Ontolog invited Speaker Presentation - Professor Barry Smith - Thu 2005-10-13    (FN1)

Conference Call Details    (FN2)

Attendees    (FNJ)

Agenda & Proceedings    (FNR)

[a picture of Professor Barry Smith] http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/BarrySmith_20051013/BarrySmith_20051013.png    (FNT)

Abstract (by Barry Smith):    (FNU)

Attempts to develop ontologies of documents have been largely confined thus far either to e-documents or to printed documents such as newspapers or works of literature. Here we shall focus on the vast family of what we might call time-sensitive documents, for example:    (FNV)

o identity documents (a passport with exit and entry stamps)    (FNX)

o clinical documents (an endocrinology progress note)    (FNY)

o business documents (a bill of shipment with signatures of sender, shipper, and recipient).    (FP5)

We can think of the ontology of paper documents of these and related sorts as a generalization of the ontology of speech acts (statements, requests, orders, questions ...). The advantages of paper over speech include:    (FNZ)

1. paper documents are continuants, which means that they can acquire new properties over time; they can be filled in, approved, copied, stamped, signed, counter-signed, revised, annulled, entered in a registry, archived;    (FO0)

2. paper documents thereby create traceable liability, and thus accountability (they leave an audit trial);    (FO1)

3. paper documents can be attached together, creating new document-complexes whose internal structure mirrors underlying relations (for example of debtor to creditor) among the human beings represented by and involved in creating them.    (FO2)

I shall sketch an ontology of time-sensitive documents, focusing especially on the ways in which paper documents are used for purposes of identification in commercial and security domains, and concluding with a consideration of the feature of redundancy in documentation, a feature which proves to be indispensable when documents are used in establishing and verifying identity.    (FO3)

Barry Smith is Director of the National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR), and Julian Park Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, NY, USA. He is also the Director of the Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science at the Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.    (FOB)

Professor Smith has authored some 400 scientific publications, including 15 authored or edited books. He is also editor of The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry. His research has been funded by the US, Swiss and Austrian National Science Foundations, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the European Union. In 2002 he received, in recognition of his scientific achievements, the 2.2 Million Euro Wolfgang Paul Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.    (FOC)

Professor Smith’s current research focus is ontology and its applications in biomedicine and biomedical informatics, including a variety of projects relating to biomedical terminologies and electronic health records. He is also collaborating with Hernando de Soto, Director of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima, Peru, on the ontology of property rights and social development.    (FOD)

Session Recording of the BarrySmith Talk    (FOS)

 (Thanks to BobSmith and PeterYim for their help with getting the session recorded.  -ppy)    (FOT)