Ontology, Metadata, and Semiotics

Abstract

Abstract. The Internet is a giant semiotic system. It is a massive collection of Peirce's three kinds of signs: icons, which show the form of something; indices, which point to something; and symbols, which represent something according to some convention. But current proposals for ontologies and metadata have overlooked some of the most important features of signs. A sign has three aspects: it is (1) an entity that represents (2) another entity to (3) an agent. By looking only at the signs themselves, some metadata proposals have lost sight of the entities they represent and the agents -human, animal, or robot -which interpret them. With its three branches of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, semiotics provides guidelines for organizing and using signs to represent something to someone for some purpose. Besides representation, semiotics also supports methods for translating patterns of signs intended for one purpose to other patterns intended for different but related purposes. This article shows how the fundamental semiotic primitives are represented in semantically equivalent notations for logic, including controlled natural languages and various computer languages.

Semantic web and the concept of global geo-ontology

“…Z izdelavo inducirane ravni ontologije prostora so povezani deli splošne ontologije predstavitve znanja, ki ga je razvil Sowa (2000). Tri izbrane kategorije so formalno zapisane v obliki trditev.…”

“…V ontologiji znanja (Sowa, 2000) trditve povezujejo namen z aktivnostmi in povzročitelji, agenti. Trditve za namen in aktivnosti lahko vključujejo parametre, kot so časovno zaporedje, naključnost in uspeh ali neuspeh.…”

“…Posamezna kategorija (objekt, shema) je konjunkcija enostavnejših monadičnih predikatov (Sowa, 2000), kar zapišemo kot trditvi: Geodetski vestnik 57/3 (2013) IZ ZNANOSTI IN STROKE…”

The NamesforLife Semantic Index of Phenotypic and Genotypic Data

“…Their approach, which loosely reflects the semiotic triangle of Ogden and Richards [3] with modifications from Sowa [4], provided a means of modeling the complex relationships that exist among names and the concepts and objects to which names apply ( Figure 1). When coupled with Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) [5], this provided a means by which names in digital content (e.g., journal articles, technical reports, web pages and databases) could be made actionable and resolve to an expertly curated record for the name, including its history of changes.…”

Concept of service provisioning and realization

“…The latter allows the developer to browse and query the ontology at runtime so that configurations may be queried or checked to avoid inconsistent system configurations during development and at runtime Semantic mediation t between object and symbol has been with us for quite some time; in Greek philosophy, semantic ontology was developed in semiotics to include all of linguistics as a special case. Aristotle distinguished objects, the words that refer to them, and the corresponding experiences in the conceptual experience (Sowa, 2000). The triangle of integration ontology consists of object, symbol and concept.…”