UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) vocabulary provides a general vocabulary (the UMBEL "vocabulary") of classes and predicates for describing domain ontologies, with the specific aim of promoting interoperability with external datasets and domains.
Structured Dynamics LLC
Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer (UMBEL) Vocabulary
The property umbel:hasCharacteristic is used to assert the relation between a Reference Concept and external properties that may be used in external ontologies to characterize, describe, or provide attributes for data records associated with that concept. It is via this property or its inverse, umbel:isCharacteristicOf, that external data characterizations may be incorporated and modeled within a domain ontology based on the UMBEL vocabulary.
has characteristic
The property umbel:isCharacteristicOf is used to assert the relation between a property and a Reference Concept (or its punned individual) to which it applies. Such properties may be used in external ontologies to characterize, describe, or provide attributes for data records associated with that concept. It is via this property or its inverse, umbel:hasCharacteristic, that external data characterizations may be incorporated and modeled within a domain ontology based on the UMBEL vocabulary.
is characteristic of
The property umbel:correspondsTo is used to assert a close correspondence between an external class, named entity, individual or instance with a Reference Concept class. umbel:correspondsTo relates the external class, named entity, individual or instance to the class through the basis of both its subject matter and intended scope. This predicate should be used where the correspondence between the two entities is felt to be nearly equivalent to a sameAs assertion, and is reflexive, but without the full entailments of intensional class memberships. In these cases, both entities are understood to have the same type and intended scope, but without asserting a full class-level or sameAs individual relationship. This predicate is designed for the circumstance of aligning two different ontologies or knowledge bases based on node-level correspondences, but without entailing the actual ontological relationships and structure of the object source. For example, the umbel:correspondsTo predicate is used to assert close correspondence between UMBEL Reference Concepts and Wikipedia categories or pages, yet without entailing the actual Wikipedia category structure. This property asserts a different and stronger relationship than umbel:isAbout. One practical use is to guide specific instance member determinations when, say, the native structure of the external ontology or knowledge base is to be analyzed and replaced with an UMBEL-based structure. This property is therefore used to create a nearly equivalent assertion (however, with the degree of that equivalence being unknown or unknowable) between an external instance or class and a Reference Concept class
This property is used to reify a umbel:isAbout or a umbel:isRelatedTo property to a mapping percentage value, some quantitative metric value, or a qualitative descriptor characterizing the linkage degree or overlap between the two classes, predicates, individuals or datatypes. This value might be calculated from some external utility.
has mapping
The property umbel:isAbout is used to assert the relation between a named entity (individual) and a Reference Concept class. umbel:isAbout relates the named entity (individual) to the class through the basis of its subject matter. The relation acknowledges that the scope of the class can not be determined solely by the aggregation or extent of its associated individual entity members, and that the nature of the Reference Concept class may not alone bound or define the individual entity. This property is therefore used to create a topical assertion between an individual and a Reference Concept.
is about
The property umbel:isLike is used to assert an associative link between similar individuals who may or may not be identical, but are believed to be so. This property is not intended as a general expression of similarity, but rather the likely but uncertain same identity of the two resources being related. This property can and should be changed if the certainty of the sameness of identity is subsequently determined. In general, we may not be able to assert that two individuals are the same based solely on current information on hand. However, there may be quite reasonable bases or methods that the two individuals are likely the same without being one hundred percent sure. umbel:isLike has the semantics of likely identity, but where there is some uncertainty that the two resources indeed refer to the exact same individual with the same identity. Such uncertainty can arise when, for example, common names may be used for different individuals (e.g., John Smith). It is appropriate to use this property when there is strong belief the two resources refer to the same individual with the same identity, but that association can not be asserted at the present time with certitude.
is like
Check the definition of umbel:isAbout for the definition of this property; isRelatedTo is the inverse property of isAbout.
links entity
This predicate relates an external entity to the SuperType (ST) shown. It indicates there is a relationship to the ST of a verifiable nature, but which is undetermined as to strength or a full rdf:type relationship
has abstraction
has activity
relates to animal
relates to area or region
has attribute
relates to audio information
relates to a biological process
relates to chemistry
relates to disease
relates to drug
relates to atom or element
relates to entity
has event
relates to facility
relates to finance or economy
has food drink
has form
relates to geopolitical entity
relates to a location or place
relates to organic chemistry
has organization type
relates to other organism
has person type
relates to natural phenomenon
relates to plant
has product type
relates to situation
relates to society
relates to structured information
relates to natural substance
has time
has topic
relates to visual information
relates to written information
The AV Info SuperType is for information that contains BOTH audio and visual information, such as talking movies, TV commercials, etc.
AV info
abstract level
abstraction
This general SuperType category is composed of former AbstractConcepts, and represents some of the more abstract upper-level nodes for connecting the UMBEL structure together. None of these concepts has a real use in inference or reasoning.
abstractions
activity types
These are ongoing activities that result (mostly) from human effort, often conducted by organizations to assist other organizations or individuals (in which case they are known as services, such as medicine, law, printing, consulting or teaching) or individual or group efforts for leisure, fun, sports, games or personal interests (activities). Generic, broad grouping of actions that apply to generic objects are also included in this SuperType.
activities
agent
animate agent
The Agents SuperType is for all beings, single or acting as groups, that can express and act upon desires or beliefs. Agents may be individual Persons, general Organizations, or Geopolitical entities.
agents
aniimal
This large SuperType includes all animal types, including specific animal types and vertebrates, invertebrates, insects, crustaceans, fish, reptiles, amphibia, birds, mammals, and animal body parts. Animal parts are specifically included. Also, groupings of such animals are included. Humans, as an animal, are included (versus as an individual Person). Diseases are specifically excluded. Animals have many of the similar overlaps to Plants. However, in addition, there are more terms for animal groups, animal parts, animal secretions, etc. Also Animals can include some human traits (posture, dead animal, etc)
animals
area
areas
region
regions
The AreaRegion SuperType includes all nameable or definable areas or regions that may be found within "space". Though the distinction is not sharp, this SuperType is meant to be distinct from specific points of interest (POIs) that may be mapped (often displayed as a thumbtack). Areas or regions are best displayed on a map as a polygon (area) or path (polyline).
area or region
artifact
The Artifacts SuperType is a major grouping of SuperTypes and is for all material expressions of human works, except for those strictly related to information or data.
artifacts
atoms
chemical element
The Atoms and Elements SuperType contains all known chemical elements and the constituents of atoms.
atoms or elements
attribute
attribute types
This general SuperType category is for descriptive attributes of all kinds. Think of the specific attributes in Wikipedia "infoboxes" to understand the purpose and coverage of this SuperType. It includes colors, shapes, sizes, or other descriptive characteristics about an object. Attributes are the intensional characteristics or descriptions of an object or concept.
attributes
This SuperType is for any audio-only human work. Examples include live music performances, record albums, or radio shows or individual radio broadcasts
audio information
biochemical pathways
biological process
The Biochemical Processes SuperType is for all sequences of reactions and chemical pathways associated with living things.
biological processes
This SuperType is a residual category for chemical bonds, chemical composition groupings, and the like. It is formed by what is not a natural substance or living thing (organic) substance. Organic Chemistry and Biological Processes are, by definition, separate SuperTypes. This Chemistry SuperType thus includes inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, materials chemistry, nuclear chemistry, and theoretical chemistry.
chemistry
concept
Concepts are ideas and mediated combinations of ideas that reflect more abstract or generalized thoughts than the typing or natural classing of objects, the focus of most other supertypes. Concepts are non-disjoint with all other supertypes.
concepts
constituent
constituent types
This grouping of SuperTypes represents building blocks, or components, commonly used by other SuperTypes. The basic building block areas are Space, Time and fundamental Natural Phenomena or processes. Because of their role as constituents in orther SuperTypes, there are few disjoint assertions within this grouping.
constituents
convention
language
languages
notation
notations
Conventions are agreed-upon or accepted combinations of symbolic primitives in order to enable languages, notations, logic constructs, symbolic representation, and the like. All artificial and natural language constructs are included here, but also agreed means for representing icons, indexes and designs.
conventions
disease
pathology
Diseases are atypical or unusual or unhealthy conditions for (mostly human) living things, generally known as conditions, disorders, infections, diseases or syndromes. Diseases only affect living things and sometimes are caused by living things. This SuperType also includes impairments, disease vectors, wounds and injuries, and poisoning.
diseases
drug
pharmaceutical
This SuperType is a drug, medication or addictive substance, or a toxin or a poison.
drugs
eukaryote
Eukaryotes are living things that have a cell nucleus and cell membrane, and are one of the three major kingdoms of life.
eukaryotes
event
event types
These are nameable occasions, games, sports events, conferences, natural phenomena, natural disasters, wars, incidents, anniversaries, holidays, or notable moments or periods in time Events have a finite duration, with a beginning and end. Individual events (such as wars, disasters, newsworthy occasions) may also have their own names.
events
facility
Facilities are physical places or buildings constructed by humans, such as schools, public institutions, markets, museums, amusement parks, worship places, stations, airports, ports, carstops, lines, railroads, roads, waterways, tunnels, bridges, parks, sport facilities, monuments. All can be geospatially located. Facilities also include animal pens and enclosures and general human "activity" areas (golf course, archeology sites, etc.). Iportantly Facilities include infrastructure systems such as roadways and physical networks. Facilities also include the component parts that go into making them (such as foundations, doors, windows, roofs, etc.) Facilities can also include natural structures that have been converted or used for human activities, such as occupied caves or agricultural facilities. Finally, facilities also include workplaces. Workplaces are areas of human activities, ranging from single person workstations to large aggregations of people (but which are not formal political entities)
facilities
economy
finance
This SuperType pertains to all things financial and with respect to the economy, including chartable company performance, stock index entities, money, local currencies, taxes, incomes, accounts and accounting, mortgages and property.
finance and economy
This SuperType is any edible substance grown, made or harvested by humans. The category also specifically includes the concept of cuisines
food or drink
form
form types
This SuperType category includes all aspects of the shapes that objects take in space; Forms is thus closely related to Shapes. The Forms SuperType is also the collection of natural cartographic features that occur on the surface of the Earth or other planetary bodies, as well as the form shapes that naturally occurring matter way assume. Positive examples include Mountain, Ocean, and Mesa. Artificial features such as canals are excluded. Most instances of these natural features have a fixed location in space.
forms
The Geopolitical SuperType is for named places that have some informal or formal political (authorized) component. Important subcollections include Country, IndependentCountry, State_Geopolitical, City, and Province.
geopolitical
The Information SuperType is a grouping of SuperTypes dealing with any aspect of human or computer information, including written, audio, visual or structural forms. All instances in this SuperType are conceptual works.
information
animate thing
animate things
life form
life forms
living thing
organism
organisms
The Living Things SuperType is for all living organisms, including humans (as animals). Also included in the definition are the diseases that may affect living things.
living things
location
locations
place
places
The LocationPlace SuperType is for bounded and defined points in "space", which can be positiioned via some form of coordinate system and can often be shown as points of interest (POIs) on a map. This SuperType is distinguished by areas or locations, which are often best displayed as polygons or polylines on a map.
location or place
manifestation
This grouping of SuperTypes includes what might be termed perceived "reality", including substances and ideas and concepts. Manifestations are the various ways that substances or ideas and concepts may be expressed or perceived. The three major subdivisions of Manifestation are Natural (inanimate) Matter, Organic (living and decomposed) Matter, and Symbolic (which are human works, ideas or information). Fictional things may also be manifestations of a symbolic type.
manifestations
mental process
thinking
The Mental Processes SuperType is for human and cognitive constructs not otherwise related to natural classes. Concepts, topics and categories and category systems are specifically included in this SuperType. All mental processes are inherently non-disjoint.
mental processes
natural things
The Natural Matter SuperType captures all non-living, non-artifactual actual things found in nature, and not a result of human or cognitive activity.
natural matter
natural phenomenon
natural processes
This SuperType includes natural phenomena and natural processes such as weather, weathering, erosion, fires, lightning, earthquakes, tectonics, etc. Clouds and weather processes are specifically included. Also includes climate cycles, general natural events (such as hurricanes) that are not specifically named.
natural phenomena
natural materials
natural substance
The Natural Substances SuperType are minerals, compounds, chemicals, or physical objects that are not the outcome of purposeful human effort, but are found naturally occurring. Other natural objects (such as rock, fossil, etc.) are also found under this SuperType. Chemicals can be Natural Substances, but only if they are naturally occurring, such as limestone or salt.
natural substances
biochemistry
The Organic Chemistry SuperType is for all chemistry involving carbon, including the biochemistry of living organisms and the materials chemistry (including polymers) of organic compounds such as fossil fuels.
organic chemistry
This umbrella SuperType represents all living things, dead things, decompositions from dead things, and fluids or excretions from living things. All agents related to living things or organizations are included. The organic chemistry underlying life is also included, as are diseases associated with living things.
organic matter
groups
organization
Organization is a broad SuperType and includes formal collections of humans, sometimes by legal means, charter, agreement or some mode of formal understanding. Examples include geoplotical entities such as nations, municipalities or countries (though these have also been segregated into their own supertype); or companies, institutes, governments, universities, militaries, political parties, game groups, international organizations, trade associations, etc. All institutions, for example, are organizations. Also included are informal collections of humans. Informal or less defined groupings of humans may result from ethnicity or tribes or nationality or from shared interests (such as social networks or mailing lists) or expertise ("communities of practice"). This dimension also includes the notion of identifiable human groups with set members at any given point in time. Examples include music groups, cast members of a play, directors on a corporate Board, TV show members, gangs, mobs, juries, generations, minorities, etc. Finally, Organizations contain the concepts of Industries and Programs and Communities.
organizations
person types
The appropriate SuperType for all named, individual human beings. This SuperType also includes the assignment of formal, honorific or cultural titles given to specific human individuals. It further includes names given to humans who conduct specific jobs or activities (the latter case is known as an avocation). Examples include steelworker, waitress, lawyer, plumber, artisan. Ethnic groups are specifically included. Persons as living animals are included under the Animals SuperType.
persons
place types
The Places SuperType is for any area within a space. Areas within Places may be either areas or regions or specific locations or places.
plant
This SuperType includes all plant types and flora, including flowering plants, algae, non-flowering plants, gymnosperms, cycads, and plant parts and body types. Note that all Plant Parts are also included.
plants
characters
numbers
primitive
Primitives are the basic building blocks of human and artificial communications via symbolic means, and expressly include numbers, characters, ideograms, and basic written notations.
This unique SuperType is for any abstract representation of numbers and numerics
primitives
good
product
This is SuperType includes any instance offered for sale or performed as a commercial service. A Product is often a physical object made by humans that is not a conceptual work or a facility, such as vehicles, cars, trains, aircraft, spaceships, ships, foods, beverages, clothes, drugs, weapons.
products
prokaryote
The Prokaryotes include all prokaryotic organisms, including the Monera, Archaebacteria, Bacteria, and Blue-green algas. Prokaryotes lack a cell membrane and cell nucleus. By convention, also included in this SuperType are viruses and prions.
prokaryotes
fungi
fungus
protista
protists
This is the remaining cluster of eukaryotic organisms, specifically including the fungus and the protista (protozoans and slime molds).
protists fungus
The Qualifier class is a set of descriptions that indicate the method used in order to establish an isAbout relationship between an UMBEL reference concept (RC) and an external entity. This description should be complete enough to aid understanding of the nature and reliability of the "aboutness" assertion and to be usable for filtering or user interface information. The descriptions may be literal strings or may refer to literal numeric values resulting from an automated alignment technique.
qualifier
Reference Concepts are a distinct subset of the more broadly understood concept such as used in the SKOS RDFS controlled vocabulary or formal concept analysis or the very general or abstract concepts common to some upper ontologies. Reference Concepts are selected for their use as concrete, subject-related or commonly used notions for describing tangible ideas and referents in human experience and language. Reference Concepts are classes, the members of which are nameable instances or named entities, which by definition are held as distinct from these concepts. The UMBEL ontology is a coherently organized structure (or reference "backbone") of these Reference Concepts.
reference concept
relation
relation types
This Relations SuperType category is for properties that relate a given object or concept to another object, concept or role. Relations capture the extensional ways that objects or concepts are placed into context with external objects, concepts or roles.
relations
Science is a systematic human activity that creates, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. It has an organizational structure that resembles the fields of study found in higher education.
science
shape
shape types
The Shapes SuperType captures all 1D, 2D and 3D shapes, regular or irregular. Most shapes are geometrically describable things.
shapes
sign
sign element
Sign elements are a grouping of SuperTypes that comprise the portions of a specific sign (in the terminology of Charles Sanders Peirce). In the Resource Description Framework (RDF) context, most sign elements are what constitutes the components of a statement or individual assertion ("triple").
sign elements
situation
situation types
The Situations SuperType is a state or context consisting of one or more objects having certain properties or bearing certain relations to each other. Situations capture the conditions or circumstances for something. Situations can often be a complex combination of contextual conditions.
situations
social process
Social Processes are the complex systems and processes pursued by humans as social groups.
social processes
This SuperType category includes concepts related to political systems, laws, rules or cultural mores governing societal or community behavior, or doctrinal, faith or religious bases or entities (such as gods, angels, totems) governing spiritual human matters. Culture, Issues, beliefs and various activisms (most -isms) are included.
society
space types
This SuperType category is a grouping of other SuperTypes that comprehensively cover all concepts related to the idea of "space" and locations and positions within that "space". Specific sub-groupings under the category include the definition and specification of 1D, 2D and 3D shapes; places, regions and locations within space; and forms that objects may take within "space".
space
This information SuperType is for all kinds of structured information and datasets, including computer programs, databases, files, Web pages and structured data that can be presented in tabular form.
structured information
Structures are akin to conceptual works, in that they are codified means of human or artificial expression. Examples range from human languages themselves, to more domain-specific cases such as chemical symbols, genetic code (A-G-C-T), protocols, and computer languages, mathematical and set notations, etc. Identifiers (numeric or alphanumeric identifiers for objects, often in a highly patterned way, such as phone numbers, URLs, zip and postal codes, SKUs, product codes, etc.), Units (any of the various ways in which measurement, space, volume, weight, speed, intensity, temperature, calories, siesmic intensity or other quantitative descriptions of phenomena can be made) and key reference types are also included in this category.
structures
SuperTypes are a collection of (mostly) similar Reference Concepts. Most of the SuperType classes have been designed to be (mostly) disjoint from the other SuperType classes. SuperTypes thus provide a higher-level of clustering and organization of Reference Concepts for use in user interfaces and for reasoning purposes.
SuperType
This grouping of SuperTypes is for all works, ideas, information and concepts resulting from symbolic human (and artificial agent) cognition.
symbolic
sign synbol
symbol
Symbols are all forms of human or artificial notation that represent the building blocks of communication systems (primitives), agreed ways of representing or combining those primitives (conventions), and various organized methods or patterns of those communications (structures).
symbols
system
Systems are ongoing processes of human- or cognitive-related effort. This SuperType is a grouping of such individual supertypes.
systems
time types
This grouping of SuperTypes is for all concepts with a time-related component, such as an activity that spans over time, an event which has a beginning and an end, or general time-related concepts.
time
This SuperType is for specific time or date or period (such as eras, or days, weeks, months type intervals) references in various formats
times
categories
category
topic
topics
This largely subject-oriented SuperType is a means for using controlled vocabularies and classification schemes for characterizing what content "is about". The key constituents of this category are Types, Classifications, Concepts, CCC, and controlled vocabularies
topics categories
The Visual Info SuperType is for any still image or picture or streaming video human work, with or without audio. Examples include graphics, pictures, movies, TV shows, individual shows from a TV show, etc.
visual information
This SuperType includes any general material written by humans including books, blogs, articles, manuscripts, but any written information conveyed via text.
written information
Mapping based on automatic scoring of concepts using S-Match, with specific alignment choice based on hand selection.
Automatic - Inspected S-Match
Mapping based on automatic scoring of concepts using Semantic Vectors, with specific alignment choice based on hand selection.
Automatic - Inspected SV
Automatic - Not Specified
Mapping based on automatic scoring of concepts using a script or technique not otherwise specified.
Mapping based on existing DBOntology assertion.
External - DBOntology Mapping
Mapping based on existing GeoNames assertion.
External - GeoNames Mapping
Mapping based on existing OpenCyc assertion.
External - OpenCyc Mapping
Type assignment based on Wikipedia ListOf category.
Heuristic - ListOf Basis
Heuristic mapping method applied; script or technique not otherwise specified.
Heuristic - Not Specified
The two mapped concepts are deemed to be nearly an equivalentClass or sameAs relationship, but not 100% so.
Manual - Nearly Equivalent
The two mapped concepts share much overlap, but are not the exact same sense, such as an action as related to the thing it acts upo.
Manual - Similar Sense
super property of
Specifies that a property is a super property of another property. This is the inverse of rdfs:subPropertyOf