COSMO ontology, version 0.45, iteration 559. Last edit 20080128 by Patrick Cassidy Uses elements of the OpenCyc, SUMO, BFO and DOLCE ontologies, as well as elements created specifically for COSMO. Globally unique identifier, fromOpenCyc 0.78. NOTE that this is a formatted string having 32 alphanumberic characters with embedded hyphesns, 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 a string with axioms that include reference to the domain entity. (UAX: SUMAX-25) (<=> (disjoint ?CLASS1 ?CLASS2) (and (instance ?CLASS1 NonNullSet) (instance ?CLASS2 NonNullSet) (forall (?INST) (not (and (instance ?INST ?CLASS1) (instance ?INST ?CLASS2)))))) Classes are disjoint only if they share no instances, i.e. just in case the result of applying IntersectionFn to them is empty. SUMO - 155 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'. points from an instance of Synonym to a string that is the term which is synonymous to the base concept. The term should represent the synonym in its natural form, whether capitalized, with spaces, apostrophes, etc. 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 synoyms, use 'hasSynonym'. hasSynonym is used to point to AbstractStrings that can serve as a synonym for the base entity (type or instance), in some context. This relation points to an instance of Synonym, and that instance can specify the context in which it is a synonym for that word. Because a single word can be a synonym of multiple terms, the structure of the 'Synonym' entity includes not only the String expression of the synonymous term, but also the context in which it is a synonym. Among the contexts, databases and other knowledge models are included. A superfluous relation for testing. Objects can be Physical or Abstract or Mental. All Objects have at least one AttributeType and associated AttributeValue. '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 relatoins on Events. A Sign is something that refers to something other than itself; it may be a single entity or a group of entities. 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 Trace is one or more Signs that relate to ordered states of some Event or FunctionalProcess. A sequence of footprints in the mud can be a Trace of the event of some animal walking on that ground; a sequence of abstract symbols, stored in one of more computers, can provide a Trace of some computational or reasoning process such as one carried out in the computer. A Record is an abstract sequence of symbols (usually linguistic) representing a sequence of events that occurred. For example, a sequence of abstract symbols, stored in one of more computers, can provide a Trace of some computational or reasoning process such as one carried out in the computer. As an Artifact, it has to have an IntelligentAgent as creator - for traces generated by a computer, that Agent will be the programmer or, if sufficiently autonomous, the computer itself - or both. A ReasoningRecord is a Record of some process of Reasoning. It will usually be a process of Reasoning used in a Computer, but could be a record of a person's reasoning.. 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. An AbstractObject is an entity which does not exist in space or time. This is more stringnent than merely not having mass, the criterion for belinging 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. Intangible[Cyc]%Abstract[SUMO]%abstract_object[ISO15926] 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. holdsInContext relates a reified Proposition to a Context in which it is asserted to be true. The Context may be as simple as a TimeInteral or a Database, or it may be a complex context which is a conjunction of a time interval, a location, a belief system, and any other thing tha might affect the truth of an assertion. Context in COSMO is used solely as a syntactic device to provide an umbrella category that can serve as the argument restriction on the 'holdsInContext' statement. There is no general 'theory' of context implied in this usage. Other than its syntactical usage, the only thing that can be asserted about 'contexts' generally is that the principle of non-contradiction holds only in a single context, and for assertions defined in different contexts, it cannot be expected that they will be necessarily true in any other context. Any set of assertions (including this ontology) will have an implied enveloping context. If the assertions are to be reused, it is necessary to be sure that the context of reuse is the same as that of the original set of assertions. 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. The PhysicalContext in a Situational is the set of physical objects and attributes that exist at a particular time an in a particular place that affect the way an Agent will make a decision, and may affect the outcome of that decision. A simple PhysicalContext is, for example, who is present and interacting with the Agent. What is the location, time, temperature? Is the agent indoors or outdoors? On land or sea, or underwater? Is anything happening that can physcally affect the Agent? The SocialContext in a Situational is the set of people that an Agent is in contact with, or is acting on behalf of, directly or indirectly, at a particular time. It also includes prior interactions and goals that affector are affected by agents other than the one . A SystemContext is a SituationalContextComponent that is specific for computational agents, whether physical (a computer system including hardware) or merely software. A computational system can be viewed as one agent, though it may include within it multiple software agents. The SystemContext will include anything affecting the ability of the agent to act, including, among other things, the hardware resources available for use - power sources (line or batteries) CPU, disks, RAM, terminals, network connections, anything else connected to a system port, etc. The NetworkContext of a computational system consists of the number, type, and status of network connections connected to system ports, as well as any the type and status of software components that have the capbility of interacting with networks. A 'netowrk' includes only those communications links that are connected to other computers; links to other devices such as measuring devices or non-network output devices, are not condered as part of the 'network'. 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'). be14f511-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 Synonym of GenericLocation, included here as a pointer to the Cyc element. A RelativeLocation is a location that is explicitly relative to something else, which may be a region or an object. All locations are ultimately 'relative' in the sense that they can only be understood by reference to a distance and/or oritentation with respect to some object. However, this Type 'RelativeLocation' is intended to represent those locations that are explicitly relative to something else, in particular objects or regions that are part of some other object or region. 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 locaed within the spatial region coextensie with the convex hull 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 (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 convex hull of the Object, But 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' thet 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 on 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 diseases 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 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 aspace-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 restriction should be encoded as a constraint. NOTE: this relation is close in meaning to that of the OBO_REL relation 'located_in' (http://www.obofoundry.org/ro/#OBO_REL:located_in). In OBO some relations may also be used on Types to create an implicit restriction, but such usage is not part of COSMO, and that usage would need to be represented as a rule. OBO_REL: located_in (see http://www.obofoundry.org/ro/) OBO comments for located_in: Location as a relation between instances: The primitive instance-level relation c located_in r at t reflects the fact that each continuant is at any given time associated with exactly one spatial region, namely its exact location. Following we can use this relation to define a further instance-level location relation - not between a continuant and the region which it exactly occupies, but rather between one continuant and another. c is located in c1, in this sense, whenever the spatial region occupied by c is part_of the spatial region occupied by c1. Note that this relation comprehends both the relation of exact location between one continuant and another which obtains when r and r1 are identical (for example, when a portion of fluid exactly fills a cavity), as well as those sorts of inexact location relations which obtain, for example, between brain and head or between ovum and uterus A 'location' relation for Events. For object or region locations, see 'isLocatedAt'. The location is a GenericLocation: region of space (connected or disconnected) or an object (physical or abstract) . The value of this relation answers the question 'where did it happen?'. NOTE that the use of the past tense in this relation does not necessarily mean that the Event argument occurred in the past before the assertion time; if the relation relates a possible future Event, this relation can also be used. The past tense merely emphasizes that we are discussing Events that, in the given context, are viewed as completed and not ongoing. This can also be used for types of Events, to specify a particular location where they always occur. But to specify types of locations where types of Events usually occur, use 'typicallyOccursAt'. A Type-level 'location' relation for Events, to specify that a certain type of Event usually occurs at a certain type of location. For the instance-level location relation for Events, use 'occurredAt'. For object or region locations, see 'isLocatedAt'. The location specified is a GenericLocation: region of space (connected or disconnected) or an object (physical or abstract) . The value of this relation answers the question 'where does it usually happen?'. . 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 A TimeAndPlace is a GenericLocation during some interval of time. It is a four-dimensional spatial region in the way that a time-slice of a PhysicalObject is a four-dimensional Object. These concepts are related inheriting the character of the TimeSlice Type. this is a SpatiotemporalRegion that has an explicit location and an explicit time interval specified. The location is generic, therefore it can be defined relative to some object; i.e. one can specify the location of the heart of an individual person over some period of time as an instance of this Type. NOTE: That 'TimeAndPlace' is a subtype of GenericLocation, as well as of SpatiotemporalRegion. Although *almost* all GenericLocations are exclusively spatial, 'TimeAndPlace' 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. hasSpatialRegion specifies the spatial component (of zero to three dimensions) which is extended in time to generate a TimeAndPlace. hasTimeInterval specifies the time component which extends the spatial component of a TimeAndPlace into the time dimension, to generate the TimeAndPlace which is the subject of this relation. The intent of this relation can be alternatively specified by filling in the values for the beginning and starting times inherited from 'TimeSlice'. Any measure of length of time, with or without respect to the universal timeline. Time unit. 1 day = 24 hours. The Class of all calendar Days. #$Street-Generic is a specialization of both #$Roadway and #$UrbanArea. Each instance of #$Street-Generic is a #$Roadway located inside a city or town. NOTE: a modern street is typically paved, but that is not a necessary attribute of a Street. bd58f514-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A typical busy street in an urban area. This is the physical object that is the street, not a region of space. It would extend down to the underlying soil, and include all materials added (such as crushed gravel) to prepare the roadbed. COSMO note: This 'street; Type is interpreted as the full public right-of-way, including the sidewalks, up to the private property line of the property bordering on the street. A RealEstate bounded by a street will therefore be related to the street by 'isAdjacentTo'. bd58b4f8-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A #$Place or area with clustered or scattered buildings and a permanent human population, including cities, settlements, towns, and villages. It does not include #$Locales. acf243a4-24df-41d7-92f0-8a8fd5ad2507 Any region on the surface of the Earth, within the Earth's atmosphere, or on some object itself located on the surface of the Earth (including on ships at sea), which is not inside of an enclosed structure. See 'OutdoorsObject' for further elaboration. The Cyc 'OutdoorLocation' is very similar - not yet (V0.2) clear if it is different. A specialization of #$GeographicalRegion. Each instance of #$OutdoorLocation is a region of outdoor space; i.e. a region that is directly subject to atmospheric weather. Thus, the collection #$OutdoorLocation does _not_ include as instances any instances of #$UnderwaterLocation (q.v.) or any places that are underground (see #$Underground). Specializations of #$OutdoorLocation include #$MountainRange, #$Stream, and #$Highway. bd58b186-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A specialization of #$GeographicalRegion. Each instance of #$HumanResidenceArea is a region in which a number of people live semi-permanently (that is, for a duration of at least a year or more). Examples include #$SanFranciscoBayArea, #$ResearchTrianglePark, research stations at the #$SouthPole, and radar posts in the Aleutians. bd58caab-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A subcollection of #$HumanResidenceArea. Each instance of #$UrbanArea is a geographical region the whole of which (more or less) is characterized by typically urban features (such as streets, buildings, businesses, houses, schools, sidewalks, sewer systems, power lines, automobiles, pedestrians, and so on). An urban area might be as small as an inner-city street corner or as large as the New York City Metropolitan Area. By default, urbanness is a stuff-like property of human residence areas: (nearly) every subregion of an #$UrbanArea is itself an #$UrbanArea. Examples include #$UTAustinCampus, #$ResearchTrianglePark, and the territorial extent of various cities (#$CityOfAustinTX, #$CityOfToulouseFrance, etc.). bd58caec-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 A collection of urban regions. Instances of #$CityBlock are usually roughly rectangular regions within cities or towns that are bounded by four streets running approximately at right angles to each other, and such that they do not spatially subsume any other such regions. City blocks are often divided into one or more instances of #$LotOfLand, on which typically stand houses or other buildings. NOTE: a Region, not a PhysicalObject. A block can be empty of structures, so there is no necessary connection. A CityBlock may have some thoroughfares in it - access roads, driveways, so it is not necessarily devoid of roadways. The usage will be conventional, that is, anything usually thought of or referred to in the same sense as a well-demarcated city block can be represented as an instance of CityBlock, even if it is not neatly adjoined by urban streets on every side. SUMO: A square-shaped area surrounded by Roadways which is part of a City and typically contains Buildings. bdf4b730-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 COSMO Note: a GeopoliticalArea is the spatial region containing the physical portion of earth controlled by a Geopolitical agent (the government of a country or subdivision). It is not a physical object, but contains all objects on or near the earth's surface, so that an object 'locatedAt' any region will also be 'locatedAt' any larger region containing] the first region. SUMO: Any GeographicArea which is associated with some sort of political structure. This class includes Lands, Cities, districts of cities, counties, etc. Note that the identity of a GeopoliticalArea may remain constant after a change in borders. COSMO Note: in SUMO named 'Nation'. Here we make it unambigous that it is the spatial region containing the physical part of the Earth that is represented, not the objects in that region nor the governmental organization controlling that region. A CountryArea is controlled by a Country (a GeopoliticalEntity) SUMO: Nation: The physical area, not the organization The broadest GeopoliticalArea, i.e. Nations are GeopoliticalAreas that are not part of any other overarching and comprehensive governance structure (excepting commonwealths and other sorts of loose international organizations). The spatial region of the Earth's surface encompassed by the borderlines of a City. COSMO Note: in SUMO named 'City'. Here we make it unambigous that it is the spatial region containing the physical part of the Earth that is represented, not the physical objects in the region, nor the governmental organization that controls the region.. The physical objects in that region are represented separately, and are located at the geopolitical area SUMO: A LandArea of relatively small size, inhabited by a community of people, and having some sort of political structure. Note that this class includes both large cities and small settlements like towns, villages, hamlets, etc. An area that is part of a City, not necessarily corresponding to official political district lines. The physical area of The city of London, the capital of the United Kingdom. This object includes the space containing everything in the city (at any given time), including the people. The physical area of the United Kingdom, including everything in it. The physical area of The city of New York. This object includes the space containing everything in the city (at any given time), including the people. The physical area of the United States of America, including the regions containing everything in it. The squarish region in New York City on which the two World Trade center towers were located on Sept. 10, 2001. The city block on which the two World Trade Center towers were located, during the calendar day Sept. 11, 2001, EST (Z-5). The calendar day from 12:00 AM to the instant before 12 midnight on Sept. 11, 2001, EST (Z-5) New York City time. 9-11. isSomethingElseThan is a relation that specifies that the subject entity of the relation is **not** the object entity of the relation. This is a crude way of saying that one knows what something **is not**, even when one cannot be more specific about what something **is**. The subject and object should have a common Type, but that Type can be any Type. An unspecified location that is somewhere other than some reference location, for some interval of time. This 'location' category serves as the base element for the pointer to the location where something (person, vehicle) is known **not to be** (at some particular time). Being able to assert absence in a particular location does not necessarily mean that the true location of the individual thing is actually known - one may simply look around a room and say 'he's not here'. Usage: {?X isLocatedAt ?ALIBI} means that ?X was someplace other than the TimeAndPlace pointed to by the isSomethingOtherThan relation on the instance of TimeAndPlace that is the ?ALIBI. This Type allows one to express notions such as 'NN wasn't at the (meeting/party/scene of the crime/etc)' Every Alibi must specify exactly where and when an entity was absent, using the relation 'isSomethingOtherThan' and pointing to a TimeAndPlace. A synonym for 'Alibi'.. A synonym for 'Alibi'.. A TimeAndPlace that is disjoint from a particular country at a particular time. This is one sense of the English word 'abroad'. A TimeAndPlace that an object is not at, and is disjoint from some other TimeAndPlace. Very similar to 'Alibi', but can be used for convenience with the linguistic 'absent'. Can be used for inanimate objects, not just people. See also 'Absence' for the Event. Usage: {?X isLocatedAt ?ABSENT} means that ?X was someplace other than the TimeAndPlace pointed to by the isSomethingOtherThan relation on the instance of TimeAndPlace that is the ?ABSENT. Absence is an Event that consists of some object being absent, and takes place in an Absent (a TimeAndPlace where something is not present.). For each instance, the Object absent and place of absence must be specified. Linguistically the phrase 'J wasn't at work on Monday' can be expressed as an Absence Event. An Event when some specified thing didn't happen. Similar to a PersistentState, but used differently. Someplace other than the US territory during the 24 hours of 7/15/2007, New York Time. points from one entity in the COSMO ontology to another entity in some named Context within which the entity in the Context has a direct equivalance to the ontology entity is the subject of the triple. This permits the ad hoc definition of a Context within which reasoning can occur. This relation is inherently ternary, and should be elaborated when Ternary relations are represented. See also the relations on Databases - such as 'correspondsToTable' Together with the relation 'isDefinedInContext' it is possible to create ad hoc (or map) a set of terms that are synonymous with entities in the COSMO (or an extension) and perform reasoning only on terms within that Context. This contemplates at least two scenarios: (1) some previous conceptual classification is imported, and because of name clashes, is given its own namespace, which is defined as a Context. For those names that clash, the entity in the imported Context is given a namespace prefix to keep it unique within the overall ontology. The reasoning engine should then reason only within a given Context. (2) To make a subset of the overall ontology for efficiency purposes, a Context can be defined and each entity in the overall ontology that is needed in the new dcontext will be related to that Context by this relation ('correspondsToEntityInContext'). The reasoning engine will then be able to recognize a Context within which reasoning and inference can be confined. 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.. isAdjacentTo specifies that some GenericLocation (an Object or a Region) is 'adjacent' to another. This means that it might be touching, with nothing in between, or might be separated by some thin space, which might have a name, as in a 'crack' or a sulcus in the brain. If there is a solid object separating them, two GenericLocations can be 'near' but not 'adjacent'. NOTE that this relation makes intuitive sense only when the adjacent objects are of comparable size. We do not usually say that a bacterium on the skin is 'adjacent to' the skin. A different (perhaps more general) relation should be defined for such cases, because the gap that exists in non-touching cases can be large relative to one object and small relative to the other. NOTE: this is similar to the instance-level OBO_REL relation 'adjacent_to', except that this COSMO relation is solely an instance relation and is not used at the Type level. For specifying the typical relations of Types (as in the OBO definition below), a separate class-level relation and inference axioms will be required. OBO_REL: relation adjacent_to: (only the instance-level relation is similar to COSMO 'isAdjacentTo'. Definition: C adjacent to 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 and c' are in spatial proximity. OBO Comments: Note that adjacent_to as thus defined is not a symmetric relation, in contrast to its instance-level counterpart. For it can be the case that Cs are in general such as to be adjacent to instances of C1 while no analogous statement holds for C1s in general in relation to instances of C. Examples are: nuclear membrane adjacent_to cytoplasm; seminal vesicle adjacent_to urinary bladder; ovary adjacent_to parietal pelvic peritoneum Specifies the context in which the synonymous term is synonymous with the base domain argument term. Specifies the frequency with which the synonymous term, when encountered in the specified context, actually labels the meaning represented by the base entity which is synonymous. 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. A QualitativeAttributeValue is the value of some AttributeType which is not expressed in quantitative measures. It can be an attribute of an abstract thing or of a concrete physical object. A QuantitativeAttributeValue is a value for some AttributeType which is expressed in quantitative measures. An EvaluativeAttribute is a QualitativeAttributeValue for some entity, cocnrete or abstgract, that reflects the judgment of an IntelligentAgent regarding that entity. the judgment may be objective or subjective, but will be relative to some purpose. A QuantitativeAttributeValue consisting of having percentage of some attribute. Each PercentageAttributeValue points to a Percentage, and may have other characteristics, such as specifying how the Percentage was measured. A Prevalence that represents an Attribute having some percent intensity, such as percent unemployed (same as UnemploymentRate). It is a type of 'Prevalence' in which the quantitative element is a PercentNumber. The percentage may be dimensionless (in which case it would have to be interpreted in a context), or may be associated with the measure that specifies what the whole is. Thus a percentage unemployed (measured by some statisitcal technique) might be represented by a measure function such as: {5.9 percentUnemployed}. hasDefaultVariance can be set differently by each application, but for most precise interoperability, it should be the same for all applications. The default variance for a measure can be absolute or relative. One might specify that all temperature measures are accurate to plus or minus one degree Fahrenheit - which might make sense in some applications. A relative value can be of several types: one might say that any measure is accurate only to within 1% of the nominal value, or might say that every measure is accurate to within plus or minus one digit in the last significant digit of the measure. The 'plus or minus' range by default is the conventional variance, within which any measure has a 67% likelihood of being found. The default variance will be used only if an explicit variance is not specified. The default variance can be set for each type of quantitative measure, or may be set for any tree of quantitative measures by a restriction on the value for the root of that tree. A salient and distinguishing AttributeValue. A Prevalence is a Measurement expressing the intensity of some one AttributeValue out of set of attribute values that are related in some way. This is a general type of Measurement that might be inluded in a Distribution. A Distribution is a Group of quantitative measures of the prevalence (often a percentage) of some AttributeValue. It may be relevant to an Individual, but is usually of relevance to a Group of entities. For distributions of characteristics among a GroupOfPeople, use 'PopulationCharacteristicDistribution'. A group of numbers expressing the fraction of some population that has a particular value for some category of population attribute. This is not a simple number, but a group of numbers. 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). A PopulationAttribute is any type of attribute that can be asserted about a group of people. It also is used to characterize geographical regions, in which case it in fact characterizes the group of people who live in that region. It will be time-sensitive, potentially varying rapidly. NOTE that this is a subclass of AttributeType, which categorizes general types of population attributes, and each PopulationAttribute The values for each PopulationAttribute will be a subtype of PopulationCharacteristic. This AttributeType is mostly of interest for aggregate characteristics, such as 'RacialComposition'. The individual elements making up that composition would be instances of 'PopulationCharacteristic' such as 'PercentageAsianAncestry'. An attribute of a 'Population' that is of interest to some group for some purpose. Examples are: unemployment rate, dostribution of religious affiliations, racial distribution. The Population is usually human, but may be animal. Plant groups are not included. It may be quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative characteristics will be instances of subtypes of 'PopulationAttributeValue'. A PopulationCharacteristic may also be used to characterize geographical regions, in which case it is interpreted as characterizing the group of people who live in that region. It will be time-sensitive, potentially varying rapidly. The characteristic is often some percentage of the given population having a particular attribute, or some distribution of attribute values for one type of attribute. Thus an unemployment rate is a simple percentage under 100; a racial distribution is a group of fractions that add up to no more than 100% (if incomplete, it may add up to less than 100%). For qualitative attributes, one might characterize a population without reference to the fractions that actually have that attribute, for example 'an Asian group'. A PopulationAttributeValue is a quantitative measure describing some characteristic of some population, which is a type of attribute that can be asserted about a group of people. Examples of PopulationAttributeValues are: infant mortality rate, AverageIncome, UnemploymentRate, high school graduation rate, etc.. The percentage of members of a population capable of working who are not employed. The method for calculating this number varies by country. Each differently calculated rate can be represented as a subtype of this Type. An attribute of a 'Population' that consists of the performance of certain characteristic behaviors. The characteristic behaviors may be routine (going to Mass on Sunday for observant Catholics) or sporadic, possible triggered by eents (characreistic reactions to Events). To fit into this category the eeidence of such characeristic behaior should be more than anecdotal. An attribute of a 'Population' that consists of the performance of certain characteristic routine behaviors. The RoutineBehavior itself should be represented as an instance of 'RoutineAction'. Intances of 'RoutineActivityCharacteistic' should specify the type of routine activity and the typical frequency. ###ToDo: relations have not yet been defined to relate this Type to 'RoutineAction'. A type of PopulationAttribute that describes some attribute of a population related to a traditional measure of economic activity: unemployment rate, GNP per capita, exports, imports, average work week, etc. Each of those specific measures will be a subclass of 'PopulationCharacteristic'.. Each subtype of 'PersonalityTraitValue' is a PersonalityTrait that may be assigned to some individual animal, usually used for people. Examples are kindness, thriftiness, gregariousness. The Types are categorized by nouns, but the equivalent assignments of such traits to people in linguistic statements will typically use adjectives such as 'a kind person'. Nature is the sum of all essential attribute values of an individual, forming a recognizable pattern. This can be used generally for any kind of entity, though linguistically it often refers to behavioral patterns. Personality is the sum of all PersonalityTraits of an individual. This AttributeType can be used for animals as well as people, for example a particular animal may be characterized as 'aggressive'. Trait is some characteristic, usually of an animal's personality that is considered as a part of its total character or nature. Examples are kindness, ambitiousness, aggressiveness, friendliness. PersonalityTrait is some trait of personality that is considered as a part of a total personality. Examples are kindness, ambitiousness, aggressiveness. These triats will be classified under 'PersonalAttribute' A PersonalAttribute is any of a broad range of values for the general attribute type of 'PersonalityTrait'. the PersonalAttribute may be inherent (such as kindness, ambitiousness, aggressiveness), or may be a result of the attitudes of others, such as being 'untouchable' or having a particular social status. SocialStatus is an Attribute that a person has as a result of other people having an opinion of that person. It is not an inherent trait, though it may be strongly influenced by a person's inherent traits. Instances may also apply to groups of people, such as women or young people in a particular culture. There are aspects of status, such as within-group and out-of-group attitudes that are not represented by a simple attribute. This needs to be elaborated considerably. The collection of attributes that describe a person's social power, `clout,' the ability to influence people and achieve one's social goals through some combination of privilege, position, personal contacts, skill, hard work, and intelligence. Money (income, wealth) and esteem/prestige may both contribute to attaining social power and may be necessary to hold on to it, but they cannot be equated with it. This is basically Max Weber's schema. bd58a99f-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 Each AttributeValue of the Stability Type is a Tendency (which see) to participate in some Event or FunctionalProcess, under certain conditions. The Stability of some Objects, such as organic tissues from organisms, can depend in a sensitive manner on temperature (frozen? boiled?), on the presence of potentially degrading microorganisms (irradiated? pasteurized?) and on the method of preparation (germ-free to start with?). Other things, like mountains, may be assumed to be stable in the sense of staying put for very long periods of time, regardless of the activities of animals, wind, and weather. Large building are of intermediate stability, tending to be in the same place from year to year but occasionally being torn down by people, tornadoes, or earthquakes. This AttributeType will be important for resolving issues related to the Frame Problem, i.e. if a condition exists now, is it likely to exist ten minutes, one day, or one month from now? In practical reasoning this issue is critically important, but becasue of its complexity has been often ignored in small reasoning systems. This generic AttributeType and its associated AttribugteValues can be used to address the problem of predicting the relations of situations across time interval. . wasRealizedByAction relates a CapabilityType, who instances are attributes of Objects that can enable or perform funcitons, to the ActionType(s) that they can anable or perform. This relation answers the questions 'what was it designed for?'. The 'dsign' can be either artificial, as the design of an artifact, or natural, as the design of an evolved System or System component. *Note* that the CapabilityType that is the subject of this relation in turn can be pointed to by the relation 'hasDesignFunction'. This creates a triangle of Object-Capability-Action. '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'). 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 documnentation 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. Any Attribute of an Entity that is an internal property of the Entity, e.g. its shape, its color, its fragility, etc. Attributes that apply specifically to instances of Organism. Attributes that indicate the sex of an Organism. HeterogeneousCategory is a catch-all of classes that subsume other classes of varied basic types. Among other things, it is a mechanism for assigning qualitative adjectives that may apply to more than one basic type (like 'dangerous'), and to provide a parent aggregate Type for some relations. Thes subtypes may also be defined functionally,and may include entities of different innate character. An attribute of things - events, properties, or objects - that are worthy of paying attention to because they are often (but not always) important to intelligent agents. This is an attribute that can be used to mark things that an agent should keep in mind. An attribute of things - events, processes, or objects - that in normal circumstances can be expected to give pleasure to people who experience it (Events) or possess it (things). This provides one method to mark those Assets that are especially worthy of attention. A common term for 'Salient'. An Event or object which is unusual enough to warrant attention when it is noticed. This is very broad: examples are Landmarks. An Event or object which is common enough that it does not attract special attention when it is noticed. UndesirableThing is a generic class that can be used to label certain types of objects or situations as undesirable, and therefore something to avoid, and therefore something that is salient. A GoodThing is a generic class that can be used to label certain types of objects or situations as desirable, and therefore something to pay attention to, and perhaps to try to otain or try to do or get done. A PleasantThing is an Event, Process, or Object that will typically (or is intended to) give pleasure to a person who experences it (an Event) or who has possession of it (an object). This is a very broad category, necessarily vague because many things can give pleasure in many ways and in many degrees, yet it is usefult to be able to predict whether a person can be expected to be pleased by something. To be more precise insuch prediction will require a great deal of information about the circumstances and inclinations of individual people. 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 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 isSpatiallyDisjointWith relates one.SpatialThing (a region, object, or event) with another SpatialThing that has no regions in common with the first. This relation can be used to express the fact that anything wholly located in one SpatialThing cannot have any part located in another SpatialThing that is disjoint with the first in this sense. NOTE that when first-order rules are associated with this ontology, it will be possible to infer that any part of a region1 that isSpatiallyDisjointWith a region2 is also disjoint with any part of that region2. 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, #$SpatialThing-Localized. Note that most of the Cyc 'SpatialThings' are in our universe (though not necessarily) , so most are also under DOLCE 'spatio-temporal-particular'. DOLCE: Dummy class for optimizing some property universes. It includes all entities that are not reifications of universals ('abstracts'), i.e. those entities that are in space-time. spatio-temporal-particular[DOLCE]%SpatialThing COSMO note: all PhysicalObjects are non-trivially continuous only with respect to some level of granularity. Cyc: A specialization of #$SpatialThing. For every instance REGION of #$SpatiallyContinuousThing, any two points it subsumes are connected by some path it also subsumes. Positive exemplars include a drinking glass, a haystack, a spiderweb, or a region of space in the shape of any of these things. If the glass is broken and its pieces no longer touch each other, it is not a #$SpatiallyContinuousThing. Some borderline exemplars depend on granularity. At a macroscopic level of granularity, a dense cloud of smoke is effectively continuous. On the microscopic level, it is composed of independent particles that do not touch each other. 9ae4ab12-8221-41d7-9022-96b38c86ffc1 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. 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.). wasCreatedBy relates an Artifact (concrete or abstract) to the Agent who created it. Agents are construed very broadly for this relation, and a river could be the Agent that created a canyon. 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.. wasAuthoredBy relates a textual object (concrete or abstract) to the IntelligentAgent who is credited with creating it. The Agent can be a person, organization, group of people or a machine (see 'AuthorOfRecord'). This special relation, together with the companion Type of 'AuthorOfRecord' (a subtype of 'IntelligentAgent') serves the purpose of preserving the option to list known people (instances of 'Person') or unknown individuals ('Anonymous'), pen names ('MarkTwain'), or pseudonyms whose real identity is unknown. The unknowns and pen names can be instances of 'AuthorOfRecord'. When identities of unknown authors are discovered, they can be equated with the previous AuthorOfRecord, or that instance can be replaced in the knowledge base, if it is unimportant to have a record of the author being initially unknown. The same as 'ArtifactObject', but the shorter term was considered potentially misleading as the main label for this concept, as it has been used to refer to abstract artifacts as well as physical objects. Artifact* COSMO note: this class was merged with the Cyc 'Artifact-HumanCreated' because little differnce could be discerned. All instances of Artifact will be created by humans - people, groups, organizations, or their automaton servants. Artifactual objecgts created by non-humans (e.g. animals) will be instgances of ArtifactObject. 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. wasCreatedAtTheRequestOf relates an ArtifactObject to the IntelligentAgent (usually a Person) who ordered it to be created. This should be used for objects of special interest whose creators will also be of interest. This differs from 'wasCreatedBy' in that most of the work of creation must be done by someone other than the agent (person, organization, group) who ordered it to be created. It is therefore mostly used for large objects like buildings and special-order objects of any kind. An instance of #$ObjectType, and a specialization of #$Artifact-Generic. #$Artifact-NonAgentive is the collection of all artifacts that are _not_ agents (i.e., that are _not_ instances of #$Agent-Generic). Specializations of #$Artifact-NonAgentive include #$Bicycle, #$Pants, #$Canal, and #$FoodUtensil. COSMO note: NOTE that there is a concept of 'scale' of the manufacturing process that distinguishes 'manufactured' from handcrafted goods. This is a continuous measure, therefore there will be a fuzzy borderline between 'Product' and handcraft. Where doubt exists, things manufactured in numbers more than a few and offered for public sale and distribution using any form of advertising will be considered as members of this class. Cyc: The collection of all #$Artifacts that are made or processed in large-scale industrial operations for distribution (normally sale) to agents outside the manufacturing organization. This includes manufactured stuff, e.g. Finlandia vodka; refined ore, e.g. iron; otherwise procesed natural material, e.g. cut diamonds, as well as manufactured objects. This collection excludes handicrafts; privately made stuff, e.g. moonshine; and other artifacts produced by one or a few people on a small scale. The property of substances or objects that are considered (by their possesor or potential possessor) to have some positive value. The property of being satisfactory to an Agent for a purpose, reflecting the Agent's judgment that it will serve some purpose. This is an Evaluative (judgmental) attribute. The property of not being Acceptable. The property of substances or objects that are considered (by their possesor) to have no positive value. 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. Anything that has no net value to the cognitive agent that currently possesses it. The thing (object, substance, right) may have some value to someone else, but if the possessing agent considers it too much of a nuisance to try to gain paymenty for it, it is effectively worthless. This is the quality of trash, garbage, refuse, etc.. 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 deine a finction 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. Cyc Documentation for 'Group' (NOTE some differences from COSMO 'Group') 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. hasDimensionality relates an Object or region to the number of dimensions (not necessarily orthogonal) that it occupies. hasCardinalty relates a Group to an integer enumerating the number of direct component elements of which the group consists. Because an element of a Group may itself be a Group, the Cardinality does not indicate the number of things that ultimately are not Groups, only the number of things that are related by the 'hasComponentElement' relation. NOTE that AbstractString is icluded explicityl, not only as a subtype of Group, because zero-lenght (zero-cardinality, considered as though it were an ordered group) strings may exist but zero-cardinality Groups are not permitted. The collection of all groups of animals of the same type living in the same location. For any instance of this Type, it is necessary to specify the location to satisfy the restriction. NOTE that a population is only those animals (or people) located in a particualr location at a particular time. it is therefore time-sensitive. The location is generic; therfore, one can use this to describe the people who are on the liner Queen Mary, wherever it happens to be at that time. bde046c0-9c29-11b1-9dad-c379636f7270 The collection of all people living in the same location. This corresponds to the 'population' of some geographical area. Inclusion in the population is determined by location, not by citizenship. A population may be said to have certain characteristics, provided that those characteristics are stable for some period of time in a given area. 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'. 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.. hasSubgroup relates a Group to some other definable Group, all of whose component elements are also component elements of the larger Group.. Every PluralThing is a Group consisting of at least two or more entities, considered as one entity, and is related to the component entities by the relation 'hasComponentElement'. NOTE: in COSMO, Group is restricted to groupings of at least one entity, as in OpenCyc. In this manner PluralThing stays closer to the linguistic intuition of a plural. A more generic Group that is not a TemporalThing could be defined, but is left out at this point. NOTE: BFO has the notion of an 'ObjectAggregate' which is similar to a 'PluralThing'; but in BFO the requirements are more stringent than for COSMO 'Group', since a COSMO 'Group' can be composed of arbitarily defined components, whereas in BFO each 'Object' of the aggregate must be an object with perceptible boundaries. Since BFO 'Object' is disjoint from 'fiat object part' and from ObjectAggregate, we need to make 'ObjectAggregate' a subtype of 'PluralThing', and to specify that each component of an 'ObjectAggregate' is a 'WholeObject'. An OrderedGroup is a Group that has some ordering relation between component elements. It must have more than one component element, Therefore it is a PluralThing and can never be a singleton. An OrderedGroup may be physical, whereas a List is an AbstractInformationStore. Therefore not all OrderedGroups are Lists. One may define an OrderedGroup that is a List, if one is careful that the OrderedGroup is also an AbstractInformationStore. To define a type of OrderedGroup that may have as few as one element, define a type that is a subtype of both Group and List. A Queue is a group of people lined up to do something in sequence - a waiting list. This is a PhysicalObject - the Group of People, not something abstract. hasFirstElement is a specialization of the relation 'hasComponentElement' applying to OrderedGroups, specifying the first component element of an OrderedGroup. hasSecondElement is a specialization of the relation 'hasComponentElement' applying to OrderedGroups, specifying the Second component element of an OrderedGroup.