Many types of part-whole relations have been proposed in the literature to aid the conceptual modeller to choose the most appropriate type, but many of those relations lack a formal specification to give clear and unambiguous semantics to them. To remedy this, a formal taxonomy of types of mereological and meronymic part-whole relations is presented that distinguishes between transitive and intransitive relations and the kind of entity types that are related. The demand to use it effectively brings afore new requirements (...) for automated reasoning over a hierarchy of relations. To ensure logically and ontologically correct inferencing over both the class and role hierarchy, the new reasoning service RBox compatibility for Description Logics reasoners is introduced. The proposed combination of formal semantics and the new reasoning service will improve the representation of the application domain when using part-whole relations in conceptual models and ontologies. (shrink)

Both terrorism and game theory are contested concepts within the social sciences, but in this paper, I will show that a rational approach (game theory) towards the emotion-laden idea and practice of terrorism does aid understanding of the “terrorist theatre”. First, an outline will be provided on the type of actors (game players) that are, or may be, involved to a more or lesser extend in (supporting) terrorism. Then several game models will be assessed on their applicability. This includes averting (...) the joint bargaining paradox when asymmetric actors cooperate to achieve a joint goal, governments who may fare better from their point of view when dividing up refugees into geographically separate areas to decrease the possibility of cooperation between aggrieved groups and recognizing two-speed negotiations, which can have a (detrimental) effect on (deadline) negotiations. Further, an adaptation of the audience cost model explained the “war of nerves” of the terrorist theatre involving the generation of fear amongst its targets and the updating of information on moderate actors by action of extremists. Several mutations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma were discussed as options to prevent mutual harm. (shrink)

An essential aspect of conceptual data modeling methodologies is the language’s expressiveness so as to represent the subject domain as precise as possible to obtain good quality models and, consequently, software. To gain better insight in the characteristics of the main conceptual modeling languages, we conducted a comparison between ORM, ORM2, UML, ER, and EER with the aid of Description Logic languages of the DLR family and the new formally defined generic conceptual data modeling language CMcom that is based on (...) DLRifd. ORM, ER, EER, and UML class diagrams are proper fragments of ORM2 and CMcom has the most expressive common denominator with these languages. CMcom simplifies prospects for automated, online, interoperability among the considered languages so that modelers not only can continue using their preferred modeling language yet be compatible with the other ones, but also have a common ground that eases database and software integration based on commonly used conceptual data models. (shrink)

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, Page 351-354, September 2012.

Multiple different understandings and uses exist of what granularity is and how to implement it, where the former influences success of the latter with regards to storing granular data and using granularity for reasoning over the data or information. We propose a taxonomy of types of granularity and discuss for each leaf type how the entities or instances relate within its granular level. Such unambiguous distinctions can guide a conceptual modeler to better distinguish between the types of granularity and the (...) software developer to improve on implementations of granularity. (shrink)

A recurring problem in conceptual modelling and ontology development is the representation of part-whole relations, with a requirement to be able to distinguish between essential and mandatory parts. To solve this problem, we formally characterize the semantics of these shareability notions by resorting to the temporal conceptual model E RVT and its formalization in the description logic DLRUS.

Unlike identification with keys and reference schemes in ER and ORM, UML uses internal, system-generated, identifiers, with a little-known underspecified option for user-defined identifiers. To increase the ontological foundations of UML, we propose two language enhancements for UML, being formally defined simple and compound identifiers and the notion of defined class, which also have a corresponding extension of UML’s metamodel.

Few ontologies in the ecological domain exist, but their development can take advantage of gained experience in other domains and from existing modeling practices in ecology. Taxonomies do not suffice because more expressive modeling techniques are already available in ecology, and the perspective of flow with its centrality of events and processes cannot be represented adequately in a taxonomy. Therefore, formal ontologies are required for sufficient expressivity and to be of benefit to ecologists, which also enables future reuse. We have (...) created a formal mapping between the software-supported ecological modeling method and software tool STELLA and ontology elements, which simplifies bottom-up ontology development considerably and has excellent potential for semi-automated ontology development. However, the conducted experiments also revealed that ontology development for ecology is close to being part of ecological research that through the formalized representation of the knowledge more clearly points to lacunas and suggestions for further research in ecology. (shrink)

One of the relations used with granularity is indistinguishability, where distinguishable entities in a finer-grained granule are indistinguishable in a coarser-grained granule. This relation is a subtype of equivalence relation, which is used in the other direction to create finer-grained granules. Together with the notion of similarity, we formally prove some intuitive properties of the indistinguishability relation for both qualitative and quantitative granularity, that with a given granulation there must be at least two granules (levels of granularity) for it to (...) be granular, and derive a strict order between finer and coarser granules. Based on these results, granulation hierarchy is defined as extra assisting structure to augment implementations. (shrink)

A formal theory of the ecological niche is indispensable not only for semantic precision in philosophy to understand and compare it with other meanings of niche, but also when computer scientists and ecologists desire to create interoperable software where one can retrieve the niche of a species and compare their parameters. The proposed model is a more fine-grained description of the ecological niche, including the distinction between its complex concept, the abstract niche (‘fundamental niche’) with its hypervolume in multidimensional space, (...) and its realisations (‘realised niches’). The presented ecological niche may initiate new avenues for research in ecology, particularly concerning the conditions/categories of a hypervolume, as well as further philosophical inquiry and comparison with other niches. (shrink)

There are various recent efforts to broaden applications of ontologies with vague knowledge, motivated in particular by applications of bio(medical)-ontologies, as well as to enhance rough set information systems with a knowledge representation layer by giving more attention to the intension of a rough set. This requires not only representation of vague knowledge but, moreover, reasoning over it to make it interesting for both ontology engineering and rough set information systems. We propose a minor extension to OWL 2 DL, called (...) rOWL, and define the novel notions of rough subsumption reasoning and classification for rough concepts and their approximations. (shrink)

To address the problems of both structured coordination of linked and modularised ontologies and to query a large dynamic ontology system, we propose a basic granularity framework and a set of functions to query such a granulated system. The granularity framework enforces a constrained and structured modularization. This facilitates automation of both dividing a large body of represented information as well as relinking the pieces. The functions enable basic cross-granular querying in a transparent and scalable way, as they rely on (...) the unambiguous management layer provided by the granularity framework, and are reusable for ontologies represented and stored in different formats. (shrink)

From the side of modelers and early-adopter industry, interest in reasoning over conceptual models and other online usage of conceptual models is growing. To obtain a more precise insight in the characteristics of the main conceptual modeling languages, we define the (semi-)standardized ORM, ORM2, UML, ER, and EER diagram languages in terms of the new generic conceptual data modeling language CMcom that is based on the DL language DLRifd. CMcom has the most expressive common denominator with these languages. CMcom advances (...) prospects for automated, online, interoperability among diverse conceptual data models and ensures compatibility with and between industrygrade conceptual data modeling languages. (shrink)

An approach in achieving semantic interoperability among heterogeneous systems is to offer infrastructure to assist with linking and integration using a foundational ontology. Due to the creation of multiple foundational ontologies, this also means linking and integrating those ones. In order to achieve this, we have selected the widely used foundational ontologies DOLCE, BFO, and GFO, and their related modules, on which to perform ontology mediation (alignment, mapping, and merging). The foundational ontologies were aligned by identifying correspondences between ontology entities (...) using seven tools, documentation, and our manual alignments, and comparing their effectiveness. Thereafter, based on the alignments, we created correspondences in the ontology files resulting in entity mappings and merged ontologies. However, during the mapping process, it was found that differences in foundational ontologies, such as their hierarchical structure, conflicting axioms due to complement and disjointness, and incompatible domain and range restriction, cause logical inconsistencies in foundational ontology alignments, thereby greatly reducing the number of mappings. We analyse and present these logical inconsistencies with possible solutions to some of them. (shrink)

There are few successful applications of automated reasoning over OWL-formalised bio-ontologies, and requirements are often unclearly formulated. Of what is available, usage and prospective scenarios of automated reasoning is often different from the straightforward classification and satisfiability. We list nine types of scenarios and specify the requirements in more detail. Several of these requirements are already possible in practice or at least in theory, others are in need of further research, in particular regarding the linking of the OWL ontology to (...) data, reasoning over roles, and dynamically linking modular ontologies. (shrink)

Development of ontology development tools and ontology-enhanced software applications requires thorough understanding of ontology languages in order to implement them according to their specification. We present a formal specification of the ontologies part of the Web Services Modeling Language WSML documentation as a conceptual model in ORM2. Such an approach abstracts the semantics about ontological constructs, axioms, and properties from their implementation in arbitrary formats, thereby making the model easily understandable and reusable. This formal model in ORM2, which is understandable (...) by both logician and software developer, can be used as any other conceptual model to develop applications, thereby ensuring smooth transition from theory to implementations that are faithful to the theory. (shrink)

Representing parthood relations in ORM has received little attention, despite its added-value of the semantics at the conceptual level. We introduce a high-level taxonomy of types of meronymic and mereological relations, use it to construct a decision procedure to determine which type of part- whole role is applicable, and incrementally add mandatory and uniqueness constraints. This enables the conceptual modeller to develop models that are closer to the real-world subject domain semantics, hence improve quality of the software.

Although emerging scholarship in the social sciences suggests that religion can be a potential catalyst of cosmopolitanism and global citizenship, few attempts have been made to bring to the fore new theoretical positions and empirical analyses of how cosmopolitanism -- as a philosophical notion, a practice and identity outlook -- can also shape and inform concrete religious affiliations. Key questions concerning the significance of cosmopolitan ideas and practices - in relation to particular religious experiences and discourses -- remain to be (...) explored, both theoretically and empirically. This book takes as its starting point the emergence of cosmopolitanism -- as a major interdisciplinary field -- as a springboard for generating a productive dialogue among scholars working within a variety of intellectual disciplines and methodological traditions. The chapter contributions offer a serious attempt to critically engage both the limitations and possibilities of cosmopolitanism as an analytical and critical tool to understand a changing religious landscape in a globalizing world, namely, the so-called 'new religious diversity', religious conflict, and issues of migration, multiculturalism and transnationalism vis-à-vis the public exercise of religion. The contributors' work is situated in a range of world sites in Africa, India, North America, Latin America, and Europe. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of globalization, religion and politics, and the sociology of religion. (shrink)

This collection of original essays brings a dramatically different perspective to bear on the contemporary "crisis of journalism." Rather than seeing technological and economic change as the primary causes of current anxieties, The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered draws attention to the role played by the cultural commitments of journalism itself. Linking these professional ethics to the democratic aspirations of the broader societies in which journalists ply their craft, it examines how the new technologies are being shaped to sustain value commitments (...) rather than undermining them. Recent technological change and the economic upheaval it has produced are coded by social meanings. It is this cultural framework that actually transforms these "objective" changes into a crisis. The book argues that cultural codes not only trigger sharp anxiety about technological and economic changes, but provide pathways to control them, so that the democratic practices of independent journalism can be sustained in new forms. (shrink)

Health‐related data uses and data sharing have been in the spotlight for a while. Since the beginning of the big data era, massive data mining and its inherent possibilities have only increased the debate about what the limits are. Data governance is a relevant aspect addressed in ethics guidelines. In this context, the European project BRIDGE Health (BRidging Information and Data Generation for Evidence‐based Health policy and research) strove to achieve a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable EU health‐information system. One of (...) the aims of the project was to evaluate the requirements to construct a data‐linkage infrastructure for the secure management of health information. In a blueprint provided for this infrastructure, the topics ethics and the intimately related governance occupied a whole section, where the recent ethics guidelines by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and the World Medical Association (WMA) were referenced. We explore what has changed in the latest versions of the ethics documents adopted by CIOMS and WMA regarding the management of health data and human tissues, the appropriateness of their application in new forms of research and infrastructures as the proposed in the BRIDGE Health project, and whether society should be so concerned about this topic, in the digital era of social exchange. (shrink)

Leading scholars examine the relation between Irigaray’s early writings and her later, more political work.

A presente coletânea é resultado de cooperação de pesquisadores brasileiros e portugueses, envolvidos com a docência no ensino superior e a consequente formação continuada dos professores universitários. A frequência no ensino superior é vista como uma conquista social dos ideais democráticos modernos e teria trazido novos públicos aos bancos escolares, o que tornaria esse ensino uma realidade de maneira qualitativa distinta com a qual decisores políticos, gestores, professores e estudantes devem aprender a lidar. Essas preocupações pretenderam motivar e nortear os (...) temas abordados nesta obra. (shrink)

Genetic counselling is an important aspect of prenatal care in many developed countries. This tendency has also begun to emerge in Br.

We sought to assess formally the extent to which different control and elimination strategies for human African trypanosomiasis Trypanosoma brucei gambiense would exacerbate or alleviate experiences of societal disadvantage that traditional economic evaluation does not take into account. Justice-enhanced cost-effectiveness analysis is a normative approach under development to address social justice considerations in public health decision-making alongside other types of analyses. It aims to assess how public health interventions under analysis in comparative evaluation would be expected to influence the clustering (...) of disadvantage across three core dimensions of well-being: agency, association and respect. As a case study to test the approach, we applied it to five strategies for Gambiense HAT control and elimination, in combination with two different other evaluations: a cost-effectiveness analysis and a probability of elimination analysis. We have demonstrated how JE-CEA highlights the ethical importance of adverse social justice impacts of otherwise attractive options and how it indicates specific modifications to policy options to mitigate such impacts. JE-CEA holds promise as an approach to help decision makers and other stakeholders consider social justice more fully, explicitly and systematically in evaluating public health programs. (shrink)

Traditionally, in Spain bullfighting represents an ancient and well-respected tradition and a combined brand of sport, art and national identity. However, bullfighting has received considerable criticism from various segments of society, with the concomitant rise of the animal rights movement. The paper reports a survey of the Spanish citizens using a face-to-face survey during January 2016 with a total sample of 2522 citizens. The survey asked about degree of liking and approving; culture, art and national identity; socio-economic aspects; emotional perception (...) and animal welfare. The hypothesis proposed that the perception of bullfights may be affected by gender, age, occupation, origin and nationality of the persons surveyed. The hypothesis was confirmed. The majority of citizens surveyed do not like bullfights and great majorities do not attend or watch such events. Two extreme clusters were described: one representing favorable attitude towards bullfighting and other against bullfighting. The proportion of indifferent persons was important. Women and young people showed a more favorable attitude towards animal welfare issues associated with these events. Rural people were more accepting bullfights than urban people. Students were more anti-bullfight than those in other occupations. Additionally, technical economic factors made people favor more bullfights. The growth of claim against bullfights establishes an element of a far more multifaceted phenomenon that animal cruelty per se and support of a new paradigm called social change in countries as Spain. (shrink)

This study investigates priming in an implicit Word Stem Completion (WSC) task. A total of 305 participants performed a WSC task in two phases (study and test). The test phase included 63 unique-solution stems and 63 multiple-solution stems. After confirming the presence of priming (mean = 0.22), analysis revealed that it was stronger in the case of multiple-solution stems, indicating that the stems were not a homogeneous group of stimuli. Thus, further analyses were performed only for the data of the (...) unique-solution stems. The correlations between priming and a set of conceptual (familiarity, frequency of use, number of meanings) and non-conceptual (letters/blanks ratio and difficulty of completed) variables showed significant relationships between two conceptual variables (familiarity and frequency) and priming. Difficulty was also significantly correlated with priming. The most familiar and frequent words were those that produced a greater magnitude of priming. At the same time, the most difficult stems were those generating more priming. A regression analysis showed that the difficulty of completing a stem was the strongest predictor of priming. When difficulty was the dependent variable in the regression analysis, the significant variables in the regression were familiarity and letters-blanks ratio. Finally, a comparison was made between these results and those obtained in a previous study of WFC by Soler et al. (2009) in which the same words and procedure were employed. A comparison of results from these two sets of data suggested that the only relevant difference between the two tasks was the influence of the variable letters-blanks ratio. This perceptual variable had a significant correlation with priming only in the WFC task. These results highlight the importance of controlling the characteristics (conceptual and non-conceptual) of stimuli used in WFC and WSC tasks when exploring the nature of priming. (shrink)

Adolescence has been linked to an enhanced tolerance of uncertainty and risky behavior and is possibly connected to an increased response toward rewards. However, previous research has produced inconsistent findings. To investigate whether these findings are due to different reward probabilities used in the experimental design, we extended a monetary incentive delay task by including three different reward probabilities. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, 25 healthy adolescents and 22 adults were studied during anticipation of rewards in the VS. Differently colored (...) cue stimuli indicated either a monetary or verbal trial and symbolized different reward probabilities, to which the participants were blinded. Results demonstrated faster reaction times for lower reward probabilities in both age groups. Adolescents were slower through all conditions and had less activation on a neural level. Imaging results showed a three-way interaction between age group x condition x reward probability with differences in percent signal change between adolescents and adults for the high reward probabilities while adolescents demonstrated differences for the lowest. Therefore, previous inconsistent findings could be due to different reward probabilities, which makes examining these crucial for a better understanding of adolescent and adult behavior. (shrink)

In this article, I reviewed the passage of the Prodigal Son in the context of the Lukan perspective and the reader then, is referred to Luke 15: 11-31. This parable gives us an image of a loving and forgiving God whose mercy endures forever. This is the greatest love story which presents the depths of God’s love. Several biblical scholars disclose that this parable guides us to new hope by allowing God to love, forgive us and accept his saving love.

_Experimental situations in which we observe quantum effects that deviate from the intuitive expectations of the classical world call for an interdisciplinary discussion, and one fundamental issue to be considered is the compatibility between the description of phenomena and the assumption of an objective reality. This paper discusses the ontological interpretation of Bohmian quantum mechanics, focusing on the use of the term “trajectory” and the difficulties associated with its connection to a “real” (objective) trajectory. __My conclusion is that the intended (...) realistic interpretation of Bohmian trajectories is highly doubtful.___. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to explore and to verify the utility of the five moral foundations to differentiate between two understudied groups, namely, young offenders who use violence against their parents or dating partners, as well as to predict the extent to which these young people justify violence and perceive themselves as aggressive. Although both types of violence imply, by definition, harming someone and adopting a position of authority, we hypothesize a very different role for at least these (...) two moral foundations. Our results support this idea and show a much lower regard for the five moral foundations, including care and authority, in the child-to-parent violence group than in the dating violence group. Additionally, the authority foundation was able to increase the effectiveness of correctly classifying the participants in one group or the other by 29%. Finally, care and authority, along with fairness, served to predict justification of violence and self-perceived aggressiveness. The moral foundations approach provides preliminary evidence to better understand two specific types of youth violence and extract preventive educational and treatment strategies. (shrink)

Este artículo investiga algunos pasajes de la _República_ de Platón para comprender algunos presupuestos y consecuencias de la argumentación del filósofo sobre el estatus de las pasiones, que culmina con la incisiva y radical afirmación, en el libro X, de que “es necesario secar las emociones” (Rep. 606d). Ello se debe a que, según Platón, ellas conducen a los hombres a actuar de forma irracional y cobarde, especialmente a aquellos ciudadanos que se acostumbran a la poesía, especialmente la dramática, que (...) incita a las pasiones. Frente a la crítica del filósofo al valor del teatro y a las expresiones de dolor (como el lamento y el llanto), propongo revalorizar el papel de la emoción en la formación del ciudadano y el fortalecimiento político de un grupo, tomando un caso contemporáneo: la ceremonia fúnebre realizada por el gobierno francés con motivo de la muerte del actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, en el contexto de la crisis pandémica de SARS-CoV-2. (shrink)

Experimental situations in which we observe quantum effects that deviate from the intuitive expectations of the classical world call for an interdisciplinary discussion, and one fundamental issue to be considered is the compatibility between the description of phenomena and the assumption of an objective reality. This paper discusses the ontological interpretation of Bohmian quantum mechanics, focusing on the use of the term “trajectory” and the difficulties associated with its connection to a “real” (objective) trajectory. My conclusion is that the intended (...) realistic interpretation of Bohmian trajectories is highly questionable.Los contextos experimentales que permiten la observación de efectos cuánticos contrarios a los esperables según la intuición clásica son especialmente adecuados para una discusión multidisciplinar, en particular sobre la compatibilidad entre la descripción fenomenológica y una pretendida realidad subyacente. Este artículo discute la interpretación ontológica de la mecánica cuántica en la interpretación de Bohm, centrándose principalmente en su uso del término “trayectoria” y las dificultades inherentes a su conexión con un concepto “real” (objetivo) de la misma. La conclusión es que la pretendida interpretación realista de las trayectorias bohmianas es muy cuestionable. (shrink)