Keet, C. Maria (2022) Exploring the ontology of pandemic, Proceedings of ICBO 2022, 25-28 September 2022, Ann Arbour, MI, USA, CEUR-WS, xxx.
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Abstract
Pandemics do take place. When exactly they begin and end, and why, is harder to determine, as also demonstrated in early 2020 at the start of the Covid pandemic and the many debates in 2022 on calling it over. To determine these points, one has to know which criteria have to be satisfied and which not, respectively. This requires a clear definition of what a pandemic is, with at least its necessary and sufficient characteristics. There is no such crisp and clear definition, neither in the expert documentation nor in domain ontologies. In this paper, we assess mentions of ‘pandemic’ in domain ontologies, evaluate the argument that foundational ontologies may provide guidance, and examine the characteristics that domain experts have put forward for pandemics. The guidance from foundational ontologies is underwhelming when taken together, but tooling greatly simplified the alignment. The assessment of characteristics show that pandemic is not bearer of them all but they are of attendant entities, elucidates which ones are dependent and which essential, and it demonstrates why one may compute more than one unique start and end of a pandemic. Considering the complexities, it may be of use to develop an ontology of pandemics.
| Item Type: | Conference paper |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | Computing methodologies > Artificial intelligence > Knowledge representation and reasoning > Ontology engineering |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Nov 2023 10:03 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Nov 2023 10:03 |
| URI: | https://pubs.cs.uct.ac.za/id/eprint/1618 |
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