What's in an `is about' link? Chemical diagrams and the Information Artifact Ontology
This addresses a theoretical problem in ontology design for computational chemistry, but it is incremental as it builds on existing frameworks.
The paper tackles the conflict between the Information Artifact Ontology's axiom that information entities must be 'about' something and ontological realism, as seen with diagrams of hypothetical molecules, and proposes a solution by treating diagrams as expressions of diagrammatic languages to resolve this issue and enable better categorization.
The Information Artifact Ontology is an ontology in the domain of information entities. Core to the definition of what it is to be an information entity is the claim that an information entity must be `about' something, which is encoded in an axiom expressing that all information entities are about some entity. This axiom comes into conflict with ontological realism, since many information entities seem to be about non-existing entities, such as hypothetical molecules. We discuss this problem in the context of diagrams of molecules, a kind of information entity pervasively used throughout computational chemistry. We then propose a solution that recognizes that information entities such as diagrams are expressions of diagrammatic languages. In so doing, we not only address the problem of classifying diagrams that seem to be about non-existing entities but also allow a more sophisticated categorisation of information entities.