Information Artifact¶
Local identifier:
xwkont:concept:information-artifactSlug:information-artifactEditorial status:reviewedCreated:2026-07-01Modified:2026-07-07
Scope Note¶
This crosswalk asks the original inventory question directly: does xwkont-core:InformationArtifact (a direct child of Entity, described in data/ontology/core.ttl as XwkOnt's own "candidate support concept") correspond to anything in BFO, DOLCE, UFO, or SUMO, or is it purely XwkOnt-introduced and out of crosswalk scope?
Finding: not purely XwkOnt-introduced. Real analogs exist for three of four sources — but two of those three are sourced through extension or later literature, not the same core specification documents already cited elsewhere in this repository:
- BFO: no information-artifact class exists in BFO's own core release. The analog,
Information Content Entity(ICE), comes from the Information Artifact Ontology (IAO) — a separate, actively maintained OBO Foundry ontology built on BFO (Ceusters & Smith), not part of BFO-2020 itself. - DOLCE: the 2003 WonderWeb D18 deliverable (
xwkont:ref:dolce-wonderweb-d18, cited throughout this repository's other crosswalks) does not appear to be the primary source for DOLCE'sInformation Object. That term is documented in DOLCE+DnS Ultralite (DUL), the actively-maintained OWL successor to the original DOLCE Lite Plus (DLP) module bundle, built by the same DOLCE lineage (Aldo Gangemi). - SUMO: has a genuine core-specification analog:
ContentBearingPhysical(a direct subclass ofPhysical, covering both Objects and Processes that express content) and its further subclassContentBearingObject(specifically for Object-like content bearers) — confirmed directly against SUMO's primaryMerge.kifsource, 2026-07-01. - UFO: no distinct "Information Object" formal category was found with confidence in this pass — UFO-A treats "document" only as an example of an
Endurant, without further formal specification found. This is recorded as a research gap, not a confirmed absence.
Update (2026-07-01), following direct primary-source verification of BFO(IAO) and DOLCE(DUL), resolving uncertainty-001: both xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015 (the IAO foundational paper) and xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul (the DUL OWL ontology, directly fetchable as plain-text RDF — no PDF-extraction workaround needed) were fetched and read directly.
- BFO(IAO)'s formal ICE definition is confirmed verbatim: "INFORMATION CONTENT ENTITY =def. an ENTITY which is (1) GENERICALLY DEPENDENT on (2) some MATERIAL ENTITY and which (3) stands in a relation of ABOUTNESS to some ENTITY." The paper also clarifies "ICEs themselves are not material entities" (only dependent on one), confirming the earlier paraphrase closely.
- DOLCE's
InformationObjectis confirmed, with a corrected class hierarchy. The earlier draft claimed "Information Object and Description are both subsumed by Social Object, itself a subclass of Non-Physical Object" — DUL's actual OWL source shows a different chain:InformationObject rdfs:subClassOf InformationEntity, SocialObject(not through any class literally named "Non-Physical Object"), whereInformationEntityis DOLCE's abstract catchall ("a piece of information, be it concretely realized or not") and its siblingInformationRealization(subclass of the union ofEvent/PhysicalObject/Quality) is the concrete-realization counterpart, connected via arealizesrelation. The underlying substance of the earlier claim (generic dependence, social/non-physical classification, independent of physical carrier) holds; the specific class-name chain has been corrected. - DUL is confirmed to be DOLCE Lite Plus's direct successor, not an unrelated artifact — DUL's own header states: "The DOLCE+DnS Ultralite ontology... is a simplification of some parts of the DOLCE Lite-Plus library," authored by Aldo Gangemi (also a co-author of
xwkont:ref:dolce-borgo-2022). - UFO re-checked (2026-07-01) against the already-extracted 2021 paper's full text: zero occurrences of "document" or "information object" anywhere in the comprehensive paper. This strengthens, but does not fully resolve,
uncertainty-002— the 2021 paper is UFO's general/comprehensive account, not the UFO-A/UFO-C papers specifically, so a genuine absence in this one paper is suggestive rather than conclusive.
A structurally interesting parallel to XwkOnt's own posture: data/ontology/core.ttl already calls InformationArtifact a "candidate support concept" that "may later move to metadata or provenance infrastructure" — i.e., XwkOnt itself treats this concept as peripheral to its core scaffold. BFO does the same thing architecturally: it relegates information-artifact content to a separate extension ontology (IAO) rather than its own core. That's a genuine structural echo, not just a coincidence of wording.
Also worth noting: this is a different kind of divergence than Quality/Role/Relation's SUMO-abstracta pattern, not a repeat of it. There, SUMO consistently chose the abstract branch. Here, SUMO's ContentBearingPhysical sits under the Physical branch (tying informational content directly to a physical carrier), while BFO's IAO and DOLCE's Information Object both use generic dependence/non-physical classification (content that can be "copied" across multiple physical carriers, independent of any one of them). So SUMO's distinctive move isn't "always abstract" — it's concept-specific, and here it goes the opposite direction from Quality/Role/Relation. This finding, and the pattern it complicates, is now written up together at docs/methodology/sumo-modeling-patterns.md.
Epistemic note: SUMO content is verified directly against its primary Merge.kif source. BFO(IAO) and DOLCE(DUL) content is now also directly verified (2026-07-01) against their own primary sources — xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015 (manually extracted PDF) and xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul (directly fetchable OWL/Turtle). UFO content remains a research gap rather than a confirmed absence, now somewhat strengthened by a full-text check of the 2021 paper — see Uncertainty and Future Work.
Update (2026-07-02), ADR-0015 buildout: extended to GFO, YAMATO, TUpper, and GUM. The pattern found among the original four sources — real analogs exist, but only via extension/later literature, and one source (UFO) has none with confidence — turns out to recur even more starkly among the new sources: three of the four (GFO, TUpper, GUM) have no confident Information-Object-equivalent entity class, and one (YAMATO) has the single most developed treatment of any source examined in this crosswalk, original four included. YAMATO's 2010 technical report devotes an entire dedicated subsection ("Ontology of informational objects") to exactly this question, works through multiple examples (a novel, a piece of music, a procedure), positively defines a Representation/Representing thing split (abstract form-and-content pair vs. its concrete physical realization — directly paralleling DOLCE(DUL)'s InformationObject/InformationRealization split), and explicitly critiques BFO's own treatment as too coarse: "BFO deals with representation (informational object) only at the highest level. It is called generically-dependent entity and it is not further elaborated what they are." GFO's Symbol/Symbol_structure classes were considered and rejected as a correspondence — they sit on GFO's Category (universal/type) side of its Category/Individual split, a formal-language-symbol concept (closer to a predicate or sign-type in logic) rather than a content-bearing individual artifact with aboutness, a different concept from BFO(IAO)/DOLCE(DUL)'s target. TUpper's fetched files (tupper.all.owl, TUpper-Terms.html) contain zero occurrences of "information," "content," or "represent" — confirming its already-established minimal PSL vocabulary (object/activity/timepoint) has no information-artifact hook at all. GUM's OWL file has no dedicated Information-Object-equivalent entity class either; its only relevant hooks, Signification and Symbolization, are relation types (subclasses of Intensive, GUM's participant-relation category), not object/entity types — a categorically different kind of thing than BFO(IAO)/DOLCE(DUL)/SUMO/YAMATO's class-level analogs.
Labels, Alternate Labels, and Source Terminology¶
| Role | Label or term | Source | Language | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XwkOnt working label | Information Artifact | XwkOnt | en |
Matches xwkont-core:InformationArtifact (rdfs:subClassOf xwkont-core:Entity) in data/ontology/core.ttl. |
| Source term | Information Content Entity (ICE) | BFO (via IAO extension, not core BFO) | en |
Confirmed 2026-07-01 by direct primary-source reading of xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015. |
| Source term | Information Object | DOLCE (via DUL, successor to DOLCE Lite Plus; not the 2003 D18) | en |
Confirmed 2026-07-01 by direct primary-source reading of xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul; class-hierarchy claim corrected — see Scope Note. |
| Source term | (none found with confidence) | UFO | en |
"Document" appears only as an example of Endurant in UFO-A; see Scope Note. |
| Alternate label | ContentBearingObject / ContentBearingPhysical | SUMO | en |
|
| Source term | (none found with confidence) | GFO | en |
Symbol/Symbol_structure considered and rejected — a formal-language/type-side concept, not a content-bearing individual artifact; see Scope Note. |
| Source term | Representation (Representing thing) | YAMATO | en |
The most developed Information-Object-equivalent treatment found in this crosswalk, original four sources included. |
| Source term | (none found) | TUpper | en |
Zero occurrences of "information," "content," or "represent" in the fetched files. |
| Source term | (none found with confidence, object/entity-level Information-Object equivalent) | GUM | en |
Signification/Symbolization are relation types, not an entity/object-level analog. |
| Source term | Name | GUM | en |
Added 2026-07-07: a narrow, object/entity-level analog (a label for an entity), not the same scope as ICE but a genuine class-level correspondence, unlike Signification/Symbolization. |
Source Definitions and Contextual Notes¶
| Source | Term or identifier | Dimension | Claim type | Definition, quotation, or paraphrase | Reference | Locator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BFO (IAO extension) | Information Content Entity | technical | direct quotation | "INFORMATION CONTENT ENTITY =def. an ENTITY which is (1) GENERICALLY DEPENDENT on (2) some MATERIAL ENTITY and which (3) stands in a relation of ABOUTNESS to some ENTITY." "While every ICE is dependent upon some material entity that is its bearer, ICEs themselves are not material entities." The ontology's own class definition (IAO_0000030) states it more tersely: "A generically dependent continuant that is about some thing," rdfs:subClassOf BFO's Generically Dependent Continuant (BFO_0000031). |
xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:iao-owl |
verified: CEUR-WS PDF and iao.owl, manually extracted / fetched directly 2026-07-01 |
Confirms the earlier paraphrase closely, now with both IAO's theoretical paper and the ontology's own formal class definition rather than a secondary summary. |
| BFO (IAO extension) | aboutness relation | philosophical | direct quotation | Aboutness is grounded in cognitive acts: "acts of thinking, speaking, hearing, writing and reading... through which ICEs are created, understood, and communicated." The paper also proposes (not yet implemented in IAO itself) broadening aboutness's target from "entity" to "portion of reality," to admit universals, relations, other ICEs, and configurations as things an ICE can be about. | xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015 |
verified: CEUR-WS PDF, manually extracted 2026-07-01 | Classified philosophical because grounding informational content in mental acts is itself a substantive theoretical commitment. |
| DOLCE (DUL, successor to Lite Plus) | Information Object | technical | direct quotation | InformationObject rdfs:subClassOf InformationEntity, SocialObject, owl:disjointWith SocialAgent. Comment: "A piece of information, such as a musical composition, a text, a word, a picture, independently from how it is concretely realized." InformationEntity (its superclass, shared with InformationRealization) is DOLCE's "catchall class... a piece of information, be it concretely realized or not." |
xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul |
verified: DUL.owl fetched directly as plain-text RDF/Turtle, 2026-07-01 (no PDF-extraction workaround needed) | Corrects the earlier draft's claimed hierarchy ("Information Object... subclass of Social Object, itself a subclass of Non-Physical Object"): the actual chain is InformationObject → InformationEntity (and separately SocialObject), not through a class literally named "Non-Physical Object." The underlying substance (generic dependence, non-physical/social classification) still holds. |
| UFO | "document" as an Endurant example only | technical | editorial observation | UFO-A discusses endurants (entities not dependent on time for identification) using "a document" as an example, alongside "a person." No distinct formal Information Object/Content category was found with confidence in this pass. Re-checked 2026-07-01 against the full text of the already-extracted 2021 Applied Ontology paper: zero occurrences of "document" or "information object" anywhere in it. | xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
partially verified: full-text search of the manually-extracted 2021 paper confirms no mention, but UFO-A/UFO-C themselves were not independently fetched | Strengthens, but does not fully resolve, the research-gap finding — see Uncertainty. |
| SUMO | ContentBearingPhysical / ContentBearingObject | technical | direct quotation | "(subclass ContentBearingPhysical Physical)... Any Object or Process that expresses content. This covers Objects that contain a Proposition, such as a book, as well as ManualSignLanguage, which may similarly contain a Proposition." And: "(subclass ContentBearingObject ContentBearingPhysical)... Any SelfConnectedObject that expresses content. This content may be a Proposition, e.g. when the ContentBearingObject is a Sentence or Text, or it may be a representation of an abstract or physical object, as with an Icon, a Word or a Phrase." | xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
verified: Merge.kif, documentation ContentBearingPhysical/ContentBearingObject EnglishLanguage, fetched and read directly 2026-07-01 |
Corrects the earlier draft's hierarchy claim: ContentBearingPhysical is a direct subclass of Physical (covering both Objects and Processes that express content), not nested specifically under Object as originally stated. ContentBearingObject is a further subclass of ContentBearingPhysical, specifically for the Object-like (not Process-like) content bearers. Still ties content directly to a physical carrier, unlike BFO(IAO)/DOLCE's generic-dependence treatment. |
| GFO | Symbol / Symbol structure (considered, rejected) | technical | direct quotation | Symbol_structure: "Categories satisfy the following conditions: (1) Categories can be instantiated; (2) Categories can be predicated of other entities. Categories are defined intensional-with-an-s. They are, therefore, closely related to language." (inherited from Category, its declared superclass, since Symbol_structure itself carries no skos:definition). owl:disjointWith Concept and Universal; Category is owl:disjointWith Individual. |
xwkont:ref:gfo |
verified: modules/gfo-base.owl, classes Symbol, Symbol_sequence, Symbol_structure, Category, fetched and read directly 2026-07-02 |
Sits on GFO's universal/type side (Category, disjoint from Individual) — a formal-language-symbol concept, not a content-bearing individual artifact with aboutness. A genuinely different concept from BFO(IAO)'s ICE or DOLCE(DUL)'s InformationObject, both of which are (or depend on) individuals. No correspondence recorded, following the same standard already set for UFO in this crosswalk (a considered candidate is not automatically a correspondence). |
| YAMATO | Representation (Representing thing) | technical | direct quotation | "By representation, we here mean content-bearing thing. That is, anything which has content as its essentials rather than itself which is playing the role of carrier/bearer of the content... there exist quite a few representations in the real world: novel, poem, painting, music, procedure, symbol, etc." And: "A representation is composed of two parts, form and content... A representation is not concrete yet as it is. It becomes a physical individual only when it becomes a representing thing... Content is the hidden part of representation and it is a proposition which the author of the representation would like to convey through the representation." | xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
verified: YAMATO101216.pdf, Section "Ontology of informational objects" / "A conceptual model of representation," extracted 2026-07-02 |
The most developed Information-Object treatment of any source in this crosswalk — an entire dedicated subsection, with worked examples (novel, music, procedure) and a positive Representation/Representing thing (abstract form-and-content vs. concrete realization) split that directly parallels DOLCE(DUL)'s InformationObject/InformationRealization pair. |
| YAMATO | Critique of BFO's coarse treatment | philosophical | direct quotation | "As usual, BFO deals with representation (informational object) only at the highest level. It is called generically-dependent entity and it is not further elaborated what they are." | xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
verified: YAMATO101216.pdf, same section, extracted 2026-07-02 |
YAMATO's own text explicitly names BFO's generically-dependent-entity treatment (i.e., IAO's ICE, per this crosswalk's BFO row) as the point of comparison and criticizes it as under-elaborated — a rare case of a source ontology's own literature directly engaging with another source already cited in this crosswalk, rather than this crosswalk drawing the comparison itself. |
| TUpper | (no information/content/representation term found) | technical | non-equivalence | tupper.all.owl and TUpper-Terms.html, searched directly, contain zero occurrences of "information," "content," or "represent." |
xwkont:ref:tupper-colore |
verified absence: both fetched files searched directly, 2026-07-02 | Consistent with TUpper's already-established minimal PSL-derived vocabulary (object/activity/activity_occurrence/timepoint) — there is no fourth term in this area to be found. |
| GUM | Signification / Symbolization (relation types, considered, rejected) | technical | direct quotation | Symbolization: no rdfs:comment on the class itself; subclass of Intensive (GUM's Ascription/Identity-adjacent relation category). Signification (a Symbolization subclass): "Relations concerned with Signification are linguistically realized by verbs like 'represent', 'mean', 'express', e.g., 'green means go'." |
xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
verified: GUM-31.owl, classes Symbolization, Signification, fetched and read directly 2026-07-02 |
Both are relation types (participant-role/configuration classes), not object/entity types — a categorically different kind of thing than BFO(IAO)'s ICE, DOLCE(DUL)'s InformationObject, SUMO's ContentBearingObject, or YAMATO's Representation, all of which are entity classes. No correspondence recorded, same standard as GFO above. |
| GUM | Name | technical | direct quotation | Name: "An accepted but possibly arbitrary label for some entity." rdfs:subClassOf Word, itself rdfs:subClassOf Abstraction. |
xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
verified: GUM-31.owl, class Name (and its Word/Abstraction ancestry), fetched and read directly 2026-07-07 |
Added 2026-07-07, checking symbol-sign-representation.yaml''s own Future Work item. Unlike Signification/Symbolization above, this is a genuine object/entity-level class — a narrow correspondence recorded as mapping-009, not a rejected candidate. |
Source Ontology Correspondences¶
| Correspondence ID | Source ontology | Source term | Source identifier or IRI | Source version | Reference | Inclusion rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
xwkont:correspondence:information-artifact:001 |
BFO (IAO extension) | Information Content Entity | IAO_0000030 (confirmed directly against iao.owl, 2026-07-01) |
IAO, per xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015 (ICBO 2015) and xwkont:ref:iao-owl |
xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:iao-owl |
Closest analog despite not being part of BFO's own core release. |
xwkont:correspondence:information-artifact:002 |
DOLCE (DUL) | Information Object | http://www.ontologydesignpatterns.org/ont/dul/DUL.owl#InformationObject (confirmed directly, 2026-07-01) |
DUL v4.2, per xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul, directly verified 2026-07-01 |
xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul |
Closest analog despite not being part of the 2003 D18 deliverable already cited elsewhere; DUL is DLP's actively-maintained successor. |
xwkont:correspondence:information-artifact:003 |
SUMO | ContentBearingObject / ContentBearingPhysical | ContentBearingPhysical / ContentBearingObject (SUMO/SUO-KIF has no separate opaque identifier scheme — the term name itself is the identifier) |
current SUMO source (not the 2001 paper alone) | xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
Direct core-specification analog. |
xwkont:correspondence:information-artifact:004 |
YAMATO | Representation (Representing thing) | not applicable — registration-gated OWL/Hozo download not fetched; cited by quotation from the 2010 technical report, not by IRI | 2010 technical report (directly verified 2026-07-02) | xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
The most developed Information-Object treatment of any source in this crosswalk; a positively-defined Representation/Representing thing (abstract/concrete) split, with its own text explicitly engaging BFO's ICE as a point of comparison. |
xwkont:correspondence:information-artifact:005 |
GUM | Name | http://www.ontospace.uni-bremen.de/ontology/stable/GUM-3.owl#Name (confirmed directly against GUM-31.owl.txt, 2026-07-07) |
GUM 3.1, per xwkont:ref:gum-owl, directly verified 2026-07-07 |
xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
Added 2026-07-07, checking symbol-sign-representation.yaml's own Future Work item. A narrow but genuine object/entity-level correspondence — unlike Signification/Symbolization (relation types, still correctly excluded), Name is a class-level, "label for an entity" analog, comparable in form to ICE's aboutness relation though far narrower in scope; recorded as mapping-009 at low-medium confidence, not close-match. |
No UFO correspondence is recorded — see Uncertainty. No GFO or TUpper correspondence is recorded (ADR-0015 buildout, 2026-07-02) — see Source Definitions above and Uncertainty for the considered-and-rejected candidates in each case. GUM's Name was added 2026-07-07 as a narrow correspondence; Signification/Symbolization remain considered-and-rejected (relation types, not object/entity types).
Semantic Comparison Notes¶
| Note ID | Dimension | Claim type | Note | Supporting references | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
note-001 |
technical | editorial observation | BFO's IAO and DOLCE's Information Object both use generic dependence / non-physical classification, treating informational content as independent of any single physical carrier (copyable, multiply-realizable) — now confirmed directly: IAO's ICE is "generically dependent on some material entity," and DUL's InformationObject is "independently from how it is concretely realized," paired with a separate InformationRealization class for the concrete side. SUMO's ContentBearingPhysical instead ties content directly to a physical carrier. This is a different divergence than Quality/Role/Relation's SUMO-abstracta pattern — here SUMO goes physical, not abstract, showing that pattern is concept-specific rather than a blanket rule. |
xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
high |
note-002 |
technical | editorial observation | Both XwkOnt's own core.ttl (calling InformationArtifact a "candidate support concept" that "may later move to metadata or provenance infrastructure") and BFO (relegating this content to the separate IAO extension ontology rather than its own core) treat information-artifact content as architecturally peripheral to the main foundational scaffold. This is a structural echo worth noting, not a claim that XwkOnt was modeled on BFO's choice here. | xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015 |
medium |
note-003 |
technical | editorial observation | Among the four ADR-0015 sources, coverage of Information Artifact is the most polarized of any concept crosswalked in this repository: YAMATO has the single most developed treatment found anywhere in this crosswalk (original four sources included) — a dedicated subsection, multiple worked examples, and a positive form/content vs. concrete-realization split — while GFO, TUpper, and GUM all lack a confident entity-level analog. This mirrors, and sharpens, the original four-source finding (BFO/DOLCE/SUMO have real analogs, UFO does not): here it's 1-of-4 with a genuine class-level analog rather than 3-of-4. |
xwkont:ref:gfo, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010, xwkont:ref:tupper-colore, xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
high |
note-004 |
philosophical | editorial observation | YAMATO's Representation (abstract, form-and-content) vs. Representing thing (concrete realization) split is structurally the same move as DOLCE(DUL)'s InformationObject/InformationRealization pair — both separate the informational content from any one physical carrier while still connecting the two via a realization-style relation. This is an independent convergence between two source ontologies' own theoretical apparatus, not something either source's authors cite the other for. |
xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010, xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul |
medium |
Mapping Assertions or Candidate Relations¶
| Mapping ID | Subject | Relation category | Object | predicate_id |
mapping_justification |
Status | Confidence | Rationale | Provenance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:001 |
BFO(IAO):Information Content Entity | close-match |
DOLCE(DUL):Information Object | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | medium-high | Raised 2026-07-01 from medium: both terms are now directly verified against their own primary sources (xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul), both use generic-dependence/non-physical treatment for informational content independent of a specific carrier. Not raised to high because the two apparatus still differ in detail (IAO's single Information Content Entity vs. DUL's InformationObject/InformationEntity/InformationRealization three-way split). |
xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:002 |
BFO(IAO):Information Content Entity | unknown |
SUMO:ContentBearingPhysical | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low | Structural mismatch: BFO(IAO) separates content from carrier via generic dependence; SUMO ties content directly to a physical carrier. Whether they denote overlapping extension despite the different modeling choice is unresolved. | xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001 |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:003 |
xwkont-core:InformationArtifact | unknown |
UFO | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low | No UFO correspondence identified with confidence; a full-text check of the extracted 2021 paper (2026-07-01) found zero mentions of "document" or "information object," strengthening but not confirming the absence. Recorded to make the gap explicit rather than silently omitted. | xwkont:ref:ufo-2021 |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:004 |
BFO(IAO):Information Content Entity | close-match |
YAMATO:Representation | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | medium-high | Both treat informational content as generically dependent on, but distinct from, a physical carrier (YAMATO: "not concrete yet as it is... becomes a physical individual only when it becomes a representing thing"; BFO(IAO): "generically dependent on some material entity"). YAMATO's own text explicitly names BFO's treatment as a point of comparison, strengthening this beyond an editorial observation alone. Not high because YAMATO's own OWL is not fetched (quotation-only citation) and the two apparatuses differ in elaboration (YAMATO's form/content split vs. IAO's single-class aboutness relation). |
xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:005 |
DOLCE(DUL):Information Object | close-match |
YAMATO:Representation | skos:closeMatch |
semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | medium-high | Structurally the closest pairing found in this crosswalk: both sources independently split an abstract content-bearing class from its concrete realization (DUL: InformationObject/InformationRealization; YAMATO: Representation/Representing thing), per note-004. medium-high, not high, for the same sourcing-completeness reason as mapping-004 (see uncertainty-005): YAMATO's own OWL/Hozo files are not fetched, so this is cited by quotation from the 2010 report, not verified against a formal class. Separately disclosed, but not the basis for the confidence value: this pairing is this crosswalk's own observed convergence, not a comparison either source's authors draw themselves (contrast mapping-004, where YAMATO explicitly cites BFO) — a confidently-known fact, not an open question, so it does not itself justify a hedged confidence value. |
xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul, xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010 |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:006 |
xwkont-core:InformationArtifact | unknown |
GFO | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low | No GFO correspondence identified with confidence; Symbol/Symbol_structure were considered and rejected — they sit on GFO's universal/type side (Category), not the individual/content-bearing side BFO(IAO)/DOLCE(DUL)/YAMATO's analogs occupy. Recorded explicitly rather than silently omitted, per this crosswalk's established practice for UFO. |
xwkont:ref:gfo |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:007 |
xwkont-core:InformationArtifact | unknown |
TUpper | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low | No TUpper correspondence identified; tupper.all.owl and TUpper-Terms.html, searched directly, contain zero occurrences of "information," "content," or "represent." The most clear-cut absence of any source in this crosswalk. |
xwkont:ref:tupper-colore |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:008 |
xwkont-core:InformationArtifact | unknown |
GUM | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low | No GUM object/entity-level Information-Object-equivalent class identified with confidence; Signification/Symbolization were considered and rejected — both are relation types (subclasses of Intensive), not object/entity types, a categorically different kind of thing than an Information-Object-equivalent class. |
xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
xwkont:mapping:information-artifact:009 |
BFO(IAO):Information Content Entity | related |
GUM:Name | none | semapv:ManualMappingCuration |
candidate | low-medium | Added 2026-07-07 (symbol-sign-representation.yaml's own Future Work flagged this for a check, not decided there since this crosswalk was already reviewed). GUM's Name (rdfs:subClassOf Word, itself rdfs:subClassOf Abstraction): "An accepted but possibly arbitrary label for some entity" — comparable in form to BFO(IAO)'s ICE (a generically dependent entity that stands in an aboutness relation to some entity): a name is a label for an entity, structurally an aboutness-like relationship, and unlike Signification/Symbolization it is a genuine object/entity-level class, not a relation type. related, not close-match: Name sits in an entirely different, linguistics-specific branch (Word/Abstraction) with no shared ancestor with any of GUM's occurrent-like or continuant-like top classes, and denotes only a narrow label/naming-word kind of content, not ICE's full range (documents, procedures, plans, etc.). low-medium, not higher: the aboutness comparison is this crosswalk's own observed structural parallel, not a comparison GUM's own text draws itself (contrast mapping-004, where YAMATO explicitly cites BFO). |
xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015, xwkont:ref:gum-owl |
Uncertainty, Non-Equivalence, and Open Questions¶
| Item ID | Type | Description | Impact | Follow-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
uncertainty-001 |
~~uncertainty~~ resolved 2026-07-01 | Neither BFO's IAO content nor DOLCE's Information Object content previously traced to any reference record in this repository. Both now do: xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015 (IAO's foundational paper, fetched and manually extracted) and xwkont:ref:gangemi-dul (the DUL OWL ontology, fetched directly as plain-text RDF). DOLCE's exact class hierarchy was also corrected in the process (InformationObject → InformationEntity/SocialObject, not through "Non-Physical Object"). |
mapping-001 raised from medium to medium-high. |
Resolved — no further action needed. |
uncertainty-002 |
open-question | No distinct UFO "Information Object" formal category was found with confidence — this is recorded as a research gap, not a confirmed absence. Partially strengthened 2026-07-01: a full-text check of the already-extracted 2021 Applied Ontology paper found zero occurrences of "document" or "information object" anywhere in it. | mapping-003 reflects this as unknown rather than explicit-non-equivalence. |
Read UFO-A/UFO-C literature directly (UFO-C covers social entities, where an information-object analog might plausibly live) before concluding UFO genuinely lacks this category — the 2021 paper alone is suggestive, not conclusive, since it is UFO's general/comprehensive account rather than UFO-A/UFO-C specifically. |
uncertainty-003 |
~~open-question~~ resolved 2026-07-10 — inventory expansion completed through ontology-core-v0.3.0 | Originally the last planned concept in the first inventory. Subsequent ADR-0015/ADR-0018 batches expanded scope; Entity remains out of scope. |
Original 8-concept inventory complete; 18 further concepts reviewed since. | Use docs/crosswalks/candidate-concepts.md for future selection; no action on this item. |
uncertainty-004 |
open-question | GFO's Symbol/Symbol_structure were only checked in the base module (modules/gfo-base.owl); GFO's separate situation module (not fetched in this pass) was not checked for a content-bearing/informational-object concept that might live there instead of in the base module. |
The "no confident GFO analog" finding is not a confirmed absence across all of GFO, only across the base module already fetched for this repository's other crosswalks. | Check GFO's situation module (modules/situation/gfo-situation*.ttl, listed in the repository but not yet fetched) if a future pass wants to rule this out more conclusively. |
uncertainty-005 |
open-question | YAMATO's own OWL/Hozo files were not fetched in this pass (registration-gated download; see xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010), so correspondence-004/mapping-004/mapping-005 are cited by quotation from the 2010 technical report, not by class IRI. YAMATO's report also references an earlier, less-disseminated 2004 paper on representation ("the author has once proposed the ontology of representation (Mizoguchi 2004)") that was not fetched. |
Confidence on mapping-004/mapping-005 (capped at medium-high) could rise if the OWL is fetched and a formal class matching the Representation/Representing thing split is confirmed. |
Fetch YAMATO's OWL/Hozo files, and consider the Mizoguchi (2004) representation paper, if the registration gate is completed later. |
Provenance and References¶
xwkont:ref:sumo-niles-pease-2001— Towards a Standard Upper Ontology (Niles & Pease, 2001) — verified directly against current SUMOMerge.kif, 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:ufo-2021— UFO: Unified Foundational Ontology (Guizzardi et al., 2021) — verified directly (full-text checked for "document"/"information object," neither found); no confident UFO analog identified regardless — seeuncertainty-002xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015— Aboutness: Towards Foundations for the Information Artifact Ontology (Smith & Ceusters, 2015) — verified directly (manual PDF extraction), 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:iao-owl— Information Artifact Ontology (IAO) OWL ontology — verified directly (fetched as plain-text RDF/XML), 2026-07-01; supplies the exactIAO_0000030class IRIxwkont:ref:gangemi-dul— DOLCE+DnS Ultralite (DUL) OWL ontology (Gangemi) — verified directly (fetched as plain-text RDF/Turtle), 2026-07-01xwkont:ref:gfo— General Formal Ontology (GFO) — verified directly againstmodules/gfo-base.owl(Symbol,Symbol_structure,Category), 2026-07-02xwkont:ref:yamato-mizoguchi-2010— YAMATO 2010 technical report (Mizoguchi) — verified directly (PDF extraction, "Ontology of informational objects" section), 2026-07-02xwkont:ref:tupper-colore— TUpper COLORE formalization (Grüninger) — verified absence directly againsttupper.all.owl/TUpper-Terms.html, 2026-07-02xwkont:ref:gum-owl— GUM 3.1 OWL (Bateman) — verified directly againstGUM-31.owl(Signification,Symbolization), 2026-07-02
Review History¶
| Review ID | Date | Outcome | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
xwkont:review:information-artifact:2026-07-01:01 |
2026-07-01 | Passed — advanced draft → reviewed |
Checked against docs/governance/contributing.md's Review Checklist: scope preserved; BFO(IAO)/DOLCE(DUL)/SUMO all verified directly, including a class-hierarchy correction for DOLCE and a hierarchy correction for SUMO (ContentBearingPhysical sits directly under Physical, not Object); mapping categories/confidence valid (mapping-001's medium-high now compliant with ADR-0013); every xwkont:ref:* citation resolves. Distinct from the other 7 crosswalks' disclosed gaps: this one has a genuinely open research question, not just an unverified secondary citation — mapping-003 (UFO correspondence) remains unknown/low confidence because UFO-A/UFO-C themselves were never fetched (only the general 2021 paper, which shows no analog but isn't the authoritative narrower source). This is judged to still satisfy "passed review for its stated scope" because the gap is honestly and prominently disclosed (uncertainty is first-class content, not a defect, per docs/INFORMATION_ARCHITECTURE.md §7) rather than because the scope is fully resolved — a future reader should not read reviewed here as "UFO question closed." Self-review, not independent third-party review. |
| — | 2026-07-02 | Not yet reviewed — status reverted reviewed → candidate |
ADR-0015 buildout added a YAMATO correspondence (004), five new mappings (004-008, including two close-match YAMATO pairings and three unknown GFO/TUpper/GUM non-matches), two new notes (003-004), and two new uncertainty items (004-005). YAMATO turned out to have the single most developed Information-Object treatment of any source in this crosswalk; GFO, TUpper, and GUM were all confirmed to lack a confident entity-level analog, each with a considered-and-rejected candidate documented rather than silently omitted. All findings directly verified against already-fetched primary artifacts; no re-fetching needed. Pending maintainer review before advancing back to reviewed. |
xwkont:review:information-artifact:2026-07-02:02 |
2026-07-02 | Passed — advanced candidate → reviewed |
Consolidated review pass, per docs/governance/contributing.md's Review Checklist, of the ADR-0015 buildout content across all 8 concept crosswalks. Checked: scope preserved; every xwkont:ref:* citation resolves; correspondence/mapping/note/uncertainty ID numbering sequential with no gaps or duplicates. Correction (2026-07-06, full-corpus audit): this entry originally also claimed "both medium-high mappings here state a sourcing-driven reason" — true for mapping-004, but not for mapping-005 as originally worded, whose stated reason (an inference not drawn by the sources' own authors) is not a sourcing reason under ADR-0013. mapping-005's rationale rewritten in this pass to state the sourcing-driven reason that already applies to it per uncertainty-005 (YAMATO's OWL/Hozo files not fetched, same as mapping-004), with the inference-provenance point kept as disclosure, not as the confidence justification. See docs/methodology/crosswalk-runbook.md's governing principle. Spot-checked YAMATO's "content-bearing thing"/"representing thing" quotations against the fetched artifact and found no transcription errors. This crosswalk's pre-existing genuinely open research question (uncertainty-002, UFO-A/UFO-C not fetched) remains unresolved and is not affected by this review pass. Self-review performed at the maintainer's explicit request, not independent third-party review. |
| — | 2026-07-07 | Reopened — new GUM correspondence added, no editorial_status change | Checked symbol-sign-representation.yaml's own Future Work item: whether GUM's Name should be added as new evidence. Fetched GUM-31.owl.txt fresh and confirmed Name (rdfs:subClassOf Word, itself rdfs:subClassOf Abstraction): "An accepted but possibly arbitrary label for some entity." A genuine object/entity-level class, unlike the already-considered-and-rejected Signification/Symbolization relation types. Added as mapping-009 (BFO(IAO):Information Content Entity — GUM:Name, related, low-medium confidence) plus a new Source Definitions entry, correspondences entry (xwkont:correspondence:information-artifact:005), and a labels entry. mapping-008 (the existing GUM "unknown" row) left in place and its rationale narrowed to object/entity-level scope specifically, since it still correctly documents that no GUM class matches ICE's full range. editorial_status remains reviewed — this is additive evidence, not a re-review of the crosswalk's existing content. |
Future Work¶
- ~~Create proper reference records for IAO (Ceusters & Smith, "Aboutness: Towards Foundations for the Information Artifact Ontology") and DOLCE Lite Plus~~ — done 2026-07-01,
uncertainty-001resolved.xwkont:ref:ceusters-smith-2015andxwkont:ref:gangemi-dulcreated (DUL rather than the original DLP397.owl file, which returned a wiki page when fetched directly — DUL is DLP's actively-maintained successor by the same author). - Read UFO-A/UFO-C literature directly to confirm whether UFO genuinely lacks a distinct Information Object category, or whether one exists that this pass's searches simply didn't surface (
uncertainty-002) — the 2021 comprehensive paper's full text has now been checked and contains no such term, but UFO-A/UFO-C themselves remain unfetched. - ~~Extend GFO/YAMATO/TUpper/GUM correspondences to this crosswalk~~ — done 2026-07-02 (ADR-0015 buildout, 5 of 8 crosswalks). Pending maintainer review (
uncertainty-004/uncertainty-005remain open). - Check GFO's
situationmodule for a content-bearing/informational-object concept not present in the base module (uncertainty-004); fetch YAMATO's OWL/Hozo files if the registration gate is completed (uncertainty-005). - Cross-reference note (narrowed by maintainer 2026-07-06): the draft
symbol-sign-representationconcept originally cited this crosswalk's own YAMATO evidence (correspondence-004,mapping-004/mapping-005-- theRepresentation/Representing thingquotation) as its own strongest correspondence, and cited SUMOSymbolicString/Icon/LinguisticExpression, confirmed subclasses ofContentBearingPhysical(this crosswalk's own SUMO correspondence). That was recorded as a fact, not a conclusion, per this repo's governing principle. The maintainer has now resolved it as a narrowing, not an off-ramp: YAMATO'srepresenting thingand the SUMO terms were excluded fromsymbol-sign-representation.yamlas duplicative of this crosswalk's own evidence (same referent, different words -- an alternate-label relationship, not a distinct concept). GFO'sSymbol_structureand GUM'sSymbolization/Significationwere retained there, precisely because this crosswalk itself already treats them as the wrong kind of thing for its own scope (see the GFO/GUM Source Term entries above) rather than as already-covered material -- adjacent, not duplicative, the same reuse pattern as SUMO'sAttributeacross Role/Quality/Relation.symbol-sign-representation.yaml's ownuncertainty-004records the full resolution and the two narrower open questions (uncertainty-005,uncertainty-006) that remain there.