The result of more than 15 years of collective research, Multimedia Ontology: Representation and Applications provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the nature of media data and the principles involved in its interpretation. The book presents a unified approach to recent advances in multimedia and explains how a multimedia ontology can

Based on author's thesis from the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems.

As the (in)famous definition states: "An ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualization". However, an ontology is also a philosophical theory of existence, a knowledge management resource, a database schema, or a type of knowledge representation artefact on the semantic web. Over the years the term 'ontology' has been used in so many different ways that one can no longer be sure what is meant by it at any given occasion. This book clarifies the role ontologies play in knowledge representation; it discusses the distinctions with their use in philosophy, gives insight in the features, rationale and limitations of the OWL 2 web ontology language, and provides a critical review of methodologies and design principles advocated to improve the quality of ontologies. It covers both theory and practice of knowledge acquisition, representation and ontologies; it emphasises human understanding as knowledge structuring principle, and demonstrates this approach in the development of a core ontology of basic legal concepts (LKIF Core) and in the exploration of expressive ontology design patterns for the representation of social reality, change and causation, actions and transactions. In doing so it contributes to a better understanding of the representation of ontologies; or rather, what it means to do ontology representation.

How human musical experience emerges from the audition of organized tones is a riddle of long standing. In The Musical Representation, Charles Nussbaum offers a philosophical naturalist's solution. Nussbaum founds his naturalistic theory of musical representation on the collusion between the physics of sound and the organization of the human mind-brain. He argues that important varieties of experience afforded by Western tonal art music since 1650 arise through the feeling of tone, the sense of movement in musical space, cognition, emotional arousal, and the engagement, by way of specific emotional responses, of deeply rooted human ideals. Construing the art music of the modern West as representational, as a symbolic system that carries extramusical content, Nussbaum attempts to make normative principles of musical representation explicit and bring them into reflective equilibrium with the intuitions of competent listeners. Nussbaum identifies three modes of musical representation, describes the basis of extramusical meaning, and analyzes musical works as created historical entities (performances of which are tokens or replicas). In addition, he explains how music gives rise to emotions and evokes states of mind that are religious in character. Nussbaum's argument proceeds from biology, psychology, and philosophy to music--and occasionally from music back to biology, psychology, and philosophy. The human mind-brain, writes Nussbaum, is a living record of its evolutionary history; relatively recent cognitive acquisitions derive from older representational functions of which we are hardly aware. Consideration of musical art can help bring to light the more ancient cognitive functions that underlie modern human cognition. The biology, psychology, and philosophy of musical representation, he argues, have something to tell us about what we are, based on what we have been.

There is broad agreement in the medieval tradition that we conceive things in the world owing to the transmission of intelligible content through various media that culminates in the concept by which something in the world is cognitively present for us. Yet how the intelligible content is transmitted along with the nature of the ultimate object of cognition provoked ceaseless debate. The first three essays in Universal Representation, and the Ontology of Individuation consider these issues as they play out in the metaphysics and natural philosophy of Avicenna, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Ockham and others. The last three essays turn to the metaphysical problem of the nature of the principle of individuation. Moderate realists believe in the existence of immanent general natures such as humanity and equinity, whereby individuals are members of diverse natural kinds. Accordingly, moderate realists such as Aquinas, Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus need to investigate the nature of the individuating principle by which members of one and the same natural kind differ from one another. Nominalists, for their part, need not concern themselves with any principle of individuation as, for them, all reality is individual, there being no immanent universals; but this release comes at the cost of a new set of epistemological problems.

Recording knowledge in a common framework that would make it possible to seamlessly share global knowledge remains an important challenge for researchers. This brief examines several ideas about the representation of knowledge addressing this challenge. A widespread general agreement is followed that states uniform knowledge representation should be achievable by using ontologies populated with concepts. A separate chapter is dedicated to each of the three introduced topics, following a uniform outline: definition, organization, and use. This brief is intended for those who want to get to know the field of knowledge representation quickly, or would like to be up to date with current developments in the field. It is also useful for those dealing with implementation as examples of numerous operational systems are also given.

Intends to clarify the role ontologies play in knowledge representation. This book discusses the distinctions with their use in philosophy, gives insight in the features, rationale and limitations of the OWL 2 web ontology language, and provides a review of methodologies and design principles advocated to improve the quality of ontologies.