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August 2022 - December 2023
October 2019 - July 2022
July 2019 - October 2019
Education
November 2015 - April 2019
March 2012 - October 2014
March 2007 - February 2012
Publications
Publications (102)
The construction of large-scale reference conceptual models is a complex engineering activity. To develop high-quality models, a modeler must have the support of expressive engineering tools such as theoretically well-founded modeling languages and methodologies, patterns and anti-patterns and automated supporting environments. This paper proposes...
Risk analysis is traditionally accepted as a complex and critical activity in various contexts, such as strategic planning and software development. Given its complexity, several modeling approaches have been proposed to help analysts in representing and analyzing risks. Naturally, having a clear understanding of the nature of risk is fundamental f...
The document is available at http://purl.org/nemo/gufo
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 r...
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 la...
There are a number of standards aiming to facilitate the exchange of competence data in the educational and job market areas. Despite their relevance, we have observed that they could benefit from an in-depth analysis of the notion of competence, given its central role in the intended application areas. This includes addressing facets of competence...
Diagrammatic and textual languages differ significantly with respect to the experience they offer to language users. While diagrammatic languages leverage visual variables to improve communication and problem solving, textual languages facilitate significantly a number of tasks including version control, model editing, model merging, parsing, etc....
The climate change assessment community relies on widely accepted definitions of risk and its components, e.g. hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, provided by the well-known international organisation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Those definitions of risk have been changing through the years and are presented in a general and...
Several efforts that leverage the tools of formal on-tology have demonstrated the fruitfulness of considering key metaproperties of classes in ontol-ogy engineering. Despite that, it is still a common practice to apply representation schemes and approaches-such as OWL-that do not benefit from identifying ontological categories and simply treat all...
The problem of using structured methods to represent knowledge is well-known in conceptual modeling and has been studied for many years. It has been proven that adopting modeling patterns represents an effective structural method. Patterns are, indeed, generalizable recurrent structures that can be exploited as solutions to design problems. They ai...
This paper presents an ontology of portions of matter with practical implications across scientific and industrial domains. The ontology is developed under the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO), which uses the concept of quantity to represent topologically maximally self-connected portions of matter. The proposed ontology introduces the granuleOf...
There are a number of standards aiming to facilitate the exchange of competence data in the educational and job market areas. Despite their relevance, we have observed that they could benefit from an in-depth analysis of the notion of competence, given its central role in the intended application areas. This includes addressing facets of competence...
Enterprise Risk Management involves the process of identification, evaluation, treatment, and communication regarding risks throughout the enterprise. To support the tasks associated with this process, several frameworks and modeling languages have been proposed, such as the Risk and Security Overlay (RSO) of ArchiMate. An ontological investigation...
The FAIR principles define a number of expected behaviours for the data and services ecosystem with the goal of improving the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of digital objects. A key aspiration of the principles is that they would lead to a scenario where autonomous computational agents are capable of performing a “se...
Formal Ontology is a discipline whose business is to develop formal theories about general aspects of reality such as identity, dependence, parthood, truthmaking, causality, etc. A foundational ontology is a specific consistent set of these ontological theories that support activities such as domain analysis, conceptual clarification, and meaning n...
Trust is an attitude that an agent (the trustor) has toward an entity (the trustee), such that the trustor counts upon the trustee to act in a way that is beneficial w.r.t. to the trustor’s goals. The notion of trust is relevantly discussed both in information science and philosophy. Unfortunately, we still lack a satisfying account for this concep...
Several efforts that leverage the tools of formal ontology (such as OntoClean, OntoUML, and UFO) have demonstrated the fruitfulness of considering key metaproperties of classes in ontology engineering. These metaproperties include sortality, rigidity, and external dependence, and give rise to many fine-grained ontological categories for classes, in...
To properly understand organizational adaptation and innovation, it is critical to understand the emergence phenomenon, i.e., how the capabilities of a system emerge after changes. However, for this, we should be able to explain systems, their structure, behavior, and capabilities. In pursuit of an understanding of the emergence phenomenon and the...
In the context of enterprises, a wide range of models is developed and used for diverse purposes. Due to the investments involved in modeling, these models should ideally be used in projects in which their benefits outweigh their costs. The analysis of modeling benefits and costs requires an in-depth understanding of the goals of modeling and the p...
Developing platform software is a challenging and multidisciplinary task that requires significant time and relies heavily on effective human interaction and teamwork. To enhance communication and expedite the development of a customized and satisfactory Minimum Viable Product (MVP), a method for ontology-driven MVP development in the digital platf...
Understanding and modeling system behavior is a key aspect of many disciplines, and is crucial when systems are designed to manifest desirable behaviors. In order to grasp system behavior, it is inevitable to address how it emerges from the properties and behaviors of interrelated system components. In pursuit of an understanding of the emergence p...
In the context of enterprises, a wide range of models is developed and used for diverse purposes. Due to the investments involved in modeling, these models should ideally be used in projects in which their benefits outweigh their costs. The analysis of modeling benefits and costs requires an in-depth understanding of the goals of modeling and the p...
To properly understand organizational adaptation and innovation, it is critical to understand the emergence phenomenon, i.e., how the capabilities of a system emerge after changes. However, for this, we should be able to explain systems, their structure, behavior, and capabilities. In pursuit of an understanding of the emergence phenomenon and the...
The FAIR Principles provide guidance on how to improve the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of digital resources. Since the publication of the principles in 2016, several workflows have been proposed to support the process of making data FAIR (FAIRification). However, to respect the uniqueness of different communities,...
Diverse types of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) can be built using Semantic Web technologies, with distinct objectives and formality levels. In this paper, we focus on two of them, lexicons and thesauri, which can be specified using the Ontolex-Lemon and the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) vocabularies, respectively. Because thesa...
Risk propagation encompasses a plethora of techniques for analyzing how risk “spreads” in a given system. Albeit commonly used in technical literature, the very notion of risk propagation turns out to be a conceptually imprecise and overloaded one. This might also explain the multitude of modeling solutions that have been proposed in the literature...
Formal Ontology is a discipline whose business is to develop formal theories about general aspects of reality such as identity, dependence, parthood, truth-making, causality, etc. A foundational ontology is a specific consistent set of these ontological theories that support activities such as domain analysis, conceptual clarification, and meaning...
The FAIR principles define a number of expected behaviours for the data and services ecosystem with the goal of improving the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of digital objects. A key aspiration of the principles is that they would lead to a scenario where autonomous computational agents are capable of performing a "se...
Several efforts that leverage the tools of formal ontology (such as OntoClean, OntoUML, and UFO) have demonstrated the fruitfulness of considering key metaproperties of classes in ontology engineering. These metaproperties include sortality, rigidity, and external dependence, and give rise to many fine-grained ontological categories for classes, in...
Trust is an attitude that an agent (the trustor) has toward an entity (the trustee), such that the trustor counts upon the trustee to act in a way that is beneficial w.r.t. to the trustor's goals. The notion of trust is relevantly discussed both in information science and philosophy. Unfortunately, we still lack a satisfying account for this concep...
The FAIR principles define a number of expected behaviours for the data and services ecosystem with the goal of improving the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of digital objects. A key aspiration of the principles is that they would lead to a scenario where autonomous computational agents are capable of performing a ``s...
Risk propagation encompasses a plethora of techniques for analyzing how risk "spreads" in a given system. Albeit commonly used in technical literature, the very notion of risk propagation turns out to be a conceptually imprecise and overloaded one. This might also explain the multitude of modeling solutions that have been proposed in the literature...
Enterprise Risk Management and security have become a fundamental part of Enterprise Architecture, so several frameworks and modeling languages have been designed to support the activities associated with these areas. Archi-Mate's Risk and Security Overlay is one of such proposals, endorsed by The Open Group. We investigate the capabilities of the...
Enterprise Risk Management and security have become a fundamental part of Enterprise Architecture, so several frameworks and modeling languages have been designed to support the activities associated with these areas. ArchiMate’s Risk and Security Overlay is one of such proposals, endorsed by The Open Group. We investigate the capabilities of the p...
Patterns are recurrent structures that provide key insights for Conceptual Modeling. Typically, patterns emerge from the repeated modeling practice in a given field. However, their discovery, if performed manually, is a slow and highly laborious task and, hence, it usually takes years for pattern catalogs to emerge in new domains. For this reason,...
The Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) has been used to provide foundations for the major conceptual modeling constructs. So far, UFO has reflected a view in which domain entities are fundamentally divided into those that collect invariants of the domain (i.e., types) and those entities that manifest those invariants (i.e., instances), following t...
The development of dependable information systems in legal contexts requires a precise understanding of the subtleties of the underlying legal phenomena. According to a modern understanding in philosophy of law, much of these phenomena are relational in nature. In this paper, we employ a theoretically well-grounded legal core ontology (UFO-L) to co...
In Risk Management, security issues arise from complex relations among objects and agents, their capabilities and vulnerabilities, the events they are involved in, and the value and risk they ensue to the stakeholders at hand. Further, there are patterns involving these relations that crosscut many domains, ranging from information security to publ...
Conceptual models are artifacts representing conceptualizations of particular domains. Hence, multi-domain model catalogs serve as empirical sources of knowledge and insights about specific domains, about the use of a modeling language’s constructs, as well as about the patterns and anti-patterns recurrent in the models of that language crosscuttin...
Conceptual models are artifacts representing conceptualizations of particular domains. Hence, multi-domain model catalogs serve as empirical sources of knowledge and insights about specific domains, about the use of a modeling language’s constructs, as well as about the patterns and anti-patterns recurrent in the models of that language crosscuttin...
In Risk Management, security issues arise from complex relations among objects and agents, their capabilities and vulnerabilities, the events they are involved in, and the value and risk they ensue to the stakeholders at hand. Further, there are patterns involving these relations that crosscut many domains, ranging from information security to publ...
Patterns are recurrent structures that provide key insights for Conceptual Modeling. Typically, patterns emerge from the repeated modeling practice in a given field. However, their discovery, if performed manually, is a slow and highly laborious task and, hence, it usually takes years for pattern catalogs to emerge in new domains. For this reason,...
Conceptual modeling plays a fundamental role in information systems engineering, and in data and systems interoperability. To play their role as instruments for domain modeling, conceptual models must contain the exact set of constraints that represent the worldview of the relevant domain stakeholders. However, as empirical results show, conceptual...
In recent years, disruptive technologies have advanced at a rapid pace. These new developments have the power to accelerate the production and delivery, improve the quality, and reduce the costs of goods and services, as well as to contribute to individual and collective well-being. However, their adoption relies largely on user trust. And trust, d...
Conceptual modeling plays a fundamental role in information systems engineering, and in data and systems interoperability. To play their role as instruments for domain modeling, conceptual models must contain the exact set of constraints that represent the worldview of the relevant domain stakeholders. However, as empirical results show, conceptual...
Finance and economics are wide domains, where ontologies are useful instruments for dealing with semantic interoperability and information integration problems, as well as improving communication and problem solving among people. In particular, reference ontologies have been widely recognized as powerful tools for representing a model of consensus...
Recently, digital innovation has revolutionized the world of payments and settlement services. Innovative technologies, such as the tokenization of assets , as well as new forms of digital payments, have challenged both current business models and the existing models of regulation. In this scenario, semantic transparency is fundamental not only to...
A sharing platform is a digital platform that facilitates access to underutilized goods by renting or lending them to others. Users become less dependent on ownership which improves efficiency, sustainability, and the sense of community. The Sharing Economy (SE) is considered a complex domain because value co-creation can occur between multiple typ...
In this paper a method is proposed for agile digital platform prototype development based on organization-specific ontologies. The resulting prototypes act as minimum viable product of the digital platform that is described by the ontologies. Our method combines the strengths of agile practices, to speed up the development process in a user-oriente...
Recently, digital innovation has revolutionized the world of payments and settlement services. Innovative technologies, such as the tokenization of assets, as well as new forms of digital payments, have challenged both current business models and the existing models of regulation. In this scenario, semantic transparency is fundamental not only to a...
Finance and economics are wide domains, where ontologies are useful instruments for dealing with semantic interoperability and information integration problems, as well as improving communication and problem solving among people. In particular, reference ontologies have been widely recognized as powerful tools for representing a model of consensus...
Conceptual modeling plays a fundamental role to capture information about complex business domains (e.g., finance, healthcare) and enables semantic interoperability. To fulfill their role, conceptual models must contain the exact set of constraints that represent the worldview of the relevant domain stakeholders. However, as empirical results show,...
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of reference conceptual models to capture information about complex and sensitive business domains (e.g., finance, healthcare, space). These models play a fundamental role in different types of critical semantic interoperability tasks. Therefore, domain experts must be able to understand...
Conceptual modeling plays a fundamental role to capture information about complex business domains (e.g., finance, travel, and healthcare) and enabling their interoperability. To fulfill their role, conceptual models must contain the exact set of constraints that represent the worldview of the relevant domain stakeholders. However, as empirical res...
In the past decades, the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) has played an important role in supporting the development of ontologies in academic and business settings, being employed to represent widely diverse domains. In this period, a dedicated community of researchers has worked to support UFO and its representation language, OntoUML, by creat...
In the domain of the platform economy we identified two gaps in the current literature. First the lack of a shared conceptualization of digital platform types. We solve this issue with a taxonomy giving an overview of digital platform attributes, with attribute values expressing the possible variations between platforms depending on their type. The...
Recently, ontology-based approaches to security, in particular to information security, have been recognized as a relevant challenge and as an area of research interest of its own. As the number of ontologies about security grows for supporting different applications, semantic interoperability issues emerge. Relatively little attention has been pai...