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776DOLCE: A descriptive ontology for linguistic and cognitive engineering1Applied ontology 17 (1): 45-69. 2022.dolce, the first top-level ontology to be axiomatized, has remained stable for twenty years and today is broadly used in a variety of domains. dolce is inspired by cognitive and linguistic considerations and aims to model a commonsense view of reality, like the one human beings exploit in everyday life in areas as diverse as socio-technical systems, manufacturing, financial transactions and cultural heritage. dolce clearly lists the ontological choices it is based upon, relies on philosophical p…Read more
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248Integrating Computer Vision Algorithms and Ontologies for Spectator Crowd Behavior AnalysisIn Vittorio Murino, Marco Cristani, Shishir Shah & Silvio Savarese (eds.), Group and Crowd Behavior for Computer Vision, 1st Edition, . pp. 297-319. 2017.In this paper, building on these previous works, we propose to go deeper into the understanding of crowd behavior by proposing an approach which integrates ontologi- cal models of crowd behavior and dedicated computer vision algorithms, with the aim of recognizing some targeted complex events happening in the playground from the observation of the spectator crowd behavior. In order to do that, we first propose an ontology encoding available knowledge on spectator crowd behavior, built as a spe- …Read more
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139Repairing Socially Aggregated Ontologies Using Axiom WeakeningIn {PRIMA} 2017: Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems - 20th International Conference, Nice, France, October 30 - November 3, 2017, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 10621,. pp. 441-449. 2017.Ontologies represent principled, formalised descriptions of agents’ conceptualisations of a domain. For a community of agents, these descriptions may differ among agents. We propose an aggregative view of the integration of ontologies based on Judgement Aggregation (JA). Agents may vote on statements of the ontologies, and we aim at constructing a collective, integrated ontology, that reflects the individual conceptualisations as much as possible. As several results in JA show, many attractive a…Read more
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161Modelling Equivalent Definitions of ConceptsIn Modeling and Using Context - 9th International and Interdisciplinary Conference, {CONTEXT} 2015, Lanarca, Cyprus, November 2-6, 2015. Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 9405.. pp. 506-512. 2015.We introduce the notions of syntactic synonymy and referential syn- onymy due to Moschovakis. Those notions are capable of accounting for fine- grained aspects of the meaning of linguistic expressions, by formalizing the Fregean distinction between sense and denotation. We integrate Moschovakis’s theory with the theory of concepts developed in the foundational ontology DOLCE, in order to enable a formal treatment of equivalence between concepts.
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100Deliberating about voting dimensionsIn International conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, {AAMAS} '13, Saint Paul, MN, USA, May 6-10, 2013.. pp. 1265-1266. 2013.It has been claimed that deliberation is capable of overcoming so- cial choice theory impossibility results, by bringing about single- peakedness. Our aim is to better understand the relationship be- tween single-peakedness and collective justifications of preferences.
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151Needs and intentionalityIn Boyan Brodaric & Fabian Neuhaus (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference, {FOIS} 2020, Cancelled / Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, September 14-17, 2020. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 330.. pp. 125-139. 2020.A thorough understanding of what needs are is fundamental for design- ing well-behaved information systems for many social applications and in partic- ular for public services. Talking about needs pervades indeed the jargon of Public Administrations when motivating their service offering. In this paper, we propose an ontological analysis of needs, aiming at a principled disentangling of the differ- ent uses of the term. We leverage philosophical tradition on intentionality, for its rich understa…Read more
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296Towards Knowledge-driven Distillation and Explanation of Black-box Models.In Proceedings of the Workshop on Data meets Applied Ontologies in Explainable {AI} {(DAO-XAI} 2021) part of Bratislava Knowledge September {(BAKS} 2021), Bratislava, Slovakia, September 18th to 19th, 2021. CEUR 2998. 2021.We introduce and discuss a knowledge-driven distillation approach to explaining black-box models by means of two kinds of interpretable models. The first is perceptron (or threshold) connectives, which enrich knowledge representation languages such as Description Logics with linear operators that serve as a bridge between statistical learning and logical reasoning. The second is Trepan Reloaded, an ap- proach that builds post-hoc explanations of black-box classifiers in the form of decision tree…Read more
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160Concept Combination in Weighted LogicIn Proceedings of the Joint Ontology Workshops 2021 Episode {VII:} The Bolzano Summer of Knowledge co-located with the 12th International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems {(FOIS} 2021), and the 12th Internati. 2021.We present an algorithm for concept combination inspired and informed by the research in cognitive and experimental psychology. Dealing with concept combination requires, from a symbolic AI perspective, to cope with competitive needs: the need for compositionality and the need to account for typicality effects. Building on our previous work on weighted logic, the proposed algorithm can be seen as a step towards the management of both these needs. More precisely, following a proposal of Hampton […Read more
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220Perceptron Connectives in Knowledge RepresentationIn Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management - 22nd International Conference, {EKAW} 2020, Bolzano, Italy, September 16-20, 2020, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12387. pp. 183-193. 2020.We discuss the role of perceptron (or threshold) connectives in the context of Description Logic, and in particular their possible use as a bridge between statistical learning of models from data and logical reasoning over knowledge bases. We prove that such connectives can be added to the language of most forms of Description Logic without increasing the complexity of the corresponding inference problem. We show, with a practical example over the Gene Ontology, how even simple instances of perc…Read more
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145Pink panthers and toothless tigers: three problems in classificationIn Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition, Manchester, UK, September 10-11, 2019. {CEUR} Workshop Proceedings 2483.. pp. 39-53. 2019.Many aspects of how humans form and combine concepts are notoriously difficult to capture formally. In this paper, we focus on the representation of three particular such aspects, namely overexten- sion, underextension, and dominance. Inspired in part by the work of Hampton, we consider concepts as given through a prototype view, and by considering the interdependencies between the attributes that define a concept. To approach this formally, we employ a recently introduced family of operators th…Read more
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143Features and Components in Product ModelsIn Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference, {FOIS} 2016, Annecy, France, July 6-9, 2016. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 283. pp. 227-240. 2016.Product structures are represented in engineering models by depicting and linking components, features and assemblies. Their understanding requires knowledge of both design and manufacturing practices, and yet further contextual reasoning is needed to read them correctly. Since these representations are essen- tial to the engineering activities, the lack of a clear and explicit semantics of these models hampers the use of information systems for their assessment and exploita- tion. We study this…Read more
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197Design Knowledge Representation: An Ontological PerspectiveIn Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Design, {A} workshop of the {XIV} International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA 2015), Ferrara, Italy, September 22, 2015. pp. 41-54. 2015.We present a preliminary high-level formal theory, grounded on knowledge representation techniques and foundational ontologies, for the uniform and integrated representation of the different kinds of (quali- tative and quantitative) knowledge involved in the designing process. We discuss the conceptual nature of engineering design by individuating and analyzing the involved notions. These notions are then formally charac- terized by extending the DOLCE foundational ontology. Our ultimate purpose…Read more
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141Towards a Cognitive Semantics of TypeIn AI*IA 2017 Advances in Artificial Intelligence - XVIth International Conference of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, Bari, Italy, November 14-17, 2017, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 10640.. pp. 428-440. 2017.Types are a crucial concept in conceptual modelling, logic, and knowledge representation as they are an ubiquitous device to un- derstand and formalise the classification of objects. We propose a logical treatment of types based on a cognitively inspired modelling that ac- counts for the amount of information that is actually available to a cer- tain agent in the task of classification. We develop a predicative modal logic whose semantics is based on conceptual spaces that model the ac- tual inf…Read more
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161Towards a Logic of Epistemic Theory of MeasurementIn Gabor Bella & Paolo Bouquet (eds.), Modeling and Using Context - 11th International and Interdisciplinary Conference, {CONTEXT} 2019, Trento, Italy, November 20-22, 2019, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 11939.. pp. 175-188. 2019.We propose a logic to reason about data collected by a num- ber of measurement systems. The semantic of this logic is grounded on the epistemic theory of measurement that gives a central role to measure- ment devices and calibration. In this perspective, the lack of evidences (in the available data) for the truth or falsehood of a proposition requires the introduction of a third truth-value (the undetermined). Moreover, the data collected by a given source are here represented by means of a poss…Read more
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152Pluralities, Collectives, and CompositesIn Boyan Brodaric & Fabian Neuhaus (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference, {FOIS} 2020, Cancelled / Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, September 14-17, 2020. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 330.. pp. 186-200. 2020.Forests, cars and orchestras are very different ontological entities, and yet very similar in some aspects. The relationships they have with the elements they are composed of is often assumed to be reducible to standard ontological relations, like parthood and constitution, but how this could be done is still debated. This paper sheds light on the issue starting from a linguistic and philosophical analysis aimed at understanding notions like plurality, collective and composite, and propos- ing a…Read more
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252Asymmetric Hybrids: Dialogues for Computational Concept CombinationIn Fabian Neuhaus & Boyan Brodaric (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference, {FOIS} 2021, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, September 11-18, 2021. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Ios Press. pp. 81-96. 2022.When people combine concepts these are often characterised as “hybrid”, “impossible”, or “humorous”. However, when simply considering them in terms of extensional logic, the novel concepts understood as a conjunctive concept will often lack meaning having an empty extension (consider “a tooth that is a chair”, “a pet flower”, etc.). Still, people use different strategies to produce new non-empty concepts: additive or integrative combination of features, alignment of features, instantiation, etc.…Read more
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312A Core Ontology for Economic ExchangesIn Gillian Dobbie, Ulrich Frank, Gerti Kappel, Stephen W. Liddle & Heinrich C. Mayr (eds.), Conceptual Modeling - 39th International Conference, {ER} 2020, Vienna, Austria, November 3-6, 2020, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 12400. pp. 364-374. 2020.In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of well-founded conceptual models for Service Management, Accounting Information Systems and Financial Reporting. Economic ex- changes are a central notion in these areas and they occupy a prominent position in frameworks such as the Resource-Event Action (REA) ISO Standard, service core ontologies (e.g., UFO-S) as well as financial stan- dards (e.g. OMG’s Financial Industry Business Ontology - FIBO). We present a core ont…Read more
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419Types and taxonomic structures in conceptual modeling: A novel ontological theory and engineering supportData and Knowledge Engineering 1 (134): 101891. 2021.Types are fundamental for conceptual modeling and knowledge representation, being an essential construct in all major modeling languages in these fields. Despite that, from an ontological and cognitive point of view, there has been a lack of theoretical support for precisely defining a consensual view on types. As a consequence, there has been a lack of precise methodological support for users when choosing the best way to model general terms representing types that appear in a domain, and for b…Read more
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1383UFO: Unified Foundational OntologyApplied ontology 1 (17): 167-210. 2022.The Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) was developed over the last two decades by consistently putting together theories from areas such as formal ontology in philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophical logics. It comprises a number of micro-theories addressing fundamental conceptual modeling notions, including entity types and relationship types. The aim of this paper is to summarize the current state of UFO, presenting a formalization of the ontology, along with the analysis…Read more
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360Hybrid collective intentionalitySynthese 199 (1-2): 3367-3403. 2021.The theory of collective agency and intentionality is a flourishing field of research, and our understanding of these phenomena has arguably increased greatly in recent years. Extant theories, however, are still ill-equipped to explain certain aspects of collective intentionality. In this article we draw attention to two such underappreciated aspects: the failure of the intentional states of collectives to supervene on the intentional states of their members, and the role of non-human factors in…Read more
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224A Toothful of Concepts: Towards a Theory of Weighted Concept CombinationIn Mantas Simkus & Grant E. Weddell (eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd International Workshop on Description Logics, Oslo, Norway, June 18-21, 2019, . 2019.We introduce a family of operators to combine Description Logic concepts. They aim to characterise complex concepts that apply to instances that satisfy \enough" of the concept descriptions given. For instance, an individual might not have any tusks, but still be considered an elephant. To formalise the meaning of "enough", the operators take a list of weighted concepts as arguments, and a certain threshold to be met. We commence a study of the formal properties of these operators, and study som…Read more
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262On weak truthmakingIn Adrien Barton, Selja Seppälä & Daniele Porello (eds.), Proceedings of the Joint Ontology Workshops 2019, Ceur Workshop Proceedings. 2019.Informally speaking, a truthmaker is something in the world in virtue of which the sentences of a language can be made true. This fundamental philosophical notion plays a central role in applied ontology. In particular, a recent nonorthodox formulation of this notion proposed by the philosopher Josh Parsons, which we labelled weak truthamking, has been shown to be extremely useful in addressing a number of classical problems in the area of Conceptual Modeling. In this paper, after revisiti…Read more
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352Towards a Conceptualization of Sociomaterial EntanglementIn Henning Christiansen, Isidora Stojanovic & George A. Papadopoulos (eds.), Modeling and Using Context. 9th International and Interdisciplinary Conference, Context 2015, Springer. pp. 32--46. 2015.In knowledge representation, socio-technical systems can be modeled as multiagent systems in which the local knowledge of each individual agent can be seen as a context. In this paper we propose formal ontologies as a means to describe the assumptions driving the construction of contexts as local theories and to enable interoperability among them. In particular, we present two alternative conceptualizations of the notion of sociomateriality (and entanglement), which is central in the recent deba…Read more
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187Aggregating Dependency Graphs into Voting Agendas in Multi-Issue ElectionsIn Stephane Airiau, Ulle Endriss, Umberto Grandi, Daniele Porello & Joel Uckelman (eds.), {IJCAI} 2011, Proceedings of the 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, July 16-22, 2011. pp. 18--23. 2011.Many collective decision making problems have a combinatorial structure: the agents involved must decide on multiple issues and their preferences over one issue may depend on the choices adopted for some of the others. Voting is an attractive method for making collective decisions, but conducting a multi-issue election is challenging. On the one hand, requiring agents to vote by expressing their preferences over all combinations of issues is computationally infeasible; on the other, decomposing …Read more
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237We show how to embed a framework for multilateral negotiation, in which a group of agents implement a sequence of deals concerning the exchange of a number of resources, into linear logic. In this model, multisets of goods, allocations of resources, preferences of agents, and deals are all modelled as formulas of linear logic. Whether or not a proposed deal is rational, given the preferences of the agents concerned, reduces to a question of provability, as does the question of whether there exis…Read more
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228We show that linear logic can serve as an expressive framework in which to model a rich variety of combinatorial auction mechanisms. Due to its resource-sensitive nature, linear logic can easily represent bids in combinatorial auctions in which goods may be sold in multiple units, and we show how it naturally generalises several bidding languages familiar from the literature. Moreover, the winner determination problem, i.e., the problem of computing an allocation of goods to bidders producing a …Read more
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281The Ontology of Group AgencyIn Pawel Garbacz & Oliver Kutz (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference, {FOIS} 2014, September, 22-25, 2014, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, . pp. 183--196. 2014.We present an ontological analysis of the notion of group agency developed by Christian List and Philip Pettit. We focus on this notion as it allows us to neatly distinguish groups, organizations, corporations – to which we may ascribe agency – from mere aggregates of individuals. We develop a module for group agency within a foundational ontology and we apply it to organizations.
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222Logical operators for ontological modelingIn Pawel Garbacz & Oliver Kutz (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems - Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference, {FOIS} 2014, September, 22-25, 2014, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil}. pp. 23--36. 2014.We show that logic has more to offer to ontologists than standard first order and modal operators. We first describe some operators of linear logic which we believe are particularly suitable for ontological modeling, and suggest how to interpret them within an ontological framework. After showing how they can coexist with those of classical logic, we analyze three notions of artifact from the literature to conclude that these linear operators allow for reducing the ontological commitment needed …Read more
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237A cognitive view of relevant implicationIn Antonio Lieto, Cristina Battaglino, Daniele P. Radicioni & Manuela Sanguinietti (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition, Turin, Italy, September 28-29, 2015. pp. 40--53. 2015.Relevant logics provide an alternative to classical implication that is capable of accounting for the relationship between the antecedent and the consequence of a valid implication. Relevant implication is usually explained in terms of information required to assess a proposition. By doing so, relevant implication introduces a number of cognitively relevant aspects in the denition of logical operators. In this paper, we aim to take a closer look at the cognitive feature of relevant implication. …Read more
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186Understanding Predication in Conceptual SpacesIn Roberta Ferrario & Werner Kuhn (eds.), Formal Ontology in Information Systems. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference (FOIS 2016). pp. 139--152. 2016.We argue that a cognitive semantics has to take into account the possibly partial information that a cognitive agent has of the world. After discussing Gärdenfors's view of objects in conceptual spaces, we offer a number of viable treatments of partiality of information and we formalize them by means of alternative predicative logics. Our analysis shows that understanding the nature of simple predicative sentences is crucial for a cognitive semantics.
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Università degli Studi di GenovaAssociate Professor
Università degli Studi di Genova
PhD, 2006
Genoa, Italy
Areas of Specialization
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