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A Visual Representation of Part-Whole Relationships in BFO-Conformant Ontologies

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Recent Advances in Information Systems and Technologies (WorldCIST 2017)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 569))

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Abstract

In the graphical representation of ontologies, in particular for part_whole relationships, it is customary to use graph theory as the representational background. We claim here that the standard graph-based approach has a number of limitations, and because of that we propose a better way to represent part_whole structures for ontologies developed in accordance with the Basic Formal Ontology, one that will reduce visual pollution and ground part_whole on a more rigorous visual representation. The experiments we carried out indicate we achieved the stated benefits and that the proposed representation is useful for the development of information systems in general and in particular for biomedical systems and applications.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP, grant#2015/19367-7, for its support to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science Department, Aeronautics Institute of Technology, Pca Mal do Ar Eduardo Gomes. 50, São José dos Campos, 12228-900, Brazil

    José M Parente de Oliveira

  2. Philosophy Department, The State University of New York - University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, 14228, USA

    Barry Smith

  3. Center for Multisource Information Fusion, The State University of New York - University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, 14228, USA

    José M Parente de Oliveira

Authors
  1. José M Parente de Oliveira
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  2. Barry Smith
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to José M Parente de Oliveira .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. DEI/FCT, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Baixo Mondego, Portugal

    Álvaro Rocha

  2. Nova IMS, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ana Maria Correia

  3. College of Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

    Hojjat Adeli

  4. DSI/EEUM, Universidade do Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

    Luís Paulo Reis

  5. DIMES, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata di Rende, Italy

    Sandra Costanzo

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Parente de Oliveira, J.M., Smith, B. (2017). A Visual Representation of Part-Whole Relationships in BFO-Conformant Ontologies. In: Rocha, Á., Correia, A., Adeli, H., Reis, L., Costanzo, S. (eds) Recent Advances in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 569. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56535-4_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56535-4_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56534-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56535-4

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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