Thank you David. That is pretty exactly much the detailed model that we
have developed in our own ontologies (which are not primarily about Place, but
which take Time and Place as the absolute primitives) so it is comforting to see
it mirrored here. We normally use the word “Localizable“ rather than
”Geographic” or “Physical” to distinguish from “Virtual”.
The complex Party/Address relations are of increasing value now that people
have so many different contacts. One common feature is that an Address will
often be associated with the relationship between two Parties (“this is the
email I use when working for this company, and this is the one I use as
secretary of my sports club”).
Godfrey
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Universal Basic Semantic
Structures
In my model of the world (dare I say "upper level ontology"),
Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing the World, I have put a lot of
thought into the distinctions you describe here.
In my model,
Geographic Location, is an place on Earth (OK, I am a geocentric
personality, but the model can be extended skyward if necessary). The
sub-types are Geographic Area, Geographic Point, Geographic Line,
and Geographic Solid. (I only encountered the latter two late in my
career, when I worked for a telephone company and an oil
company.)
Geographic Area, then, is defined as any bounded
2-dimensional place. (Since we're talking about the Earth, we have to recognize
that it's really a spherically 2-dimensional place, but that's in the advanced
class...)
Geographic Area has four sub-types:
1.
Geopolitical Area is a Geographic Area whose boundaries are
defined by law or treaty. Thus you have the Geographic Areas that
are "California", "Los Angeles County", and the like. Defining sub-types
for Geopolitical Area depends on where you are, but I've come up with at
least these:
a. City
b.
Country
c. Principle Country Subdivision (which is a
really ugly name for "State", or "Province" or (for our UK buddies)
"County") In most real models it turns out to be something like State
or Province.
d. Other Geopolitical Area (subject to
negotiation).
2. Administrative Area is a Geographic
Area whose boundaries are defined, typically, by an organization, such as a
corporation, but also may be by a government. Examples of this include
"South-central sales area" (defined by a company), "United States Pacific
Command (USPACOM)"(defined by the US Department of Defense), and more common, a
"Postal Area" (defined by a national postal authority).
3.
Natural Area is a Geographic Area whose boundaries are defined by
natural phenomena, such as lakes or continents.
4. Other Surveyed
Area is any Geographic Area (other than 1-3, above) that is measured
and whose boundaries are recorded. This includes the lot my house is on,
the area that is the location of the World Trade Center in New York, and so
forth.
Geographic Point is just that: a Geographic
Location that is a single point. Usually it's attributes are "longitude",
"latitude", and "elevation", but with different systems of geographic reckoning,
they could be something else.
Note the this model requires a
Geographic Location Relationship, which is the recursive entity type that
links one Geographic Location to another. Sub-types of this include
Geographic Definition (linking points to areas, lines and solids),
Geographic Structure (that puts "Boston" inside "Massachusetts"),
Geographic Overlap (one of which puts the "Navaho Indian Reservation" in
"Arizona", and another of which puts the "Navaho Indian Reservation" in New
Mexico. And of course there's Other Geographic Location
Relationship, just in case.
All of this is a pretty sophisticated way
to represent just places. The Government that has jurisdiction over
a Geopolitical Area is represented by an Organization, linked to
the Geopolitical Area via a link class that I have cleverly called
Jurisdiction.
Note also that this only covers the place
itself. A "place with a purpose" is variously called a Site, a
Facility, or an Address. This is where one or more
Parties (Persons or Organizations) are located to perform
one or more Activities, which consume, use, or produce one or more
Physical Assets.
Note that Address (for example) has two
sub-types: Physical Address (which has some fairly complex
relationships with Geographic Location), and Virtual Address
(which nicely covers Telephone Address, E-mail Address, IP
Address, and so forth.)
A Party may be located in
one or more Addresses (Physical or Virtual), just as an
Address may be the location of one or more Parties.
Note that a physical building is located in one (or more?)
Site (again, for example), but it is not the same as the
Site. It is a Physical Asset.
Among the
simplest applications we build simply lists names and addresses. That's an
output. To actually understand what goes inside that "simple" application
requires way more sophistication than most people appreciate. I've spent a
fair amount of my career working on this model.
If you've actually read
this far, you are a good candidate for buying my
book.
Regards
Dave Hay
At 08:52 AM 9/26/2012, you
wrote:
On 9/26/2012 8:53 AM, Andries van
Renssen wrote:
> The reason why the _expression_ 'I dig a hole in the
school district'
> sounds odd is: because that _expression_ is a short-cut
for 'I dig
> a hole in the land that has a role as school
district'.
I agree with that point. The notion of role is
essential for
distinguishing every subdivision on planet earth. There
is
always a reason or a purpose for the choice. That is true
for
everything from countries and continents to things like
farms,
parking lots, and playgrounds.
> But the piece of land
that is defined by that boundary is
> nevertheless a physical object,
and it has a mass, although
> its value is unknown and not of
interest.
Space is physical, but it doesn't have a mass. An area
is
a two-dimensional region. The political subdivisions
only
specify coordinates that determine the area at the surface,
and
they are silent about depth or height.
By fiat, the governments of
countries lay claim to the mineral
rights beneath their areas. In
principle, they could claim rights
down to the center of the earth.
But in practice, the technology
can only mine a few km. beneath the
surface.
When air travel became possible, national governments laid
claim
to the air space above them, but smaller governments did not.
But
nobody laid claim to the regions above the atmosphere.
Those are more
distinctions by fiat.
In summary, I recommend that any ontology for any
subdivision
of the earth should specify the surface area S and the
intended
role R for that area.
Then anything else that may be
associated with the pair (S,R),
such as the land, air, water, people,
buildings, governments,
should be specified as the X associated with the
area S as
considered in the role
R.
John
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