains CONT OBJ) it is true that whenever CONT moves, OBJ moves. (A container-predicate whose GAFs do not imply co-movement is #$spatiallyContains (q.v.).) Note that a more specific predicate than #$physicallyContains is almost always applicable -- e.g., #$physicalDecompositions (q.v.) or a more restrictive predicate should be used if OBJ is definitely part of CONT, and #$surrounds-3D (q.v.) or a more restrictive predicate should be used when partonomy is to be ruled out. For example, although #$physicallyContains expresses the relationship between an instance of #$Brain and the head that it is in, #$internalParts (q.v.) is more precise. #$in-ContClosed (q.v.) is more appropriate to specify the relationship of a #$Brain in a #$Skull. The body of a pregnant woman #$physicallyContains a #$Placenta. Since a portion of the placenta is a part of the woman's body, while other portions of it are part of the #$Fetus's body, no more restrictive predicate applies. bd58b802-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The inverse of 'hasConstituentSubstance'. consistsMostlyOfSubstance relates physical objects or physical object types that have a relatively homogeneous spatial distribution of component substances to the substance(s) which form the dominant composition. If the component substance does not form a larger weight fraction than any other substance, the relation 'hasConstituentSubstance' should be used instead. Thus a drinking glass will be composed of glass, a lake of water, a structural I-beam of steel. In Cyc the 'substances' (or stuffs) were represented as objects made of a particular substance. In COSMO we distinguish the object from its composition, and this relation specifies, where it makes sense to do so, what the substance composition of particular objects is. Eacj 'ObjectConsistingOfSubstance' is a PhysicalObject that is characterized, among other things, by the substance of which it consists. In Cyc, named 'OrganicMaterial'. This can be a solid or liquid, and can be an object composed of complex material from a living thing, or an organic chemical of defined composition. Objects composed of any form of Organic Chemical are instances of this type. Cyc: A collection of tangible things. Each instance of #$OrganicMaterial is a tangible thing composed of one or more types of organic #$Molecule. Instances of #$OrganicMaterial usually have their origin in the bodies (or other products) of living things. Since some organic substances can be synthesized, #$OrganicMaterial is not a subcollection of #$NaturalTangibleStuff. Chemically, instances of #$OrganicMaterial have fairly (or very) complex carbon-based structures. Examples include all instances of the collections #$Oil, #$DNAStuff, #$Alcohol-Compound, #$Ivory, and #$AnimalBodyPart. bd58c3d0-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The subcollection of #$PartiallyTangible whose instances are not like fluids. #$NonFluidlike objects do not flow and have an intrinsic shape. #$NonFluidlike is primarily a collection union of #$SolidTangibleThing and #$SemiSolidTangibleThing. It is useful as a genl collection for certain collections whose members can be both #$SolidTangibleThings and #$SemiSolidTangibleThings, like #$Deformable. fe5bdeb6-74b9-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae A subcollection of #$PartiallyTangible. Each instance of #$InanimateThing is an (at least partly) tangible thing that is not currently a living structure. Things that were never alive, dead organisms, and dead (or completely non-functioning) organism parts are included in this collection. Examples: #$YaleUniversity, a piece of #$Meat, a dead armadillo, the #$StatueOfLiberty, and a pile of #$Sawdust. Two important specializations of this collection are #$InanimateThing-Natural and #$InanimateThing-NonNatural. bd5905ea-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 In OpenCyc this class is a collection of pieces of crystalline material. In COSMO it is reinterpreted as an attribute of some solids. Cyc: The collection of instances of #$PartiallyTangible having a solid crystalline structure. In a crystalline solid the atoms, ions, or molecules are ordered in well-defined arrangements. These solids often have flat faces that make angles with one another. They are frequently translucent and brittle. 892632f8-74bf-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae In OpenCyc called 'Crystalline'. Cyc: The collection of instances of #$PartiallyTangible having a solid crystalline structure. In a crystalline solid the atoms, ions, or molecules are ordered in well-defined arrangements. These solids often have flat faces that make angles with one another. They are frequently translucent and brittle. 892632f8-74bf-11d6-8000-00a0c99cc5ae A specialization of #$InanimateThing-Natural. Each instance of #$Mineral is a piece of homogeneous inorganic physical substance that has a crystalline structure. Specializations of #$Mineral include the collections #$Diamond, #$Turquoise-Gem, #$Jade-Gem, and #$Corundum. c1008900-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: In COSMO, this is a substance, not an object. There are some inorganic materials, such as carbon dioxide and carbon tetrachloride, that contain carbon. So carbon content is not the only criterion to distinguish organic from inorganic substances. Cyc: A specialization of #$InanimateThing. Each instance of #$InorganicMaterial is a tangible thing wholly composed of one or more types of inorganic molecule. Instances of #$InorganicMaterial usually didn't originate as parts or products of living things. Notable specializations of #$InorganicMaterial include #$Mineral, #$Metal, and #$Glass. bd590a05-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: This Cyc category is reinterpreted in COSMO to include certain subtypes of 'PhysicalSubstance', that are not subcategorized solely on the basis of composition, or inherent properties depending on composition, but of other attributes, such as state of matter (e.g. SolidSubstance or Gas). One such category is 'CommodityProduct' which treats commercial products sold in quantities (such as potatoes, onions) as 'substances'. Cyc: A collection of collections, and a specialization of #$TemporalStuffType. Each instance of #$ExistingStuffType is a collection of things (including portions of things) which are both temporally and spatially stufflike. Division in time or space does not destroy the stufflike quality of the object (down to a certain granularity). (#$isa STUFFTYPE #$ExistingStuffType) implies both (i) for most instances STUFF of STUFFTYPE, for any proper physical part (see #$physicalParts) PART of STUFF, PART is also an instance of STUFFTYPE and (ii) for all instances STUFF of STUFFTYPE, for most proper physical parts PART of STUFF, PART is also an instance of STUFFTYPE. For example, every piece of wood is temporally stufflike: if W-168 is a piece of wood during 1996, then it's also a piece of wood for the one-minute time-slice 9:05am 7/7/96. It's also spatially stufflike: if we take that piece of wood W-168 and cut it in half, we have two things which are both pieces of wood. Since every piece of wood is both temporally and spatially stufflike, #$Wood is an instance of #$ExistingStuffType. Other instances of #$ExistingStuffType include the collections #$AppleJuice, #$IceCream, #$Diamond, #$WaxedPaper, and #$StriatedMuscle. See the comment for #$StuffType to learn more about the distinctions between, and the need for, these four collections: #$StuffType, #$ObjectType, #$ExistingStuffType, and #$ExistingObjectType. bd59f2ea-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A #$SecondOrderCollection and a specialization of #$ExistingStuffType (q.v.). Each instance of #$TangibleStuffStateType is a collection of pieces of tangible stuff that are all in the same distinct physical state, where the notion of physical state is a naive (as in #$NaivePhysicsMt) concept of a distinctive physical structure and/or texture. Some instances of #$TangibleStuffStateType have distinctive chemical compositions, such as #$Diamond; but for collections that are distinguished _solely_ on the basis of chemical composition, see #$TangibleStuffCompositionType. #$TangibleStuffStateType includes both (i) collections of substances that can exist only in one distinct physical state (e.g. #$Diamond again) and (ii) collections of pieces of stuff that by definition are in a certain distinct state (e.g. ice). Instances of #$TangibleStuffStateType include #$Foam, #$Rubble, and (#$LiquidFn #$Water). Note that #$Water per se is _not_ an instance of #$TangibleStuffStateType, since some water is in a gaseous state or a solid state. See also (the somewhat orthogonal) #$PhysicalStructuralAttribute. be00c400-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: In Cyc, this was 'SolidTangibleThing', a collection of objects. In COSMO, we rename and repurpose this category to be a solid substance, with subtypes that are substances that are solid at normal temperature and pressure. Cyc comment: An instance of #$ExistingStuffType, and a specialization of #$PartiallyTangible. Each instance of #$SolidTangibleThing is a piece of stuff possessing many of the properties that matter in a solid state (see the constant #$Solid-StateOfMatter) exhibits (although not all instances of #$SolidTangibleThing are formally in a solid state). Instances have a shape independent from their container, and, when deformed with sufficient force (which may be small for weak, brittle materials or high for materials that deform easily), they break. Examples of #$SolidTangibleThings include: pieces of substances in a solid state of matter, such as ice cubes; solid mixtures like a quarter-dollar coin or a paper bag; and complex mixtures of biological origin that behave like solids, e.g., bone. Note that some pieces of matter that are formally in a solid state (for example, pieces of clay) are not instances of #$SolidTangibleThing, since they do not readily break when deformed; for this reason, #$Solid-StateOfMatter is _not_ a specialization of #$SolidTangibleThing. Collections of the solid form of any type of stuff can be created using #$SolidFn (q.v.). bd58c494-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: In Cyc, where there was no taxonomic distinction between substances and objects, this metatype was used to label both substances (in some particular form) and objects. In COSMO, this is also neutral with respect to object or substance, and is used as a parent class for certain substances having particular forms. These categories can serve as ?X in the phrase 'given as an ?X' in pharmacy descriptions. Cyc comment: Drug products organized according to their form when they are given as doses. c10ae97e-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A PhysicalSubstance that is in a solid and usually crystalline form, and inorganic (possibly except for some small amount of included organic material), In COSMO this is a Substance, not an Object, whereas the Cyc term is an Object. This is the solid substance: when molten it is not considered 'Mineral' in COSMO. A Mineral need not be natural (found in the ground), only crystalline and inorganic. Cyc: A specialization of #$InanimateThing-Natural. Each instance of #$Mineral is a piece of homogeneous inorganic physical substance that has a crystalline structure. Specializations of #$Mineral include the collections #$Diamond, #$Turquoise-Gem, #$Jade-Gem, and #$Corundum. SUMO: Any of various naturally occurring homogeneous substances (such as stone, coal, salt, sulfur, sand, petroleum), or synthetic substances having the chemical composition and crystalline form and properties of a naturally occurring mineral. c1008900-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 An OrganicObject is an object at least as large as a cell of an organism, that consists predominantly of substances which are living or are derived from living things, or are synthetic substances similar to those found in living things. An OrganicObject may be living or dead, or if dead, highly processed, providing that the main active constituent is derived from or similar to those in living things. Thus one muscle or one apple pie would each be an OrganicObject, but one virus particle would be too small to qualify. A macroscopic object consisting of macromolecules such as protein, nucleic acid, or polysaccharide similar to those found naturally would be OrganicObjects, but a quantity of small molecules such as alcohol or amino acid would not be. In the triad 'animal, vegetable or mineral', this would be either of animal or vegetable. NOTE that this Type is disjoint with MineralObject, though an OrganicObject may have some minor portions of Mineral in it. NOTE in particular that a Corpse, skeleton, and FuneraryAshes are classified as 'OrganicObject' although a strong fire may have removed almost all of the carbon in it. COSMO note: as of version 0.49, this category is not properly represented. COSMO has 'Corpse' as a subtype of 'BiologicalLivingObject' and these need to be distinguished. Cyc: The collection of all structures that are composed of one or more living cells (see #$Cell). Note that this can be solid or liquid, because blood and lymph are composed of cells. Biological living objects (or BLO s) might either be instances of #$Organism-Whole (like dogs or pine trees) or components of such whole living organisms (like noses, tails, and pine needles). The healthy leg of a living person is a BLO (as is the person), but an amputated leg is not a BLO. Almost every instance of #$BiologicalLivingObject is either capable of biological reproduction itself or has components which are capable of biological reproduction (such as the cells in a living arm). Red blood cells are abnormal instances of BLO in that they cannot reproduce. bd58a6ed-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO note: an object is considered as an OrganismPart even if it was severed from the Organism of which it was originally a part. The distinction, when required, between in situ and separated parts is made by assigning attributes to the part. A specialization of both #$PhysicalPartOfObject and #$BiologicalLivingObject. Each instance of OrganismPart is an anatomical part of an organism. This collection includes the gross anatomical parts and microscopic anatomical parts of every individual of every species. In SUMO, approximate equivalent is 'AnatomicalStructure' SUMO: A collection of Cells and Tissues which are localized to a specific area of an Organism and which are not pathological. The instances of this Class range from gross structures to small components of complex Organs. c1005766-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 'hasAssociatedObject' relates one PhysicalObject (or PhysicalObjectType) to another PhysicalObject that is associated with it in some significant way. The subproperty 'hasPhysicalPart' is the most common, but this relation can also be used to specify 'attributes' of Objects that involve some relation with other Objects. For example, a Fingerprint is an Object, and an Object cannot be an Attribute, therefore a Fingerprint cannot be the value of a 'hasAttributeValue' relation. However, an AttributeValue ('FingerprintAttribute') can be defined that points to a Fingerprint using this relation. Other such specialized AttributeValues may also be conveniently described this way. Inverse of isaPhysicalpartOf. Used at the instance level, this creates a Time-dependent assertion that some physical object has a particular part. This is a subproperty of 'isaProperPartOf' and implies that there are other parts. Note that to 'have' a physical part does not necessarily mean that the physical part is connected to the main body of the object that has it. A musical instrument, disassembled in its carrying case, can be said to exist and have all of its parts present, even though they are not connected. To be sure that an object is **functional** requires more than just knowing that all of the required parts are present. When used between types, an assertion using this relation is to be interepreted as meaning that every instance of the subject has an instance of the objects as a part; but this form of relation does not require that the object instance be instantiated. How to handle this information will depend on the program using the ontology. isNearTo specifies that some GenericLocation (an Object or a Region) is 'near' to another, but (usually) not touching the other. 'near' is relative to the size of the things being related. To be 'near' another region or object, the distance from one Object or Region to the other must be within two diameters of the larger object or region. NOTE that 'isSupportedBy' is a subproperty of 'isNearTo'. If two objects are touching, that can be represented as a 'TouchingState'. In SUMO treated as an attribute: SUMO: (Near) The relation of common sense adjacency. Note that, if an object is Near another object, then the objects are not connected.. This is the most generic generic 'location' relation, and differs from its subProperty 'isLocatedAt' only in that to be 'located at or on' includes the possibility that some pile of objects may be located in some open container and extend beyond the top of the container, but will move when that container moves because it is held to the container by the force of gravity or by some topological constraint. The subproperty 'isLocatedAt' means that the thing located is wholly located within the spatial region coextensive with the ConvexHull of the thing or place where it is located. Thus a pile of coal in an open railway coal car can be said to be 'contained' in the coal car even though it may extend above the top of the coal car; it will go wherever the coal car goes, as long as it satisfies this relation. Likewise, flowers in a vase are located 'at or on' the vase, though they typically extend beyond the top of the vase, and the top of the flowers may even be above the vase by more than the height of the vase. The 'isContainedIn' relation is a subproperty of this relation; therefore if {?x isContainedIn ?Obj} then {?x isLocatedAtOrOn ?Obj}. NOTE, however that 'isSupportedBy' is not a subtype of 'isLocatedAtOrOn' because the supporting object may be flat and extensive, and the supported object may extend well above the surface of the supporting object.. A general 'location' relation for objects and regions and substances (but not for Events - use 'occurredAt'). The location can be a region of space (connected or disconnected) or an object (physical or abstract). Being 'located' at an Object means being located within the ConvexHull of the Object; therefore a Hole in an Object, which contains no part of the Object 'isLocatedAt' that Object. Also, recall that a GeographicalRegion includes some space above the surface of that region, so it is possible that ?obj isLocateAt a GeographicalRegion even if it is in the air not far above the surface of that region. If a pile of objects or a large object is 'contained' in an open-top container, and extends above the top of that container, it cannot be said to be 'located at' that container, in this sense. For that case, use 'isContainedIn' or its parent 'isLocatedAtOrOn'. The value (object) of this relation answers the question 'where is it?' (for the subject) in some sense. Somewhat non-intuitively, this relation can be used to specify that some set of beliefs (a BeliefSystem) is held by one or more people, since the BeliefSystem is considered an InformationStore that can have a physical location; that is, beliefs are located in the heads of people, or of Groups of people. However, NOTE that specific instances of a disease cannot be 'located' in people by this relation, because a Disease is considered as an Event. Use 'occurredAt' for relating specific instances of Disease to particular people or groups of people. NOTE that when it is asserted that a 'Substance' isLocatedAt some place, that is a stand-in for the more logically meaningful assertion that some unspecified quantity of a Substance is located at that place. NOTE that this is an instance-level relation and describes where an object is actually located at some particular time. For describing where objects typically are located (e.g. parts of the body), use 'isNormallyLocatedAt', a relation that can take a individual Object or an ObjectType as the subject NOTE: 'isLocatedAt' may be used with an instance of 'TimeAndPlace' (a four-dimensional portion of space-time) in the object position of the relation, to specify the location of some thing (but not Events) over some interval of time, using a binary relation. Although this relation is transitive, there are permitted range instances that cannot bw located at some permitted domain instances: for example, a 'TimeAndPlace' will never be locatedAt an Object or region that is not itself Four-dimensional, unless the domain instance is nominally a TimeAndPlace, but with the Time dimension of zero length, in which case the domain instance is effectively three-dimensional. But in general, if the subject is a TimeAndPlace, the Object should also be a TimeAndPlace, not a Region or Object. To avoid unintended errors, this restricti