Ontopic ontology

IRI:
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl
Current version:
1.5
Imported Ontologies:
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/lmm/LMM_L1.owl (visualise it with LODE)
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/lmm/LMM_L2.owl (visualise it with LODE)
Other visualisation:
Ontology source

Abstract

An ontology of topics as used in thesauri, subject directories, etc. Topic is classified as a subclass of Collection, since its extensional semantics can be intended as a set of social objects (e.g. texts, concepts, other collections, relational meanings, etc.). Its intensional semantics is intended as an area of knowledge (or culture). The ontology is partly based on Chris Welty's formal ontology of subjects (DKE, 1999). Subtopic, near, and far relations are pretty similar to the ones defined there. The main differences are: - topics are intended here as collections of social objects, not as regions; there is anyway a morphism to the mereo-topological notion of Welty's, since for each topic as a collection we can define a topic space (a subclass of dul:Region) that corresponds to Welty's topics; - subjects in Welty's ontology, which are points in a topic region, are intended here in two ways: (1) as a dul:SocialObject that hasTopic a Topic. A dul:SocialObject in this case contains references to any entity that (in Welty's terms) 'is about' a topic (2) as a Subject, which is characterized here as a subclass of Topic, which isTopicOf exactly 1 dul:SocialObject For example, in Welty's theory, given a football event, there can be a subject for that event that is a point in the space of a topic, e.g. 'football'. In this ontology, this is represented as a dul:Event (the actual football event) that dul:isReferenceOf some dul:InformationObject (e.g. a report or article about the football event); such information object hasTopic a Topic (e.g. football). Therefore, this solution has specific counterparts to Welty's theory, although the intuition is very different: Welty's topics correspond here to Topic(s), Welty's subjects correspond here to parts of Topic(s), and Welty's individual entities in a domain ontology correspond here to any Entity that dul:isReferenceOf a dul:InformationObject that dul:expresses a dul:SocialObject that hasTopic a Topic. On the other hand, a geometrical conception of topics, for example the one assumed by LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis), might take advantage from the addition of topic spaces into the ontology, because one could use dimensional space operators, as well as take input and produce outputs into an ontology by reasoning over topic spaces. For this reason, in this version of the ontopic ontology, we also provide the classes TopicSpace and SubjectSpace, and link them to Topic(s) through the relation dul:isRegionFor; the advantage is that we have a dual encoding of topics, which get either a commonsensical semantics as collections of documents, notions, or any other dul:SocialObject, or a mereotopological semantics as dul:Region(s). The second semantics can be used jointly with LSA geometrical semantics.

Table of Content

  1. Classes
  2. Object Properties
  3. Namespace Declarations

Classes

amountc back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/DUL.owl#Amount

is disjoint with
Subject spacec, Topic spacec

physical attributec back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/DUL.owl#PhysicalAttribute

is disjoint with
Subject spacec, Topic spacec

Subjectc back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#Subject

Specific Topic(s) for e.g. a conversation, an article, a document, etc. E.g. wikipedia article names can be considered Subject(s).
has super-classes
Topicc
is topic ofop exactly 1

Subject directoryc back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#SubjectDirectory

A collection of tags or metadata that have no formal semantics, and are typically used sparsely to annotate texts, images, bookmarks, etc.
has super-classes
k o sc
has componentop only Topicc

Subject spacec back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#SubjectSpace

Any atomic Region in a TopicSpace that is used to localize a dul:SocialObject that hasTopic a Topic that dul:hasRegion that TopicSpace. In Welty's formal ontology of subjects, it is assumed as a point. The reason why we do not assume subjects as points is the relativity of atomicity: although the intuition goes to atomicity, one cannot exclude that subjects can have other subjects as parts; for example, consider the subject of an article on a football match: we might conceive a subject of a paragraph within that article that is about a penalty occurred during the football match.
has super-classes
regionc
is region forop some social objectc
is part ofop some Topic spacec
is disjoint with
amountc, physical attributec, time intervalc

time intervalc back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/DUL.owl#TimeInterval

is disjoint with
Subject spacec, Topic spacec

Topicc back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#Topic

A topic, or subject, argument, domain, theme, subject area, etc. Topics have a controversial intuition across common sense, document management systems, knowledge organization systems, etc. Here we conceptualise a semiotic notion of iol:Topic as 'a (usually potential) dul:Collection of dul:SocialObject(s). For example, 'music' is a topic constituted by the set of social objects that are associated with music-related entities. Such social objects can be information objects (texts, documents, words, images) about music-related entities, concepts classifying music-related entities, descriptions of musical theories and systems, etc. The relation between social objects and topics is called here 'hasTopic', and is a rdfs:subPropertyOf dul:isMemberOf Specific topics for e.g. a conversation or an article (therefore, closer to the notion of 'title' or 'entry') are called Subject(s). There is an interesting duality of topics: they are commonly interpreted as areas of shared knowledge within a Community (therefore as collections of social objects). On the other hand, existing directories and thesauri use 'topic' (or 'subject') more restrictively, as a relation between a document and a concept. There is a sense of 'meaning' that can be reduced to the one given here to Topic (cf. the comment at the property dul:expresses), but in general there seems to be enough room to distinguish carefully between concepts and topics. For example, thesauri do not usually distinguish when their 'concepts' (cf. skos:Concept) are actually intended as concepts (in the sense of dul:Concept) and when they are intended as topics. The distinction is clear when you compare these two sample sentences: 'the football topic is part of the sport topic' vs. 'the concept of football is part of the concept of sport'. While the first is perfectly acceptable, the second is counterintuitive and even possibly wrong. This effect is due to the fact that concepts are 'intensional' notions and are not intended as areas of knowledge, document spaces, etc., which are 'extensional' notions. Accordingly to these basic observations, in this ontology dul:Concept and Topic result to be disjoint, and an appropriate representation should be in place in order to model thesauri. E.g. skos:Concept should be mapped to the union of dul:Concept and Topic.
is equivalent to
is topic ofop min 1
has super-classes
collectionc
is topic ofop only social objectc
is expressed byop some termc
has schemaop some Subject directoryc
has subtopicop only Topicc
overlapsop only Topicc
is sub topic ofop only Topicc
has sub-classes
Subjectc, Topic signaturec
is in domain of
far topic fromop, has core conceptop, has subtopicop, is sub topic ofop, is topic included inop, near topic toop, overlapping topicop
is in range of
far topic fromop, has subtopicop, includes topicop, is core concept forop, is sub topic ofop, near topic toop, overlapping topicop

Topic assignmentc back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#TopicAssignment

A topic assignment is a iol:LinguisticAct in which an dul:Agent assigns a Topic to a document, or in general to any dul:SocialObject. What is the semiotic act involved in such an assignment? Differently from tagging, which 'selects' one of the references of a document, a topic actually points to an 'area of knowledge', which can be represented as a dul:Collection of dul:SocialObject(s) (e.g. of documents, concepts, meanings, etc.). A Topic is necessarily expressed by a iol:LinguisticObject. Topics have a typical topology, by which they can be distant, close, overlapping, etc., and a mereology, by which they can be part of others. This also means that 'areas of knowledge' can be part of others, can overlap, etc., so originating clusters of areas and terms that denote them. The subcollection of terms populating a Topic is called here TopicSignature
has super-classes
linguistic actc
includes objectop some Subject directoryc
includes topicop some Topicc
includes topicop only Topicc
includes agentop some agentc
is setting forop some social objectc
is in domain of
includes topicop
is in range of
is topic included inop

Topic signaturec back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#TopicSignature

The collection of lmm1:Expression(s) that are in a Topic; for example, the topic signatures from sensecorpus, the entries from Roget's, etc.
has super-classes
Topicc
is topic ofop some expressionc
is part ofop some Topicc
is topic ofop only expressionc
is in domain of
has topic signatureop
is in range of
is topic signature ofop

Topic spacec back to ToC or Class ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#TopicSpace

Any Region in a dimensional space that is used to localize a Topic. Its atomic parts are called Subject(s). Mereotopological relations: dul:hasPart, dul:overlaps, can be simply reused within and between TopicSpace(s). This class is mostly similar to the Topic class in Welty's formal ontology of subjects.
has super-classes
regionc
is region forop some Topicc
is disjoint with
amountc, physical attributec, time intervalc

Object Properties

far topic fromop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#farTopicFrom

The opposite to vicinity relation between two topics, e.g. 'star system' (as a Topic) is farTopicFrom 'geology' (as a Topic). Distance is typically established with reference to a threshold on the number of dul:SocialObject(s) that are common to the two topics. Alternatively, it can be established with reference to the a geometrical semantics applied to the TopicSpace(s) that are regions for the Topic(s)

has characteristics: symmetric

has super-properties
far fromop
related meaningop
has domain
Topicc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
far topic fromop, far topic fromop

has core conceptop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#hasCoreConcept

has super-properties
is characterized byop
related meaningop
has domain
Topicc
has range
conceptc
is inverse of
is core concept forop

has subtopicop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#hasSubTopic

The relation between two instances of a Topic, in terms of their cultural coverage. For example, Sport hasSubTopic Football. It can be used widely to talk about document annotations, subject directories, etc. The counterpart of this relation for TopicSpace(s) is simply dul:hasPart

has characteristics: transitive

has super-properties
has partop
related meaningop
has domain
Topicc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
is sub topic ofop

has topicop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#hasTopic

The relation between ay Entity - but usually any dul:SocialObject (usually a document) - and a Topic (subject, argument, domain, theme, subject area, etc.). It can be used widely to talk about document annotations, subject directories, etc. The range is here relaxed to any SocialObject, in order to allow alignment of deviant uses of topic or subject relations for 'concepts' (e.g. in thesauri), and other things that are mixed up with the notion of Topic. This move makes the hasTopic relation very general, and introduces a particular semiotic relation, different from dul:expresses, lmm1:denotes, and lmm1:isInterpretationOf: this is a relation between any two social objects, in which the first is (or is related to) some lmm1:Meaning that dul:isMemberOf a dul:Collection (a Topic). The second social object can even be another member of that Topic. Hence, in the general case, we could expect a relation between two social objects that are associated because they are members of a common Topic. For example, consider the following cases: (1) A biography of Brigitte Bardot (dul:InformationObject) ontopic:hasTopic 'star system' (Topic) (2) The concept of 'starlet' (dul:Concept) hasTopic 'cinema' (Topic) (3) A biography of Claude Chabrol (dul:InformationObject) ontopic:hasTopic 'Nouvelle Vague' (Topic)
has super-properties
has interpretationop
has sub-properties
is topic signature ofop
has domain
entityc
has range
social objectc
is inverse of
is topic ofop

has topic signatureop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#hasTopicSignature

has super-properties
is topic ofop
is interpretant forop
has domain
Topic signaturec
has range
information entityc
is inverse of
is topic signature ofop

includes topicop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#includesTopic

A relation between topic assignments and topics.
has super-properties
includes objectop
has domain
Topic assignmentc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
is topic included inop

is core concept forop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#isCoreConceptFor

A Concept is a core concept for a Topic when it classifies a set of entities that are references of some relevant information objects that have that Topic. For example, Saxophone (as a Concept) isCoreConceptFor Saxophones (as a Topic).
has super-properties
characterizesop
related meaningop
has domain
conceptc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
has core conceptop

is sub topic ofop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#isSubTopicOf

The relation between two Topic(s), in terms of their cultural coverage. For example, Football isSubTopicOf Sport. It can be used widely to talk about document annotations, subject directories, etc. The counterpart of this relation for TopicSpace(s) is simply dul:isPartOf

has characteristics: transitive

has super-properties
is part ofop
related meaningop
has domain
Topicc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
has subtopicop

is topic included inop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#isTopicIncludedIn

has super-properties
is object included inop
has domain
Topicc
has range
Topic assignmentc
is inverse of
includes topicop

is topic ofop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#isTopicOf

The relation between any Entity, and a Topic (subject, argument, domain, theme, subject area, etc.). It can be used widely to talk about document annotations, subject directories, etc. The range is here relaxed to any SocialObject, in order to allow alignment of deviant uses of topic or subject relations for 'concepts' (e.g. in thesauri), and other things that are mixed up with the notion of Topic.
has super-properties
is interpretation ofop
has sub-properties
has topic signatureop
has domain
entityc
has range
social objectc
is inverse of
has topicop

is topic signature ofop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#isTopicSignatureOf

has super-properties
has topicop
has interpretantop
has domain
information entityc
has range
Topic signaturec
is inverse of
has topic signatureop

near topic toop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#nearTopicTo

The vicinity relation between two topics, e.g. 'star system' (as a Topic) is nearTopicTo 'cinema' (as a Topic). Vicinity is typically established with reference to a threshold on the number of dul:SocialObject(s) that are common to the two Topic(s), or based on a geometrical semantics applied to the TopicSpace(s) that are regions for the two Topic(s).

has characteristics: symmetric

has super-properties
near toop
related meaningop
has domain
Topicc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
near topic toop, near topic toop

overlapping topicop back to ToC or Object Property ToC

IRI: http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#overlappingTopic

has characteristics: symmetric

has super-properties
overlapsop
has domain
Topicc
has range
Topicc
is inverse of
overlapping topicop, overlapping topicop, related meaningop

Namespace Declarations back to ToC

default namespace
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/ontopic.owl#
dul
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/
dul-owl
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/DUL.owl#
iolite-owl
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/IOLite.owl#
lmm
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/lmm/
lmm-l1-owl
http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/lmm/LMM_L1.owl#
owl
http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#
rdf
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
rdfs
http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#
xsd
http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#

This HTML document was obtained by processing the OWL ontology source code through LODE, Live OWL Documentation Environment, developed by Silvio Peroni.