Operation Based Ontologies Gerhard Navratil Geoinformation TU Vienna

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Overview  Transactions  Operations and Modeling Operations  Modeling Operations Defined by Laws  Conclusions

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Transactions  Discussion by Frank at Vienna workshop  E.g. transfer of ownership  Non-zero costs  Give information value  Value of information  value of improvement of decision

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Problem with Operations  Concept  How to model operations?  How to implement them in GIS?  Operations require a time concept!

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Workshop in Maine, Nov  Mike Worboys and Kathleen Hornsby  Action-oriented approaches in geographic information science  Aim: „… to lay the foundations for a principled account of dynamic features of geographic space and of the objects, events and processes located therein.“  Topics: Ontologies of actions, classification of existing approaches, granularity and level of detail, temporal structures

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Movement as an operation  Basic aspect of persons  Basic property of objects Movable objects Immovable objects (land?)

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Definition of Operations  Objects have affordances  Affordances define algebras  Algebras contain the operations  Result: Clear concept for objects: Class – description of a set of objects (general description of affordances and properties) Instance – one specific object

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Sample Operation ‚enter parcel‘  Look into the laws   4 treaties between Austria and other countries  19 federal laws and decrees  51 other laws and decrees  15 judgments of the constitutional court  119 judgments of the administrational court

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Modeling Legal Definitions for Operations  Various approaches: Storage of the text Logic Ontologies Representation languages  Our approach are algebras

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Laws vs. Algebras  Similarities Describe a model Subdivide into small pieces Abstract definitions Axiomatic definitions  Differences Imprecise definitions Organizational contents (time, responsibility) Contradictions

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Contribution of a Paragraph  Definition of a sort (class)  Definition of an operation  Definition of an Axiom

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Definition of a Sort  § 1 GBG55: The land register consists of main book and document register Land register Main book Document register data Landregister = LR MainBook DocRegister

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Definition of an Operation  Required pieces of information: Name Sort Parameters

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Definition of an Axiom  § 7 GBG55: The land register is public. inspect p lr = if inspectionAllowed p then... else error "..." inspectionAllowed :: Person -> Bool inspectionAllowed _ = True

Gerhard Navratil TU Vienna/Dept.Geoinformation October 11th 2002COST G9 action Workshop Delft Conclusions  Algebras are useful for modeling operations  Operations defined by laws can be translated into algebras  Algebras allow consistency checks, comparisons to other countries (translations should be possible!)