Applied ontology: An introduction

Ontology is the philosophical discipline that aims to understand how things in the world are divided into categories and how these categories are related. This is exactly what information scientists aim for in creating structured, automated representations, called ontologies, for managing information in fields such as science, government, industry, and healthcare. Currently, these systems are designed in a variety of different ways, so they cannot share data with one another. This volume shows, in a non-technical way and using examples from medicine and biology, how the rigorous application of theories and insights from philosophical ontology can improve the ontologies upon which information management depends.