Showing papers on "Ontology (information science) published in 1991"

Story as link between nursing practice, ontology, epistemology

Abstract: This paper proposes the use of story as a method of organizing and communicating nursing knowledge which assures groundedness in the ontology of nursing. The nursing situation is viewed as the unit of nursing knowledge, and the nursing story is the re-creation or representation of that situation.

CYC: a mid-term report

Abstract: After explicating the need for a large common-sense knowledge base spanning human consensus knowledge, we report on many of the lessons learned over the first five years of attempting its construction. We have come a long way, in terms of methodology, representation language, techniques for efficient inferencing, the ontology of the knowledge base, and in terms of the environment and infrastructure in which it is being built. We describe the evolution of Cyc, its current state, and close with a look ahead at our plans and expectations for the coming five years, including an argument for how and why the project may conclude at that time.

Spatial Ontology and Explanation

Abstract: This paper presents an account of spatial ontology and explanation that highlights a largely ignored dimension of social spatiality: the opening and occupation of places for activity that automatically occurs whenever there is human life. The first part analyzes this space of places on the basis of Heidegger's account of ongoing life, and uses the resulting analysis to describe the spatiality of social formations. The second part analyzes spatial explanation on the basis of this spatial ontology. It (a) argues that the explanation and explanatory uses in social science of the spatial properties of social phenomena do not differ in principle from the explanation and explanatory uses of other features of social life, and (b) defends two existing versions of socio-spatial dialectics. Attention is given to the nature of explanation, the character of social causality, and the proper types of explanation in social investigation.

Device understanding and modeling for diagnosis

Abstract: It is argued that a device model must reflect understanding of how the device functions in the real world. The nature of models, the ontology of abstract models, and the role this ontology plays in diagnosis are examined. Organizational principles for (device) diagnosis models are identified. The efficient integration of functional-design models with other diagnosis models is discussed. The implementation of the concepts in the Faulty-II system is briefly described. >

Belief, Self-Ascription, and Ontology

Abstract: The present essay continues my examination of alternative accounts of the psychological attitudes -believing, desiring, intending, and the like. In [94] I addressed Castafieda's unique guise theoretic proposal as set out in his [14], [15], [16], and elsewhere. My [97] and [98] treat the novel version of two-schemism developed by Boer and Lycan ([7], [54], and [55]). And I critique the intriguing self-ascription theories of Brand ([8], [9]) and Lewis ([52], [53]) in Tomberlin [96] and [99], respectively. Here my plan is to focus on the important but very different form of self-ascription impressively articulated in Chisholm [30], [31], and [32].1

Sartre's political theory

Abstract: Introduction One. Beginnings Two. First Ethics Three. The Masterful Though Unfinished Critique: Background and Introduction Four. The Critique: Methodology, Ontology, and the Individual- World Relationships Five. Politics and History Six. The Last Two Decades Notes Index

Parts, A Study in Ontology.

Abstract: The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, yet until now there has been no full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. This has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of such classical philosophical concepts as identity, individual, class, substance and accident, matter, form, essence, dependence, and integral whole. It also enables the author to offer new solutions to longstanding problems surrounding these concepts, such as the Ship of Theseus Problem and the issue of mereological essentialism. The author shows by his use of formal techniques that classical philosophical problems are amenable to rigorous treatment, and the book represents a synthesis of issues and methods from the analytical tradition and from the older continental realist tradition of Brentano and the early Husserl. The book is aimed at philosophers, logicians, and linguists.

Controversies About Law's Ontology

Abstract: Part 1 Locating the law: law in things, Michel Villey law in the mind, Paul Amselek. Part 2 Contingency and necessity in law: voluntarist theories of law - ontology and the theory of legal science, Michel Troper institutionalist theories of law, Ota Weinberger structuralist theories of law, Andre Jean Arnaud. Part 3 Openness and finitude of law: an "open texture" in law, Neil MacCormick on gaps in the law, Ronald Dworkin on the unstated in law - implicit presuppositions and conventions, Jerzy Wroblewski. Part 4 Law generating itself: the autopoietic theory of law - autonomy of law and contextual transfer, Helmut Willke legal system and reality - a discussion of the autopoietic theory of law, Christophe Grzegorczyk.

Sentences, situations, and propositions

Abstract: Sentences are about situations. How to represent the situations that sentences describe is an important problem for AI. In particular, it is useful for a representation to provide entities corresponding to individual situations, and to be able to represent facts about a situation separately from stating that something is a situation of a particular field. Most semantic network formalisms seem to achieve one of these criteria at the expense of the other. However, it is possible to achieve both criteria by extending the usual ontology of situations. Such an extended ontology poses a number of questions about the representation of situations corresponding to sentences designating states, about the representation of situations corresponding to sentences involving logical connectives, about the propositional objects, and the equality of situations and of propositions. Some of the implications entailed in resolving these questions are surprising. For example, a proper treatment of propositional objects seems to eliminate the need for intensions per se.

Goals, Issues and Directions in Machine Learning of Natural Language and Ontology (Bibliography).

Abstract: During this same period, computational and mathematical modelling of language and learning have increasingly been recognized as relevant to assessing the validity of a theory of Language Acquisition or the Nature of Language. Conversely, researchers in Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Philosophy, as well as Computing, have been considering how and where we can apply our increasing knowledge of the human characteristics and constraints which determine how we solve problems, learn about the world, and use language.

Theory in human-computer interaction?

Abstract: There is no (formal) theory of HCl-there is rather only an HCl theory vacuum. However, the requirements for a sensible understanding of the question are becoming clearer. There is no sensible understanding of theory in HCl outside an understanding of: HCl as a design discipline, the ontology of HCl, as including humans and computers, tasks and effectiveness, the conception of HCl as an expression of the general design problem which HCl theory is intended to solve, and HCl theory (and practice) differentiation. Within this understanding of HCl, which encompasses discipline, ontology, conception and epistemology, two types of progress concerning theory in HCl are described. The first concerns formal HCl theory and is currently associated with formalising, formulating and operationalising the general HCl design problem. The second concerns informal HCl theory and is currently associated with models and guidelines, and methods and tools.