An ontology is a category system developed to classify and reason about entities of different sorts. In former times such systems were developed manually, sometimes by philosophers. Nowadays ontologies are created inside the computer and UB is a world center of this new digital ontology research. UB faculty and students are involved in efforts to develop ontologies in areas such as: Collaborative Behavior, Populations and Communities, Emotions, Information Artifacts, and Mental Diseases. One special area of focus is the Environment Ontology, which was developed in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme. Another is the Ontology of Medically Related Social Entities, where we are working with medical scientists to develop ontologies of gender and other demographic categories. Smith will describe how ontologies are built, how they work, and what they are useful for, welcoming both audience members not familiar with this work and those already active in the field.
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