Papers by Chris Partridge
The paper sketches some initial results from an ongoing project to develop an ontology-based digi... more The paper sketches some initial results from an ongoing project to develop an ontology-based digital form for representing uncertain information. We frame this work as a journey from lower to higher levels of digital maturity across a technology divide. The paper first sets a baseline by describing the basic challenges any project dealing with digital uncertainty faces. It then describes how the project is facing them. It shows firstly how an extensional ontology (such as the BORO Foundational Ontology or the Information Exchange Standard) can be extended with a Lewisian counterpart approach to formalizing uncertainty that is adapted to computing. And then it shows how this is expressive enough to handle the challenges.
Business Objects: Re-engineering for Re-use
... Pages: 32. Year of Publication: 1996. ISBN:0-7506-2082-X. Author, Chris Partridge, Publisher,... more ... Pages: 32. Year of Publication: 1996. ISBN:0-7506-2082-X. Author, Chris Partridge, Publisher, Butterworth-Heinemann Newton, MA, USA. ... Collaborative Colleagues: Chris Partridge: colleagues. The ACM Portal is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. ...
Our aim in this paper is to outline how the design space for the ontologization process is broade... more Our aim in this paper is to outline how the design space for the ontologization process is broader than current practice would suggest. We point out that engineering processes as well as products need to be designedand identify some components of the design. We investigate the possibility of designing a range of radically new practices implemented as data pipelines, providing examples of the new practices from our work over the last three decades with an outlier methodology, bCLEARer. We also suggest that setting an evolutionary context for ontologization helps one to better understand the nature of these new practices and provides the conceptual scaffolding that shapes fertile processes. Where this evolutionary perspective positions digitalization (the evolutionary emergence of computing technologies) as the latest step in a long evolutionary trail of information transitions. This reframes ontologization as a strategic tool for leveraging the emerging opportunities offered by digitalization.
Communications of The ACM, Jun 1, 2009
Internal Report, 2011
This report on the MODEM project is in three sections: 1) An executive summary that explains the ... more This report on the MODEM project is in three sections: 1) An executive summary that explains the motivation for the MODEM work. 2) An introduction to the real world analysis that was done as part of the MODEM work, which gives a deeper understanding of the ideas that underlie it and provides examples of their use. 3) A detailed technical IDEAS analysis explaining the IDEAS MODEM model. The detailed technical analysis focuses on the modelling of behaviour. It aims to re-engineer the UML behaviour model, which has no real world semantics, into an ontological foundation for the modelling of behaviour.
Each of the sections builds upon the previous section and is aimed at a different audience. The first section is aimed at management who need to understand the basis for the MODEM work. The second section is aimed at users who need to understand the issues that the MODEM work raises without delving into the technical details of the IDEAS model. The third and final section provides the detailed IDEAS analysis for the technical experts.
CPNI (Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure), Unpublished draft, 2022
This report identifies the top categories that characterise the top-level ontology that will unde... more This report identifies the top categories that characterise the top-level ontology that will underpin the Information Management Framework’s Foundation Data Model (where top categories exclusively and exhaustively divide the world’s entities by their fundamental kinds or natures). With these in place, the IMF’s top-level ontology has been characterised.
A thin slices approach (described in Developing Thin Slices (Partridge, forthcoming)) has been adopted for the development of the foundation data model. The category structure described in this report is being used as the foundation for that process. With these categories in place, that process has a firm foundation.
CPNI (Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure), Unpublished draft, 2022
This Developing Thin Slices report provides a technical description of the process at the heart o... more This Developing Thin Slices report provides a technical description of the process at the heart of the Thin Slices Methodology with the aim of providing a common technical resource for training and guidance in this area. As such it forms part of the wider effort to provide common resources for the development of the Information Management Framework.
It focuses on the process at the core of the Thin Slices Methodology. In particular, it identifies a requirement for a minimal foundation for these kinds of processes. In the companion report, Top-Level Categories (Partridge, forthcoming), the foundation adopted by the Information Management Framework is described. Together, the two reports cover the details of the developing thin slices process.
We aim to establish that there is at least one role for constructionalism in applied ontology by ... more We aim to establish that there is at least one role for constructionalism in applied ontology by giving the case history of an early example of a case where the foundations of a top-level ontology are constructionally refactored. What we have called ‘taking the constructional turn’. The example is the BORO foundational ontology which has, over the last decade, been taking this turn. The paper starts by providing an evolutionary context for the case history. It then provides a chronological profile of the constructional turn and the radical enrichment it delivered. This clearly establishes the feasibility and benefits of this specific role for constructionalism in applied ontology.
The multi-level modelling community’s raison d'être is its vision of the ubiquity and importance ... more The multi-level modelling community’s raison d'être is its vision of the ubiquity and importance of multi-level-types: the ascending levelled hierarchy of types in conceptual models; starting with types of things, then types of these types, then types of these types of types, and so on. The community both promotes this vision and investigates this hierarchy, looking at how it can be accommodated into existing frameworks. In this paper, we consider a specific domain, coordinate systems’ characterising options. While we recognise that, unsurprisingly, this domain contains a ubiquity of multi-level-types, our interest is in investigating a new and different approach to understanding them. For this we needed to develop a new framework. We devise one focussing on this case, based upon scaling down to simple compositional algorithms (called constructors) to form a new, radically simpler foundation. From the simple operations of these constructors emerges the scaled up multi-level structures of the domain. We show how the simple operations of simple constructors give rise to compositional connections that shape – and so explain – different complex hierarchies and levels, including the familiar multi-level-types and relatively unknown multi-level-tuples. The framework crystallises these connections as metaphysical grounding relations. We look at how simple differences in the shape and operation of constructors give rise to different varieties of these hierarchies and levels – and the impact this has. We also look at how the constructional approach reveals the differences between foundational constructors and derived constructors built from the foundational constructors – and show that conceptual modeling’s generalisation relations are secondary and dependent upon the more foundational instantiation relations. Based upon this, we assemble a constructional foundational ontology using the BORO Foundational Ontology as our starting point. We then use this to reveal and explain the formal levels and hierarchies that underlie the options for characterising coordinate systems.
To inform the ontological choices for a Foundation Data Model A survey of Top-Level Ontologies A ... more To inform the ontological choices for a Foundation Data Model A survey of Top-Level Ontologies A survey of Top-Level Ontologies 2 3 Contents 1 Introduction and Purpose 4 2 Approach and contents 5 2.1 Collect candidate top-level ontologies 5 2.2 Develop assessment framework 6 2.3 Assessment of candidate top-level ontologies against the framework 6 2.4 Terminological note 7 3 Assessment framework-development basis 8 3.1 General ontological requirements 8 3.2 Overarching ontological architecture framework 10 4 Ontological commitment overview 13 4.1 General choices 13 4.2 Formal structurehorizontal and vertical 16 4.3 Universal commitments 35 5 Assessment Framework Results 40 5.1 General choices 40 5.2 Formal structure: vertical aspects 42 5.
Formal Ontology in Information Systems, 2016
The theme of the 4 th International Workshop on Ontologies and Conceptual Modeling is foundationa... more The theme of the 4 th International Workshop on Ontologies and Conceptual Modeling is foundational ontologies and their meta-ontological choices. Expert representatives of major foundational ontologies have been invited to discuss and compare their meta-ontological choices within the context of a common case study. The workshop is aimed at exploring the ways in which different metaontological choices impact conceptual modelling in information systems.
A Program for Building a State of the Art Enterprise Ontology: Report on Progress
14 A PROGRAM FOR BUILDING A STATE OF THE ART ENTERPRISE ONTOLOGY: REPORT ON PROGRESS Chris Partri... more 14 A PROGRAM FOR BUILDING A STATE OF THE ART ENTERPRISE ONTOLOGY: REPORT ON PROGRESS Chris Partridge1, Milena Stefanova2 'The BORO Program. partridge'^ BOROProgram. org. LADSEB CAT?. Italy, stcfanovaur ladscb. pd. enr. it. Abstract: This ...
More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. The... more More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. They are finding that one of the more difficult tasks facing them is determining how the data from one application matches semantically with the data from the other applications. Currently there are few methodologies for undertaking this task-most commercial projects just rely on experience and intuition. Taking semantically heterogeneous databases as the prototypical situation, this paper describes how ontology (in the traditional metaphysical sense) can contribute to delivering a more efficient and effective process of matching by providing a framework for the analysis, and so the basis for a methodology. It delivers not only a better process for matching, but the process also gives a better result. This paper describes a couple of examples of this: how the analysis encourages a kind of generalisation that reduces complexity and how ontological relativity can be used to enhance this. Finally, it suggests that the benefits are not just restricted to individual integration projects: that the process processes models which can be used as to construct a universal reference ontology-for general use in a variety of types of projects.
More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. The... more More and more enterprises are currently undertaking projects to integrate their applications. They are finding that one of the more difficult tasks facing them is determining how the data from one application matches semantically with the other applications. Currently there are few methodologies for undertaking this task-most commercial projects just rely on experience and intuition. Taking semantically heterogeneous databases as the prototypical situation, this paper describes how ontology (in the traditional metaphysical sense) can contribute to delivering a more efficient and effective process of matching by providing a framework for the analysis, and so the basis for a methodology. It delivers not only a better process for matching, but the process also gives a better result. This paper describes a couple of examples of this: how the analysis encourages a kind of generalisation that reduces complexity. Finally, it suggests that the benefits are not just restricted to individual integration projects: that the process produces models which can be used as to construct a universal reference ontologyfor general use in a variety of types of projects.
Introduction 4 1.1 Objectives of the review 4 1.2 Structure of the review document 5 1.3 Abbrevia... more Introduction 4 1.1 Objectives of the review 4 1.2 Structure of the review document 5 1.3 Abbreviations 6 2 Roadmap showing the application areas of the sources 7 3 Building Information Models 8 3.1 buildingSMART 8 3.2 NBS Uniclass 11 3.3 Brick-a uniform metadata schema for buildings 12 3.4 Building Topology Ontology 13 4 Graphical Information Systems 15 4.1 Open Geospatial information 15 4.2 PipelineML 19 4.3 Geoscience information 21 5 Smart cities 24 5.1 Introduction 24 5.2 City Geography ML 25 5.3 Land and Infrastructure Conceptual Model Standard (LandInfra) 28 5.4 INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) 33 5.5 iCity Transportation Planning Suite of Ontologies 37 6 Industrial data 39 6.1 Introduction 39 6.2 ISO 10303 (STEP) Application Protocols 40 6.3 Ontology for geometry and topology 42 6.4 Core Industrial data set of terms 42 6.5 Modeling and Simulation information in a collaborative Systems Engineering Context (MoSSEC) 44
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (T.1301, 1st Joint Workshop ONTO.COM / ODISE on Ontologies in Conceptual Modeling and Information Systems Engineering co-located with 8th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2014). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 21, 2014)
The role of formal ontology in Conceptual Modeling (CM) and Information Systems Engineering (ISE)... more The role of formal ontology in Conceptual Modeling (CM) and Information Systems Engineering (ISE) is increasingly being recognized as fundamental by both the research and practitioner communities. The importance of formal ontology to these interrelated areas has been the theme of two workshops series held over the past years, namely the Workshop on Ontologies and Conceptual Modeling (Onto.Com) and the Workshop on Ontology-Driven Information Systems Engineering (ODISE). Given the strong relationship between the two fields as well as the synergies between the workshops, Onto.Com and ODISE have merged at FOIS 2014. Formal ontology, whose theoretical underpinnings are grounded in disciplines such as Philosophy, Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics, has led to the development of theoretical foundations for conceptual modeling. In particular, a number of ontological theories such as BORO, BWW, DOLCE, GFO and UFO have been successfully applied to the evaluation of conceptual modeling languages, frameworks and standards (e.g., UML, ORM, ER, REA, TROPOS, ARIS, BPMN, RM-ODP, Archimate, OWL and ISO 15926), and to the development of information systems engineering tools (e.g., methodological guidelines, modeling profiles, design patterns) that contribute to the theory and practice of conceptual modeling and ISE. Additionally, there has been an increasing interest in the use of empirical studies to assess the impact of the application of these theoretical foundations to the design of conceptual modeling grammars and tools and their application in the development, integration and evolution of information systems. The objective of the 1 st Joint Onto.Com/ODISE Workshop is to provide an international forum for exchanging ideas on the latest developments in the emerging area of Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modeling and Information Systems Engineering and to address specific questions of relevance to the body of knowledge of this emerging discipline. The workshop received 14 submissions, from which the Program Committee selected 8 high quality papers. The workshop was organized into one keynote talk and four sessions. The keynote talk, titled 'An Algebra of Lightweight Ontologies', was given by Prof. Marco A. Casanova from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Specific modeling issues were discussed in the four sessions. These included relations, roles, reuse and measurement. We would like to express our gratitude to the Program Committee members for their qualified work in reviewing papers, the authors for considering Onto.Com/ODISE as a forum to publish their research, and the FOIS 2014 organizers for all their support.
Towards Ontology-Based Harmonization of Web Content Standards
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2000
2 <sup>nd</sup> International Workshop on Ontology-Driven Software Engineering
The 2nd International Workshop on Ontology-Driven Software Engineering, held at the ACM SPLASH 20... more The 2nd International Workshop on Ontology-Driven Software Engineering, held at the ACM SPLASH 2010 conference, was organized with the aim of bringing together researchers and practitioners with an interest in discussing and analyzing the different ways in which ontologies can help to improve the many aspects and areas of software engineering. This short paper summarizes the theme and the discussions
BORO is a metaphysically grounded foundational ontology developed specifically for use with compu... more BORO is a metaphysically grounded foundational ontology developed specifically for use with computer systems (a foundational ontology is a system of general domain-independent ontological categories that can form a foundation for domain-specific ontologies; some but not all of these are grounded in metaphysics) and an associated methodology for legacy re-engineering systems. It emerged from a number of system replacement projects that started in the late 1980s. It was developed to mine the ontology-based conceptual models from legacy systems for use in the development of next generation systems. Once the re-engineering methodology was established in the initial projects, questions arose as to where it could usefully be deployed. To answer this, it would help to understand why it was effective; after all, it would be hard to find a more abstract and esoteric subject than metaphysics-and one that does not immediately seem related to computing. Furthermore metaphysics is a broad subject, it would be good to understand better what areas of metaphysics are important, why they are important and how they are useful. It would also be good to have a better idea of where in computing metaphysics could play a useful role. The purpose of this position paper is to sketch out how BORO has, over the decades, developed a view that provides answers to these questions (with no claim that this is the only way to answer them). This view is framed by two related themes. The first is that a new kind of information quality-which we label 'computerate'-is needed for computer systems and the second that metaphysics provides the right apparatus for grounding foundational ontologies that can be used to produce this 'computerate' information.
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Papers by Chris Partridge
Each of the sections builds upon the previous section and is aimed at a different audience. The first section is aimed at management who need to understand the basis for the MODEM work. The second section is aimed at users who need to understand the issues that the MODEM work raises without delving into the technical details of the IDEAS model. The third and final section provides the detailed IDEAS analysis for the technical experts.
A thin slices approach (described in Developing Thin Slices (Partridge, forthcoming)) has been adopted for the development of the foundation data model. The category structure described in this report is being used as the foundation for that process. With these categories in place, that process has a firm foundation.
It focuses on the process at the core of the Thin Slices Methodology. In particular, it identifies a requirement for a minimal foundation for these kinds of processes. In the companion report, Top-Level Categories (Partridge, forthcoming), the foundation adopted by the Information Management Framework is described. Together, the two reports cover the details of the developing thin slices process.