In this book, the author develops an object-centered framework with specialized support of the part-of relation based on description logics. These logics are a family of object-centered knowledge representation languages tailored for describing knowledge about concepts and is-a hierarchies of these concepts. In addition to the representation and reasoning facilities provided by description logics for is-a, representation and reasoning facilities are introduced for part-of. Finally, the feasibility and the usefulness of the approach is demonstrated by applying the framework to various areas including domain modeling, agent-oriented scenarios, document management and retrieval, and composite concept learning.

"Since its start ten years ago, the International Conference in Formal Ontology on Information Systems (FOIS) has explored the multiple perspectives on the notion of ontology that have arisen from such diverse research communities as philosophy, logic, computer science, cognitive science, linguistics, and various scientific domains. As ontologies have been applied in new and exciting domains such as the World Wide Web, bioinformatics, and geographical information systems, it has become evident that there is a need for ontologies that have been developed with solid theoretical foundations based on philosophical, linguistic and logical analysis. Similarly, there is also a need for theoretical research that is driven by the issues that have been raised by recent work in the more applied domains. FOIS is intended to be a forum in which to explore this interplay between the theoretical insights of formal ontology and their application to information systems and emerging semantic technologies. Themes emerging from this volume give a snapshot of current issues within the fields of formal ontology and ontological engineering, as well providing a glimpse of future research directions."--BOOK JACKET.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Methodologies for Intelligent Systems, ISMIS '99, held in Warsaw, Poland, in June 1999. The 66 revised full papers presented together with five invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 115 submissions. The volume is divided into topical sections on logics for AI, intelligent information retrieval, intelligent information systems, learning and knowledge discovery, computer vision, knowledge representation, and evolutionary computation.

This brilliant textbook explains in detail the principles of conceptual modeling independently from particular methods and languages and shows how to apply them in real-world projects. The author covers all aspects of the engineering process from structural modeling over behavioral modeling to meta-modeling, and completes the presentation with an extensive case study based on the osCommerce system. Written for computer science students in classes on information systems modeling as well as for professionals feeling the need to formalize their experiences or to update their knowledge, Olivé delivers here a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the modeling process. His book is complemented by lots of exercises and additional online teaching material.

Nowadays knowledge-based systems research and development essentially employs two paradigms of reasoning. There are on the one hand the logic-based approaches where logic is to be understood in a rather broad sense; usually these approaches are used in symbolic domains where numerical calculations are not the core challenge. On the other hand we find approximation oriented reasoning; methods of these kinds are mainly applied in numerical domains where approximation is part of the scientific methodology itself. However, from an abstract level all these approaches do focus on similar topics and arise on various levels such as problem modeling, inference and problem solving techniques, algorithms and mathematical methods, mathematical relations between discrete and continuous properties, and are integrated in tools and applications. In accordance with the unifying vision and research interest of Michael M. Richter and in correspondence to his scientific work, this book presents 13 revised full papers advocating the integration of logic-based and approximation-oriented approaches in knowledge processing.

Is a whole something more than the sum of its parts? Are there things composed of the same parts? If you divide an object into parts, and divide those parts into smaller parts, will this process ever come to an end? Can something lose parts or gain new ones without ceasing to be the thing it is? Does any multitude of things (including disparate things such as you, this book, and the tail of a cat) compose a whole of some sort? Questions such as these have occupied us for at least as long as philosophy has existed. They define the field that has come to be known as mereology-the study of all relations of part to whole and of part to part within a whole-and have deep and far-reaching ramifications in metaphysics as well as in logic, the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, and beyond. In Mereology, A. J. Cotnoir and Achille C. Varzi have compiled decades of advanced research into a comprehensive, up-to-date, and formally rigorous picture. The early chapters cover the more classical aspects of mereology; the rest of the book deals with variants and extensions. Whether you are an established professional philosopher, an interested student, or a newcomer, inside you will find all the tools you need to join this ever-evolving field of inquiry and theorize about all things mereological.

ARIST, published annually since 1966, is a landmark publication within the information science community. It surveys the landscape of information science and technology, providing an analytical, authoritative, and accessible overview of recent trends and significant developments. The range of topics varies considerably, reflecting the dynamism of the discipline and the diversity of theoretical and applied perspectives. While ARIST continues to cover key topics associated with "classical" information science (e.g., bibliometrics, information retrieval), editor Blaise Cronin is selectively expanding its footprint in an effort to connect information science more tightly with cognate academic and professional communities. Contents of Volume 40 (2006): SECTION I: Information and Society Chapter 1: The Micro- and Macroeconomics of Information, Sandra Braman Chapter 2: The Geographies of the Internet, Matthew Zook Chapter 3: Open Access, M. Carl Drott SECTION II: Technologies and Systems Chapter 4: TREC: An Overview, Donna K. Harman and Ellen M. Voorhees Chapter 5: Semantic Relations in Information Science, Christopher S. G. Khoo and Jin-Cheon Na Chapter 6: Intelligence and Security Informatics, Hsinchun Chen and Jennifer Xu SECTION III: Information Needs and Use Chapter 7: Information Behavior, Donald O. Case Chapter 8: Collaborative Information Seeking and Retrieval, Jonathan Foster Chapter 9: Information Failures in Health Care, Anu MacIntosh-Murray and Chun Wei Choo Chapter 10: Workplace Studies and Technological Change, Angela Cora Garcia, Mark E. Dawes, Mary Lou Kohne, Felicia Miller, and Stephan F. Groschwitz SECTION IV: Theoretical Perspectives Chapter 11: Information History, Alistair Black Chapter 12: Social Epistemology and Information Science, Don Fallis Chapter 13: Formal Concept Analysis in Information Science, Uta Priss.