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RE: [ontac-forum] ISO 15926 and BFO

To: "ONTAC-WG General Discussion" <ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "West, Matthew R SIPC-DFD/321" <matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:42:38 -0000
Message-id: <A94B3B171A49A4448F0CEEB458AA661F02A8098D@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dear Barry,    (01)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Smith, Barry
> Sent: 20 November 2005 20:00
> To: ONTAC-WG General Discussion
> Subject: RE: [ontac-forum] ISO 15926 and BFO
> 
> 
> At 11:51 AM 11/20/2005, you wrote:
> >Dear Barry,
> >
> >
> >
> > > Uniquely, among existing
> > > contributions, the BFO Relation Ontology allows the drawing of a
> > > clear distinction between relations on the level of 
> instances (e.g.
> > > between your heart and your body) and relations on the 
> level of types
> > > (e.g. between the type human heart and the type human body).
> >
> >MW: Just for the record, ISO 15926 also supports this.
> >
> >
> >Regards
> >
> >Matthew West
> 
> ISO 15926 does indeed distinguish between relationships and classes 
> of relationships:
> 
> A <relationship> is an <abstract_object> that indicates something 
> that one thing has to do with another.
> 
> A <class_of_relationship> is a <class_of _abstract_object> whose 
> members are members of <relationship>.
> 
> However, it does not provide an account of the distinction between 
> relationships BETWEEN CLASSES (for example in general assertions such 
> as: human heart PART_OF human body, capital city PART_OF country) and 
> relationships BETWEEN INSTANCES (such as Matthew's heart part_of 
> Matthew's body; London part_of England).     (02)

MW: It does precisely this. We have class_of_composition_of_individual 
for classes of relationship between classes (e.g. heart part of body)
and composition_of_individual for relationships between individuals,
e.g. Matthew's heart part of Matthew (which would of course be an
instance of the former example).    (03)

MW: We also recognise that in some cases there are relationships between
classes that are not classes of relationship. Specialisation would be
an example of this. Do you support this sort of distinction too? We even
have class_of_specialisation for saying that a member of one class has
a member of another class as a superclass.    (04)

> As is shown in
> 
> http://genomebiology.com/2005/6/5/R46    (05)

MW: I've downloaded the PDF. I'll take a look when I get a moment. Its a 
bit late now.
> 
> these are formally two quite distinct sorts of relationships. And 
> only if we provide an account of how they are connected one to the 
> other can we understand how an ontology (which deals with 
> relationships BETWEEN CLASSES) can be linked to the real world of oil 
> rigs and generators.    (06)

MW: Indeed, which is why we do.     (07)

MW: For you not to have seen this I wonder 
how you are looking at the model. Have you found the diagrams? If you 
click on the little icon beside the entity type name in the list, you
will be taken to a diagram of the part of the model that entity type is
in. I find diagrams much easier than text, and since you use diagrams
in your ontologies you might too.
> 
> BS 
> 
> 
>  
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