Ontology engineering is mainly done by domain experts who are specialists in their domain but have, if at all, limited knowledge in logics, computer science, or analytic philosophy. The literature on formal ontologies and biomedical ontologies is neither suited nor intended to serve as an educational resource that would help domain experts to become good ontologists. Existing educational resources focus rather on ontology tools and languages than on good practice. The purpose of the GoodOD guideline is to pave the road (...) for domain experts who want (or need) to become ontology engineers. It pursues the openly pragmatic approach that ontology engineers only need to know ontology theory to the extent which supports the (measurable) outcome of their work. The GoodOD Guideline builds upon given philosophical and methodological principles as well as preexisting tools and resources. In particular (pragmatic) scientific realism, first order logics and its subset OWL-DL (description logics), set theory, an upper-level ontology with high-level categories and a canonic set of relations, constraints which limit the freedom of choice when building coordinate expressions, the ontology editor Protégé 4, a complete DL reasoner, such as HermIT, ontology design patterns, and naming conventions. -/- Given these precepts the guideline contains all the knowledge to be acquired by a user to be able to solve ontology engineering problems in a foreseeable and non-arbitrary way. The didactic concept is to convey the skills not only by theory but also by practical examples. (shrink)

BACKGROUND -/- The importance of ontologies in the biomedical domain is generally recognized. However, their quality is often too poor for large-scale use in critical applications, at least partially due to insufficient training of ontology developers. -/- OBJECTIVE -/- To show the efficacy of guideline-based ontology development training on the performance of ontology developers. The hypothesis was that students who received training on top-level ontologies and design patterns perform better than those who only received training in the basic principles of (...) formal ontology engineering. -/- METHODS -/- A curriculum was implemented based on a guideline for ontology design. A randomized controlled trial on the efficacy of this curriculum was performed with 24 students from bioinformatics and related fields. After joint training on the fundamentals of ontology development the students were randomly allocated to two groups. During the intervention, each group received training on different topics in ontology development. In the assessment phase, all students were asked to solve modeling problems on topics taught differentially in the intervention phase. Primary outcome was the similarity of the students’ ontology artefacts compared with gold standard ontologies developed by the authors before the experiment; secondary outcome was the intra-group similarity of group members’ ontologies. -/- RESULTS -/- The experiment showed no significant effect of the guideline-based training on the performance of ontology developers (a) the ontologies developed after specific training were only slightly but not significantly closer to the gold standard ontologies than the ontologies developed without prior specific training; (b) although significant differences for certain ontologies were detected, the intra-group similarity was not consistently influenced in one direction by the differential training. -/- CONCLUSION -/- Methodologically limited, this study cannot be interpreted as a general failure of a guideline-based approach to ontology development. Further research is needed to increase insight into whether specific development guidelines and practices in ontology design are effective. (shrink)

Background: In order to improve ontology quality, tool- and language-related tutorials are not sufficient. Care must be taken to provide optimized curricula for teaching the representational language in the context of a semantically rich upper level ontology. The constraints provided by rigid top and upper level models assure that the ontologies built are not only logically consistent but also adequately represent the domain of discourse and align to explicitly outlined ontological principles. Finally such a curriculum must take into account the (...) pre-existing skills and knowledge of the target audience. -/- Objective: To develop a well-structured curriculum aligned to the particular requirements of life science professionals, in order to enable them to create logically sound, domain adequate and predicable ontologies using the Web Ontology Language (OWL) in Protégè. -/- Methods: Content selection for the curriculum was based on the literature, pre-existing tutorials, and a guideline for good ontology development (i.e ontology design enhancing domain adequacy, sustainability and interoperability) that drew on the authors previous experiences with large ontology development projects. Learning objectives were formulated according to a needs assessment of the targeted learners, who were students trained in life sciences with basic knowledge and practical skills in computer science. As instructional format we choose an approach with a high amount of practical exercises. The curriculum was first implemented with 24 Students and 7 lecturers/ tutors over 5 full days. The curriculum was evaluated by gathering the participants feedback via a questionnaire. -/- Results: Curricular development produced 16 modules of approximately 2 hours each, which covered basic principles of Applied Ontology, description logic syntax and semantics, as well as best design practices outlined in ontology design patterns and variants of the BioTop upper ontology. An opinion survey based on questionnaires indicated that the participants took advantage from the teaching strategies applied, as they indicated good knowledge gain and acknowledged the relevance of the modules. The difficulty was rated slightly lower. -/- Conclusion: The development of teaching material for principled ontology design and best practices is of crucial importance in order to enhance the quality of biomedical ontologies. Here, we present a curriculum for a week long workshop, leveraging on current educational principles, focusing on interactive hands-on exercises, group interactions, and problem-oriented learning. Whereas evaluation clearly showed the success of this approach, in particular regarding student’s satisfaction, the objective measurement of traceable effects on the quality of the generated ontology, although of much higher interest, has just started. (shrink)

OBJECTIVE: (a) To measure the effect of a guideline-based training on the performance of ontology developers compared with the performance after unspecific training by a competency question based evaluation; and (b) to provide empirical evidence for the applicability of competency questions in formal ontology evaluation in general. BACKGROUND: A close connection between ontology development and ontology evaluation as quality management procedure can been attained with the use of competency questions. Competency questions are often used as a semi-formal specification of requirements (...) for an ontology under development. Hence they can also be used as evaluation instruments, in order to check how far an ontology fulfills these requirements. METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was conducted with two groups of 12 students each. The intervention consisted in a differential guideline-based training on ontology development vs. unspecific training. After a group-specific training focusing on three topics per group, performance of students was assessed with 12 exercises (2 exercises per topic), in which the students had to apply their skills. Different types of competency questions were elaborated for the analysis of the students' ontologies. We used the proportion of correct answers as a measure of ontology quality. RESULTS: On single topic level, the performance of ontology developers increased after guideline-based training for two out of the six topics: it increased from a proportion of 0.46 to 0.63 for the topic Process \& Participation and from 0.44 to 0.53 for the topic Collective Material Entity. In regression analysis, a positive correlation was shown between the performance of students on untrained topics and the performance after specific guideline-based training. Moreover, in multiple regression analysis an overall effect of specific training of 0.09 was calculated (p < 0.1). CONCLUSION: The results show an effect of a specific guideline-based training on the performance of ontology developers compared to the performance after unspecific training by an increase of about 10 \% on the rate of correct competency questions. In addition, this study has shown the general applicability of competency questions in a formal ontology evaluation scenario. However, the study also shows that the training of ontology developers and their performance evaluation is a tedious task. The resulting performance of ontology developers is more dependent on the a priori individual competencies than on the specific acquired skills after training. (shrink)

Dispositions and tendencies feature significantly in the biomedical domain and therefore in representations of knowledge of that domain. They are not only important for specific applications like an infectious disease ontology, but also as part of a general strategy for modelling knowledge about molecular interactions. But the task of representing dispositions in some formal ontological systems is fraught with several problems, which are partly due to the fact that Description Logics can only deal well with binary relations. The paper will (...) discuss some of the results of the philosophical debate about dispositions, in order to see whether the formal relations needed to represent dispositions can be broken down to binary relations. Finally, we will discuss problems arising from the possibility of the absence of realizations, of multi-track or multi-trigger dispositions and offer suggestions on how to deal with them. (shrink)

The concept of a function is central both to biology and to technology. But there is an intricate debate how functions as well as related entities like dispositions and roles are to be represented in top level ontologies and how they are to be related. We review important philosophical accounts and ontological models for functions and roles and discuss three models for the relation of functions and dispositions. We conclude that mainly because of the need to account for malfunctioning, functions (...) should not be treated as a subtype of dispositions, but as their sibling category. (shrink)

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Resumo: Pretende-se, neste trabalho, discutir o lugar que a educação ocupa no debate entre liberais e comunitaristas. Com este objetivo, o texto é dividido em três partes, a saber: na primeira parte, apontam-se as dificuldades para que se demarquem os partidários das correntes liberal e comunitarista, de um lado, destacando o liberalismo igualitário e o libertarianismo e, de outro, discutindo as principais críticas que o comunitarismo faz ao liberalismo. Na segunda parte, explora-se o lugar da educação na crítica comunitarista, definindo (...) a concepção de educação e de escola, assim como a ideia de educação para a cidadania e a nececssidade de um currículo comum. Finalmente, na última parta, aponta-se para a agenda comunitarista na educação. Palavras-chave: Liberalismo; Comunitarismo; Educação; Cidadania; Currículo Comum. The normative bases of education: the place of education in the communitarian critique of liberalism Abstract: It is intended in this work, discuss the place that education occupies in the debate between liberals and communitarians. For this purpose, the text is divided into three parts, namely: in the first part, point out the difficulties in demarcating supporters of the liberal and communitarian currents, on the one hand, highlighting egalitarian liberalism and libertarianism and, on the other, discussing the main criticisms that communitarianism makes against liberalism. In the second part, it explores the place of education in communitarian criticismo, defining the concept of education and school, as well as the idea of education for citizenship and the need for a common curriculum. Finally, in the last section, we point to the communitarian agenda in education. Keywords: Liberalism; Communitarianism; Education; Citzenship; Commom Curriculum. Las bases normativas de la educación: el lugar de la educación en la crítica comunitaria del liberalismo Resumen:En este trabajo, se pretende discutir el lugar que ocupa la educación en el debate entre liberales y comunitaristas. Con este objetivo, el texto se divide en tres partes, a saber: en la primera parte, se señalan las dificultades para demarcar a los partidarios de las corrientes liberales y comunitarias, por un lado, destacando el liberalismo igualitario y el libertarismo y, por otro, discutiendo las principales críticas que hace el comunitarismo contra el liberalismo. En la segunda parte, se explora el lugar de la educación en la crítica comunitaria, definiendo el concepto de educación y escuela, así como la idea de educación para la ciudadanía y la necesidad de un currículum común. Finalmente, en la última sección, se señala la agenda comunitaria en educación. Palabras clave: Liberalismo; Comunitarismo; Educación; Ciudadanía; Currículum Común. Data de registro: 15/04/2022 Data de aceite: 13/12/2022. (shrink)

Pretende-se, nesse texto, argumentar sobre a centralidade da justiça na teoria moral de Santo Anselmo. Para tanto, adota-se a seguinte estrutura: em primeiro lugar, falar-se-á da teoria moral de Anselmo e da centralidade da sua teoria da justiça em seu interior; em segundo lugar, dar-se-á tratamento à questão da justiça nos escritos do Monologium e do Proslogium, nos quais fala-se da justiça como atributo de Deus; num terceiro momento, abordar-se-á a questão da justiça, tal como é desenvolvida no De Veritate, (...) no qual a justiça em questão diz respeito ao ser humano e, em última instância, à Deus, suma justiça ; por fim, em quarto lugar, desenvolver-se-á uma reflexão na qual serão cotejados aspectos da justiça relacionados à dimensão prática da moralidade humana, de tal forma que a ação justa deve ser realizada em vista da própria retidão, isto é, a consciência da retidão para que seja moralmente correta e justa. (shrink)

Thomas Mann’s novel „Joseph und seine Brüder“ implies a theology working with a concept of God which is deeply influenced by Max Scheler’s lecture „Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos“. God is seen as someone whose development depends on the spiritual efforts of mankind.

Rawls estabelece, ao longo de Uma Teoria da Justiça, uma série de considerações sobre a lei e a desobediência civil e, em O Liberalismo Político, realiza ponderações acerca da legitimidade. Tendo isso em mente, o que se objetiva é estabelecer algumas considerações acerca da temática, sem, contudo, afirmar que Rawls oportuniza uma teoria do direito em seu sentido stricto. Assim, pretende-se apenas ressaltar as importantes considerações que o autor desenvolveu, tendo em conta a importância de sua teoria da justiça.

Around 1900 the relation between religion and sexuality became a favorite subject of art. Munich was the place where some of the most relevant works of art where produced at this time. In 1905 the opera “Salome” was composed by the Munichborn Richard Strauß, based on Oscar Wilde’s drama and dealing with the relation between sexual love, religion and death. In quite a different way Oscar Panizza’s “Liebeskonzil” is concerned with the same topic. Here it is not the decadent court (...) of Herodes with John the Baptist as religious prophet and Salome falling in deadly love with him but the oversexualized Vatican at the time of Alexander Borgia punished by God with the syphilis. Religion and sexuality also form the background of the Wedekind’s unfinished “Ella”, an early stage of the development of his famous “Lulu”, and they play a central role in Thomas Mann’s novel “Gladius Dei”, a byproduct of his drama “Fiorenza”. Here sexuality and art are represented by the Florentine court of Lorenzo de’ Medici whereas the friar Savonarola is the representative of the religious opposition. (shrink)

The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a staunch cosmopolitan who, after the catastrophe of World War I, campaigned for peaceful cooperation between the peoples of Europe. He considered the biography of Erasmus of Rotterdam, a definite enemy of every kind of fanaticism, to be exemplary. In his novel “Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam” (1934) he portrayed him as an antithesis to Luther, whose religious radicalism combined with nationalistic tendencies he detested. Zweig contrasted the cosmopolitan humanism of Erasmus with (...) the German Reformation of Luther. Under the impression of the political seizure of power by the National Socialists, which forced him to emigrate, Zweig's interest in the history of the Reformation in Europe grew. After “Maria Stuart” (1935) he saw in his novel “Castellio against Calvin” (1936) in Castellio an heir to Erasmus, who defended human freedom of conscience against the repressive theocratic Geneva regime. For Zweig, Calvin became a tyrant who in many ways resembled Hitler. (shrink)

" -- Africa Today "The excellence of this book lies in the wealth of perspectives that it brings to the discussion on what constitutes philosophy, rationality, ...

Authors philosophical notes on life, conduct of life from the perspective of a life.

A comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. Alan Cruse covers semantic matters, but also deals with topics that are usually considered to fall under pragmatics. A major aim is to highlight the richness and subtlety of meaning phenomena, rather than to expound any particular theory. Rich in examples and exercises, Meaning in Language provides an invaluable descriptive approach to this area of linguistics for undergraduates and postgraduates alike.

This book: * assumes no mathematical background and keeps the technicalities to a minimum * explains the most important applications of probability theory to ...

This article presents data from the Growing up with Media study related to the implementation of a risk reduction protocol that resulted in three groups of youth: low-risk youth (no flags), youth flagged because of violence involvement and not clinically referred; and flagged youth who were referred to a team clinician due to additional risk considerations. Data are from 3,979 US youth 14–15 years of age recruited through social media between October 2018-August 2019. Four in ten youth were flagged for (...) review. Findings suggest that this methodology of identifying and reviewing cases appears to be working as intended: Not only did referred youth have more flags than non-referred youth, but post-hoc analyses suggested that these youth also had higher rates of psychosocial problems (e.g., non-victimization adversity, substance use, and depressed mood). The implementation of a risk reduction protocol such as the one described in this article adds a layer of human subject protection beyond the more standard list of websites and hotlines provided to all participants in most studies. This protocol leads the way for future studies to recreate a similar process to address concerning responses collected from survey research. (shrink)

In this entry we provide a critical review of recent work on the nature and ethics of blame, including issues of moral standing.

A record of the words and teachings of Confucius, _The Analects_ is considered the most reliable expression of Confucian thought. However, the original meaning of Confucius's teachings have been filtered and interpreted by the commentaries of Confucianists of later ages, particularly the Neo-Confucianists of the Song dynasty, not altogether without distortion.In this monumental translation by Professor D. C. Lau, an attempt has been made to interpret the sayings as they stand. The corpus of the sayings is taken as an organic (...) whole and the final test of the interpretation rests on the internal consistency it exhibits. In other words, _The Analects_ is read in the light of _The Analects._This results in a truer understanding of Confucius' thought than the traditional interpretation and paves the way for a re-assessment of its importance in the history of Chinese thought and its relevance to the present day world.This volume also contains an introduction to the life and teachings of Confucius, and three appendices on the events in the life of Confucius, on his disciples, and on the composition of _The Analects._. (shrink)

The Greeks have long been regarded as innovators across a wide range of fields in literature, culture, philosophy, politics and science. However, little attention has been paid to how they thought and felt about novelty and innovation itself, and to relating this to the forces of traditionalism and conservatism which were also present across all the various societies within ancient Greece. What inspired the Greeks to embark on their unique and enduring innovations? How did they think and feel about the (...) new? This book represents the first serious attempt to address these issues, and deals with the phenomenon across all periods and areas of classical Greek history and thought. Each chapter concentrates on a different area of culture or thought, while the book as a whole argues that much of the impulse towards innovation came from the life of the polis which provided its setting. (shrink)