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Pattern 1: Process-Agent-Role

Source: MWO  ·  Published by: ise-fizkarlsruhe.github.io  ·  Category: structural  ·  Domain: research-data

Shows how roles are assigned to agents participating in processes while staying aligned with BFO: bfo:Process is an Occurrent, nfdicore:Agent is an Independent Continuant that participates in the process, and bfo:Role is a Specifically Dependent Continuant borne by the agent. The object properties has_participant, realizes and bearer_of tie the three together.

What it answers

  • Who took part in a given activity, and in what capacity did each of them take part?
  • In which activities was a given role actually carried out, rather than only held?
  • Which activities has a given person or organization taken part in, and which of their roles did each of those activities put to use?

The pattern

The graph is the axioms the pattern asserts; nothing here is inferred. Drag to rearrange, scroll to zoom, and use the graph's own search box to find a term inside it.

Opens at level of detail 3: classes, individuals, properties and restrictions, without the literals. Raise it with the LOD control in the graph's own toolbar to see annotation values and anything a reasoner adds.

Download the pattern

Should you use this one?

Size 12 classes, 6 properties, 153 axioms
Brings in nothing - it stands on its own
Reasoning HermiT finds this pattern consistent, with no unsatisfiable class, and its worked example consistent with the pattern.

Its IRI is https://ontoboard.org/patterns/mwo-process-agent-role.owl - a name rather than an address: nothing answers there, so the download link above is the file.

Check it yourself: the published pattern  ·  an archived copy.

If a link does not open

ontologydesignpatterns.org, which publishes most of this library, does not currently answer over HTTPS, and its wiki redirects submission pages to its front page. The archived copy is there for exactly that reason. The ontology files themselves are still served over plain HTTP.

Terms it declares

The 18 classes and properties this pattern models, as the recommender scores them. Annotation properties and built-ins are excluded, because an annotation property is not modelling.

  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000001
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000002
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000003
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000004
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000006
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000015
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000017
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000020
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000023
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000054
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000055
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000141
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/BFO_0000196
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/RO_0000056
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/RO_0000057
  • http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/RO_0000087
  • https://nfdi.fiz-karlsruhe.de/ontology/NFDI_0000102
  • https://nfdi.fiz-karlsruhe.de/ontology/NFDI_0000229

An example of it in use

The pattern says what may be asserted; this says it. The graph below is a small set of individuals that instantiate the classes above and are connected by its properties, so the shape the pattern describes is visible as data rather than as a schema.

Download the example


Import this pattern into your own ontology from inside Protégé: OntoBoard → Reuse → Pattern library…, which hands it to Import terms… and writes the term list, the module, the import and the catalog entry the way ODK expects. See Working with ODK.

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