[Attempto] inverse names of relations

[Ms. Meena Kharatmal]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011, Nagarjuna G wrote:

> 
> 
> On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 4:30 AM, Kaarel Kaljurand <kaljurand at gmail.com> wrote:
>       Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 18:36, Norbert E. Fuchs <fuchs at ifi.uzh.ch> wrote:
> >
> > On 1 Sep 2011, at 17:21, Nagarjuna G wrote:
> >
> >> I do not have a usecase for the complex example you gave. But it is
> >> instructive.
> >>
> >> The example I have is: Given "Milk consists of fat, carbohydrates,
> >> proteins, minerals and water", I should be able to say "Water is a
> >> part of Milk" as a valid inference. Or if a query is raised "Is water
> >> a part of Milk?" I expect yes.
> >>
> >> (In some biology books "consists of' and "composed of" are used
> >> interchangeably.)
> >>
> >> I understood that an if-then construct can be used to tell RACE that a
> >> relation is inverse.
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > I may have misunderstood your original message.
> >
> > Looking at your example I noticed that you actually do not want "part of" and "consist of" to be exactly
> inverse since now "consist of" is meant in the sense of "consist of ... among other things". In which case the
> two relations can actually be related by
> >
> >  If X is a part of Y then Y consists-of X.
> >
> > or for your example perhaps better as
> >
> >  If X consists-of Y then Y is a part of X.
> 
> Note also that in case you want to declare two words as inverses (in
> the sense of OWL inverse properties) then you have to use two if-then
> sentences. In the following I'm declaring the word "contain" as
> inverse of "part of":
> 
> If X is a part of Y then Y contains X.
> If X contains Y then Y is a part of X.
> 
> Now you can say "Milk_1 contains Fat_1" to mean "Fat_1 is a part of
> Milk_1", or vice versa.
> 
> 
> You may also find the reference (1), my colleague Meena dug up  on the topic, which suggests to use "part of" and "has
> part of" as inverses.
>
>  1. S. Schulz, A. Kumar, and T. Bittner, ?Biomedical ontologies: what part-of is and isn?t,? Journal of Biomedical
>     Informatics 39, no. 3 (2006): 350?361.


Also it is to be noted that PartOf and Contains are not inverse of
each other. While PartOf/HasPart is parthood relation,
Contains/ContainedIn is not.

PartOf involves relations between two material continuants as in cell
nucleus PartOf cell, microvilli PartOf intestinal cells.

While Contains involves relations between material continuants and
immaterial continuants as in - lung ContainedIn thoracic cavity,
bladder ContainedIn pelvic cavity.

Further to note is that ContainedIn and LocatedIn also cannot be
interchanged. As LocatedIn/Locates is a parthood relation involving
material continuant and (exact) spatial region as in - nucleoulus
LocatedIn nucleus, chromosomes LocatedIn nucleus.

I am referring to the following work of OpenBiomedical Ontology
area. The paper gives definitions of these relations.

Smith, B., Ceusters, W., Klagges, B., Kohler, J., Kumar, A., Lomax,
J., Mungall, C.,   Neuhaus, F., Rector, A., and Rosse, C. (2005):
Relations in Biomedical Ontologies. Genome
Biology. 6(5). http://genomebiology.com/2005/6/5/R46


Best.
Meena.
-- 
"I link, therefore I am"
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    Meena Kharatmal
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