Working Through A Practical Example of SDC/GDC

[Anthony Petosa]

I want to properly express the universals, particulars and their universal-universal & particular-universal relations in BFO 2020 based upon an employment scenario.

Universals

Person, Employee, Employment Agreement, Employment Contract Framework, Employment Contract

Particulars

John Doe, Employee John Doe, Employment Contract for John Doe

Relations

John Doe instance of Person (particular-universal)

Employee John Doe instance of Employee (particular-universal)

Employment Contract for John Doe instance of Employment Contract (particular-universal)

Employment Contract for John Down exists at Temporal Region (particular-universal)

Employee sub type of BFO Role (universal-universal)

Employment Contract Framework sub type of BFO Generically Dependent Continuant (universal-to-universal)

Employment Agreement sub type of BFO Specifically Dependent Continuant (universal-universal)

Employment Contract sub type of BFO Object (universal-universal)

Employment Agreement concretizes at some time Employment Contract Framework

Employment Agreement s-depends on Employment Contract

Employment Contract Framework g-depends on Employment Contract

Question: Am I using Employment Contract, Employment Contract Framework and Employment Agreement and their inter-relations in the proper manner?

Employment Contract is straightforward, as this is the physical and/or electronic implementation of the Employment Agreement. I assume Employment Contract Framework is a GDC, since it serves as a pattern or blueprint and can be copied and/or migrated across multiple Independent Continuants that are not Spatial Regions upon which it generically depends. I view Employment Agreement as an SDC, because it concretizes the Employment Contract Framework and specifically depends on Employment Contract to exist. In other words the Employment Agreement is tailored to an Employment Contract and concretizes the ideas/patterns/blueprint expressed by the Employment Contract Framework.

Question: While I asserted Employment Contract for John Doe exists at BFO Temporal Region, how do I inform the model that John's employment contract is valid from May 08th, 2010 to May 07th, 2030?

Question: The BFO 2020 'exists at' relation has 'Entity' as its domain value and 'Temporal Region' as its range value. Suppose I instantiate Temporal Region with the following particular: '2010-05-08_to_2030-05-07". How do I use this at an application level? That particular has a human-readable label to connote its meaning, but how would I map this Temporal Region particular to two RDF triples, with each triple's target being a datatype property restriction of type xsd:dateTime? Also, how do I establish a relation between this Temporal Region particular and John's Employment Contract particular?

Question: Do I need to introduce BFO 2020's 'first instant of' and 'last instant of' relations, create two Temporal Instant particulars and then assert the first & second Temporal Instant particulars are temporal parts of the Temporal Region particular?

Question: If I want to establish a temporal order between the two Temporal Instant particulars, do I then need to assert in BFO 2020 that the first Temporal Instant particular precedes the second one?

In summary, how do I tie this all together to reflect the following statement?

"John Doe's employment contract is valid from May 08th, 2010 thru May 07th, 2030"

[Anthony Petosa]

From the BFO documentation:

g-depends on

Elucidation: a g-dependent continuant b g-depends on an independent continuant c at t means: there inheres in c an s-dependent continuant which concretizes b at t [072-BFO]

Domain: generically dependent continuant

Range: independent continuant that is not a spatial region

EXAMPLES          The pattern shared by chess boards g-depends on any chess board; the score of a symphony g-depends on a copy of the score, ]the novel War and Peace generically depends on this copy of the novel; this pdf file generically depends on this server.

Generically Dependent Continuant

Elucidation: a generically dependent continuant is an entity that exists in virtue of the fact that there is at least one of what may be multiple copies; it is the content or the pattern that the multiple copies share [074-BFO]

EXAMPLES          The pdf file on your laptop, the pdf file that is a copy thereof on my laptop; the sequence of this protein molecule; the sequence that is a copy thereof in that protein molecule; the content that is shared by a string of dots and dashes written on a page and the transmitted Morse code signal; the content of a sentence; an engineering blueprint.

concretizes at

Elucidation: an s-dependent continuant or process b concretizes a g-dependent continuant c at t when c is the pattern or content which b shares with actual or potential copies [207-BFO]

Domain: specifically dependent continuant, process

Range: generically dependent continuant

EXAMPLES          The sum of patterns of ink on the pages of this copy of War and Peace concretizes the novel written by Tolstoy. 

s-depends on

Elucidation: b specifically depends on c means:

b and c do not share common parts

& b is of a nature such that at all times t it cannot exist at t unless c exists at t & b is not a boundary of c [012-BFO]

Domain: specifically dependent continuant

Range: independent continuant that is not a spatial region;] specifically dependent continuant

EXAMPLES          A shape s-depends on the shaped object\, hue, saturation and brightness of a colour sample s-depend on each other.

NOTE     The analogue of s-dependence for occurrents is has participant.

Specifically Dependent Continuant

Definition: b is a specifically dependent continuant =Def. b is a continuant

& there is some independent continuant c which is not a spatial region

& which is such that b s-depends on c [050-BFO]

EXAMPLES          (with one bearer) The mass of this tomato, the pink colour of a medium rare piece of grilled filet mignon at its centre, the smell of this portion of mozzarella, the disposition of this fish to decay, the role of being a doctor, the function of this heart: to pump blood\, the shape of this hole; (with multiple bearers:) John’s love for Mary, the ownership relation between John and this statue, the relation of authority between John and his subordinates.

Based upon the g-depends on and Generically Dependent Continuant elucidations, I view Employment Contract Framework as a Generically Dependent Continuant (the content/pattern) and Employment Agreement as the Specifically Dependent Continuant that concretizes it. I am a bit thrown by the Generically Dependent Continuant PDF example, and it makes me reconsider my GDC and SDC choices.

With the PDF example as a point of reference, it sounds like the Employment Agreement is the GDC and not the SDC because it is the "content/blueprint" for an Employment Contract. If so, then the Employment Contract Framework is the SDC (Realizable Entity) that s-depends on an Employment Contract (IC: Object) and is correlated with a Hiring Process (Process) initially, an Employment Process (Process) during the course of employment, a Termination Process (Process) when fired/laid off/retired, and possibly other processes.  Employment Contract Framework concretizes Employment Agreement because it is the basis from which to implement an Employment Agreement.

Frankly, this may not be the best example. Whether an Employment Agreement or an Employment Contract Framework is the SDC in this scenario, then how does either "inhere in" an Employment Contract? Also, how do either standing as an SDC concretize a GDC?

Maybe one can justify Employment Contract Framework (ECF) to be an SDC when considering the framework is the "blueprint" that an Employment Agreement concretizes in its application of ECF-conformant rules. An ECF is then copied multiple times across several Employment Contract instances. The BFO documentation states: "Generically dependent continuants, in contrast, can in a sense migrate, namely through a process of exact copying which allows, for example, the very same information artifact to be saved to multiple storage devices." In this case, I take this to mean that a specific Employment Contract can be copied and distributed at will, as in the case whereby different people within an organization who are responsible for a hiring decision are each given a copy of the Employment Contract. In some cases, the Employment Contract may be physically photocopied; in other cases, it may be migrated across computer systems via a file sharing network that holds a PDF rendition of the Employment Contract.

In summary, given this approach, Employment Contract Framework is a GDC, Employment Agreement is an SDC and Employment Contract is the IC that is not a Spatial Region.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter. Thank you.

[Anthony Petosa]

Revisiting this post after roughly one and one-half months. Any thoughts?