BFO on Companies House. P. Grenon (UCL) Onto.com 2016 Annecy, 6 July 2016

Transcription

1 BFO on Companies House P. Grenon (UCL) Onto.com 2016 Annecy, 6 July 2016

2 BFO Formal (foundational) ontology Small, very high level distinctions Assumes large standard repertoire of formal relations A few methodological hard lines forcing choices in application domains (esp. granularity ) Advocates compartmentalisation of domain ontologies informed by strict application of formal (foundational principles)

3 BFO main tenets 1: universals Ontology is about universals Universals exist as, roughly, natural classes Through their instances Sparsely (but you can have classes) Basic No algebra or combination Hierarchy as Genus-Differentia Varied (formal) relations between universals

4 BFO tenets 2: Bi-perspective on temporal matters Two main categories according to models of persistence in time Continuant ( 3D entities) Occurrents ( 4D entities) Two main hierarchies of universals Both perspectives used concomitantly

5 Simple BFO There are things, they change and they do stuff. Continuants: No temporal parts Have lives and participate in events Thing-like Property-like Occurrents: Have spatiotemporal parts Include lives and histories and the processes and events in which continuants participate Have parts, inc. lower dimensional Can be aggregated Have all sorts of properties all sorts Relational, monadic, specifically dependent, generally dependent, realisable, roles, functions, dispositions etc

6 Companies (through data) Identifiers /labels Somehow tied to a physical location Somehow tied to a activities that can be monitored accountability and liabilities (inc. future dates) Identifiers /labels Has a life Has a history with significant events

7 Pin the tail on the donkey Everything modulo domain specific understanding (not assumed valid here) Continuants: Occurrents: Thing-like Company Assume people, countries etc Property-like Roles n company Secretary Director Office? Liabilities, dispositions Life of a company (Starts with) Incorporation event (ends with) Dissolution event Reporting, auditing, paying etc Business domains as activities

8 Company Universals/Class/Attributes Need to look at definitions to decide May elicit additional universals Options The company types listed point at species of the universal Company They are only classes They are some form of attributes (dependent continuant) that can be ascribed to companies. In that case, corresponding classes of companies can be defined.

9 Activities as Process(ual) Universals An instance of activity is an instance of processual occurring in virtue of an agent participation. Business activity is an activity that [characterise business] SIC classification as a classification of activities. Domain relations between companies and activity (types) particular-universal relation

10 Depends on definition of office. Geopolitical location Office That companies have a registered office by necessity could be a way of addressing the material foothold of companies. Assume geopolitical ontology. Use some form of localisation. All this under continuants.

11 Addresses/Geographical locations Leave this aside? Either a string of symbol used as a label or a special kind of coordinate system with fields naming spatial geographical entities In the realms of independent continuants. RegAddress.CareOf RegAddress.POBox RegAddress.AddressLine1 RegAddress.AddressLine2 RegAddress.PostTown RegAddress.County RegAddress.Country RegAddress.PostCode

12 No idea but seems interesting

13 Roles and their institutional basis Roles Secretary Director Inheres-In (temporalised or not as roles have a life) Roles bearers Individual (person of some sort?) Corporate (another institution?) Somehow dependent on Company or something relating to the company Realised in some processes or events

14 Data 1 There is an entity, a1, a2 Name Id Address no entity no entity no entity But we could interpret this as a claim there is an additional entity, an office, a physical object located in some geographical region

15 Data 2 K: CompanyCategory as universal instantiated by a1 or a kind of quality (Dependent continuant), k1 L: CompanyStatus, probably a kind of Dependent Continuant, with its own life, l1 M: Countries somewhere else, some relation links them (BFO s site mechanism)

16 Data 3 N: a1 has a life l1 that ends at that date (i.e., there s an event, fl1, when dissolution happens) (If companies aren t dissolved, this doesn t exist yet?) O: l1 starts at that date (i.e., there s an event, il1, the initial boundary of l1 with this date)

17 Data 4 Some additional entities, involved depending on what accounts, returns, mortgages are. Activities, their participants, maybe some qualities. T: very similar to CompanyStatus (L), for putative accounts or accounts related objects; maybe a derived quality of properties ~ has account status (Time dependent)

18 Data 5 Several categorisations using SIC SIC has a taxonomy of activities Alternative A: Link a1 to a nomenclature system, using codes from SIC Alternative B: Link a1 to a company universal using SIC as authoritative account of the domain

19 Data 6 Ignore Series of events in which a1 changes names It doesn t change a1, name as labels, non essential properties No extra entities really involved

20 Coarse Representation of Data Building Company Person Secretary(Role) instanceof instanceof c1 hasbuilding a1 hassecretary p1 hasrole r1 haslife IncorporationEvent InitialBoundary instanceof il1 l1 FinalBoundary fl1 [Changes trigger qualitative changes or appearance/disapperances of qualities] DissolutionEvent [All sorts of processes, revolving around what a secretary does when The corresponding role is realised]