Grounding Realizable Entities
This work provides incremental refinements to ontological representations for life science research, aiding in more precise modeling of complex biological phenomena.
The paper identifies gaps in the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) characterization of qualities, dispositions, and roles, and proposes definitions for grounding relations between these entities to address these issues, illustrating the approach with examples from host-pathogen interactions.
Ontological representations of qualities, dispositions, and roles have been refined over the past decade, clarifying subtle distinctions in life science research. After articulating a widely-used characterization of these entities within the context of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), we identify gaps in this treatment and motivate the need for supplementing the BFO characterization. By way of supplement, we propose definitions for grounding relations holding between qualities and dispositions, and dispositions and roles, illustrating our proposal by representing subtle aspects of host-pathogen interactions.