AKT Reference Ontology (Portal Ontology)
type: Ontology
description: The AKT Reference Ontology has been designed to support the AKT-2 demonstrator ("AKTive Portal"), and subsequent activities. The ontology, designed by the AKT-2 group and codified by Enrico Motta, extends Version 1.
creator: AKT Project
creator: Enrico Motta (OCML version)
creator: Nick Gibbins (OWL translation)
created: 2003-02-10
source: ref-onto.html
version info: 2.0
imports: support

Information-Bearing-Object
type: Class
comment: This notion comes from Cyc. It is useful to group together all information bearing entities, including video, audio and documents. An information bearing object may have an author (a generic agent) and may be owned by a legal agent. It is a tangible object
subclass of: Tangible-Thing
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-author
  all values from: Generic Agent
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: owned-by
  all values from: Legal Agent

Publication-Reference
type: Class
comment: we have decided that a publication reference is an intangible, abstract information
subclass of: Abstract-Information
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-author
  all values from: Generic Agent
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-date
  all values from: Calendar-Date
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-place-of-publication
  all values from: Location

Technology
type: Class
comment: By technology we mean engineered applications of science. I guess we are probably confining ourselves to tangible things but as I am not sure I will use thing as the direct superclass - e.g., an algorithm is an intangible thing, but it could be seen as a technology, if we give a broad interpretation of the term
subclass of: Thing
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-author
  all values from: Generic Agent

Method
type: Class
comment: Merrian-Webster has a good set of definitions for a method. They say it is 'a systematic procedure, technique, or mode of inquiry employed by or proper to a particular discipline or art; a systematic plan followed in presenting material for instruction; a way, technique, or process of or for doing something; a body of skills or techniques'. This is very much also what we mean by method.
subclass of: Intangible-Thing
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-author
  all values from: Person
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: owned-by
  all values from: Organization

Abstract-Information
type: Class
comment: Information in general, independent of an object in which it is encoded. Whatever is transferred in an information-transfer event. It is clearly an intangible thing
subclass of: Intangible-Thing

Recorded-Audio
type: Class
comment: Any kind of recorded audio, which is tangible. This also includes a audio file on a machine
subclass of: Information-Bearing-Object

Recorded-Video
type: Class
comment: Any kind of recorded video, which is tangible. This also includes a mpeg file on a machine
subclass of: Information-Bearing-Object

Publication
type: Class
comment: A publication is something which has one or more publication references. A publication can be both an article in a journal or a journal itself. The distinction between publication and publication-reference makes it possible to distinguish between multiple occurrences of the sam publication, for instance in different media
subclass of: Information-Bearing-Object
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-publication-reference
  all values from: Publication-Reference
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-publication-reference
  min cardinality: 1
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: cites-publication-reference
  all values from: Publication-Reference

Composite-Publication
type: Class
comment: A publication which contains items which cane be themselves referenced through a publication reference. Composite publications include newspapers, magazines and journals. A book which is a collection of articles is a composite publication, a monograph is not
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: contains-publication
  all values from: Publication
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: contains-publication
  min cardinality: 1

Serial-Publication
type: Class
comment: This used to be called periodical publication. However, many periodicals do not appear at fixed intervals, which is why librarians refer to them as serials. So, we now use the concept of serial publication and the has-periodicity slot has been removed
subclass of: Publication
union of: Journal
union of: Magazine
union of: Newspaper

Periodical-Publication
type: Class
comment: This comes from the ontolingua library. A periodical-publication is published regularly, such as once every week. Strictly speaking, the noun 'periodical' is used by librarians to refer to things published at intervals of greater than a day. We use the phase periodical-publication to include newspapers and other daily publications, since they share many bibliographic features. The periodicity indicates how often the publication comes out. Note that this is a duration, rather than a time interval. A time interval indicates a specific time interval on the time continuum, so we need to model periodicity as a time quantity
subclass of: Serial-Publication
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-periodicity
  all values from: Duration
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-periodicity
  cardinality: 1

Book
type: Class
subclass of: Publication
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-publication-reference
  all values from: Book-Reference
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-publication-reference
  min cardinality: 1

Edited-Book
type: Class
subclass of: Publication
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-publication-reference
  all values from: Edited-Book-Reference
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-publication-reference
  min cardinality: 1

Generic Agent
type: Class
comment: This is a generic notion, an agent can be an organization, a person an animal, a software agent, etc
subclass of: Temporal-Thing

has email address
type: DatatypeProperty

has web address
type: DatatypeProperty

Legal Agent
type: Class
comment: Some agents have legal status: definitely organizations and people, anybody else?
subclass of: Generic Agent

Organization
type: Class
comment: An organization is a type of legal agent
subclass of: Legal Agent
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: affiliated-person
  all values from: Affiliated-Person
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: organization-part-of
  all values from: Organization
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-sub-unit
  all values from: Organization-Unit
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: headed-by
  all values from: Affiliated-Person
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-size
  all values from: Organization Size
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-size
  cardinality: 1

Political Organization
type: Class
comment: An organization which has a political connotation
subclass of: Organization

Organization Size
type: Class
comment: We use EU guidelines to distinguish between different organization sizes
subclass of: Intangible-Thing
one of: very large
one of: large
one of: medium
one of: small
one of: micro

very large
type: Organization-Size
comment: An organization with over 10000 employees

large
type: Organization-Size
comment: An organization with more than 250 employees

medium
type: Organization-Size
comment: An organization with no more than 250 employees. It also has to be independent, i.e., less than 25% owned by one enterprise (or jointly by several enterprises) falling outside the definition of medium-sized enterprise. Finally, either the turnover total must be less than 40M Euros or the balance sheet total must be less than 27M Euros.

small
type: Organization-Size
comment: An organization with no more than 50 employees. It also has to be independent, i.e., less than 25% owned by one enterprise (or jointly by several enterprises) falling outside the definition of small-sized enterprise. Finally, either the turnover total must be less than 7M Euros or the balance sheet total must be less than 5M Euros.

micro
type: Organization-Size
comment: An organization with no more than 10 employees. It also has to be independent, i.e., less than 25% owned by one enterprise (or jointly by several enterprises) falling outside the definition of micro-sized enterprise.

Small or Medium-sized Organization
type: Class
comment: SME are important, so we define a class to represent them explicitly. In some case we might not know or we do not want to bother specifying excatly whether something is a small-organization or a medium-organization. Hence, we can just say 'x is a SME' without going into further detail.
subclass of: Organization
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-size
  all values from: Class
    one of: medium
    one of: small

Organization-Unit
type: Class
comment: An organization may have a number of units. Units may themselves have sub-units
subclass of: Generic Agent

Partnership
type: Class
comment: A partnership is not necessarily a company, e.g. a consultancy firm is not a company
subclass of: Profit-Organization

Location
type: Class
comment: A generic class for locations. It includes both real and fantastic places
subclass of: Tangible-Thing

Geographical-Region
type: Class
comment: 'Real' geographical regions
subclass of: Tangible-Thing
subclass of: Location

Geopolitical-Entity
type: Class
comment: A geopolitical entity is a geographical area which is associated with some sort of political structure. For instance, Russia, Italy, The-city-of-Messina, etc. A geopolitical entity can be also seen as an agent - e.g., France declared war to Spain
subclass of: Geographical-Region
subclass of: Generic Agent

Address
type: Class
comment: A generic class for addresses, whether email or postal. We see an address as abstract information and therefore it is an intangible thing
subclass of: Abstract-Information

Postal-Address
type: Class
comment: Modified to allow addresses to be given as strings, with no structure
subclass of: Address

Gender
type: Class
comment: HPKB says that genders are intangible..Uhm...
subclass of: Intangible-Thing
one of: Male-Gender
one of: Female-Gender

Affiliated-Person
type: Class
comment: A person which has an affiliation with some organization. For instance employees are affiliated to the organization they work for, students to the institution where they are studying, etc. A person can have multiple affiliations, which means that there is no constraint relating the values of slot has-affiliation-to-unit to the values of slot has-affiliation
subclass of: Person
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-affiliation
  min cardinality: 1

Educational-Employee
type: Class
subclass of: Employee
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: works-for
  min cardinality: 1
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: works-for
  all values from: Educational-Organization

has-research-interest
type: ObjectProperty
comment: People and in general even organizations and organization units may have research interests. This relation shoudl be used to specify them
domain: Class
  union of: Organization-Unit
  union of: Organization
  union of: Person
range: Research-Area

Student
type: Class
subclass of: Affiliated-Person
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: studies-at
  min cardinality: 1
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: studies-at
  all values from: Educational-Organization
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: studies-in-unit
  min cardinality: 1
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: studies-in-unit
  all values from: Educational-Organization-Unit

Event
type: Class
comment: This is a minimalist definition of class event. We start with the very basic and we will then add slots as we specialise this definition for specific classes of events. The fillers of slots has-other-agents-involved and has-main-agent should not intersect
subclass of: Temporal-Thing

has-main-agent
type: ObjectProperty
comment: The agents causing the event to happen, if they are known.
domain: Event
range: Generic Agent

has-other-agents-involved
type: ObjectProperty
comment: Other agents involved in the event
domain: Event
range: Generic Agent

has-location
type: ObjectProperty
comment: The location at which an event takes place
domain: Event
range: Location

Event-Involving-Production
type: Class
comment: When something is produced
subclass of: Event

Event-Involving-Movement
type: Class
comment: This is an event in which the main agent (plus maybe others) goes from some place to another
subclass of: Event
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: location-at-start
  max cardinality: 1
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: location-at-end
  max cardinality: 1

Generalized-Transfer
type: Class
comment: An event in which the main agent transfers something (the thing-acted-on, tangible or intangible) to one or more recipient agents. Note that we do not say anything about whether the original agent still retain the thing-acted-on. In some cases this is clearly true ('I pass my wisdom on to my daughter'), in other cases it is not (I give you my wallet).
subclass of: Event-Involving-Movement

thing-acted-on
type: ObjectProperty
comment: What is being transferred
domain: Generalized-Transfer

recipient-agents
type: ObjectProperty
comment: The agents which receive the thing-acted-on
sub property of: has-other-agents-involved
domain: Generalized-Transfer
range: Generic Agent

Information-Transfer-Event
type: Class
comment: A generalized transfer in which information is passed from main agent to one or more recipient agents. Examples include giving a tutorial.
subclass of: Generalized-Transfer

Generalised-Means-Of-Transport
type: Class
comment: This is a generic class to catch all sorts of borderline and metaphorical ways to carry things from A to B
subclass of: Thing

Transportation-Device
type: Class
comment: Something tangible designed to transport people, animals, objects from A to B. For instance a bycicle, a car, a boat, etc.
subclass of: Generalised-Means-Of-Transport
subclass of: Tangible-Thing

Sending-An-Email
type: Class
comment: a generalized transfer in which information is passed from main agent to one or more recipient agents. examples include giving a tutorial.
subclass of: Information-Transfer-Event
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: information-object-being-transferred
  all values from: Email-Message
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: information-transfer-medium-used
  has value: Email-Medium

Meeting-Taking-Place
type: Class
comment: A meeting type of event. Note that both attendee and organizer have multiple cardinality
subclass of: Social-Gathering

Awarding-Body
type: Class
comment: Legal agents can be either organizations or people. An awarding body is normally an organization, an individual, or a bunch of people
subclass of: Legal Agent

Award
type: Class
comment: An award is an intangible thing, even if the piece of paper which is often associated with an award is tangible. What about the virtual piece of paper in the virtual degree ceremony? I guess that ought to be an intangible
subclass of: Intangible-Thing

Degree
type: Class
comment: A degree is type of award
subclass of: Award

Generic-Area-Of-Interest
type: Class
comment: A generic class to specify generic areas for research or business initiatives. For instance, the area in which a project is situated
subclass of: Intangible-Thing

Project
type: Class
subclass of: Activity
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: produces-output
  all values from: Class
    union of: Event
    union of: Technology
    union of: Method
    union of: Organization
    union of: Information-Bearing-Object
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: involves-organization
  min cardinality: 1
subclass of: Restriction
  on property: has-project-member
  min cardinality: 1

has-status
type: ObjectProperty
comment: Whether the software is released, alpha or beta
domain: Implemented-System
range: Software-Status

Web-Based-System
type: Class
comment: A system which is accessible through the web
subclass of: Implemented-System

Web-Browser
type: Class
comment: A web browser is not a web-based system!
subclass of: Implemented-System

project-involves-organization-unit
type: ObjectProperty
comment: It is sufficient that somebody in unit ?u works in project ?p
domain: Project
range: Organization-Unit