This report describes a new version of the OntoSpec methodology for ontology building. Defined by the LaRIA Knowledge Engineering Team (University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France), OntoSpec aims at helping builders to model ontological knowledge (upstream of formal representation). The methodology relies on a set of rigorously-defined modelling primitives and principles. Its application leads to the elaboration of a semi-informal ontology, which is independent of knowledge representation languages. We recently enriched the OntoSpec methodology by endowing it with a new resource, the DOLCE top-level ontology defined at the LOA (IST-CNR, Trento, Italy). The goal of this integration is to provide modellers with additional help in structuring application ontologies, while maintaining independence vis-à-vis formal representation languages. In this report, we first provide an overview of the OntoSpec methodology's general principles and then describe the DOLCE re-engineering process. A complete version of DOLCE-OS (i.e. a specification of DOLCE in the semi-informal OntoSpec language) is presented in an appendix.

Extraction of association rules is widely used as a data mining method. However, one of the limit of this approach comes from the large number of extracted rules and the difficulty for a human expert to deal with the totality of these rules. We propose to solve this problem by structuring the set of rules into hierarchy. The expert can then therefore explore the rules, access from one rule to another one more general when we raise up in the hierarchy, and in other hand, or a more specific rules. Rules are structured at two levels. The global level aims at building a hierarchy from the set of rules extracted. Thus we define a first type of rule-subsomption relying on Galois lattices. The second level consists in a local and more detailed analysis of each rule. It generate for a given rule a set of generalization rules structured into a local hierarchy. This leads to the definition of a second type of subsomption. This subsomption comes from inductive logic programming and integrates a terminological model.

Preference queries are relational algebra or SQL queries that contain occurrences of the winnow operator ("find the most preferred tuples in a given relation"). Such queries are parameterized by specific preference relations. Semantic optimization techniques make use of integrity constraints holding in the database. In the context of semantic optimization of preference queries, we identify two fundamental properties: containment of preference relations relative to integrity constraints and satisfaction of order axioms relative to integrity constraints. We show numerous applications of those notions to preference query evaluation and optimization. As integrity constraints, we consider constraint-generating dependencies, a class generalizing functional dependencies. We demonstrate that the problems of containment and satisfaction of order axioms can be captured as specific instances of constraint-generating dependency entailment. This makes it possible to formulate necessary and sufficient conditions for the applicability of our techniques as constraint validity problems. We characterize the computational complexity of such problems.

We show in this paper that, on the one hand, named entities can be designated using different denominations and that, on the second hand, names denoting named entities are polysemous. The analysis cannot be limited to reference resolution but should take into account naming strategies, which are mainly based on two linguistic operations: synecdoche and metonymy. Lastly, we present a model that explicitly represents the different denominations in discourse, unifying the way to represent linguistic knowledge and world knowledge.

In Quantum Physics, a measurement is represented by a projection on some closed subspace of a Hilbert space. We study algebras of operators that abstract from the algebra of projections on closed subspaces of a Hilbert space. The properties of such operators are justified on epistemological grounds. Commutation of measurements is a central topic of interest. Classical logical systems may be viewed as measurement algebras in which all measurements commute. Keywords: Quantum measurements, Measurement algebras, Quantum Logic. PACS: 02.10.-v.

What processes can explain how very large populations are able to converge on the use of a particular word or grammatical construction without global coordination? Answering this question helps to understand why new language constructs usually propagate along an S-shaped curve with a rather sudden transition towards global agreement. It also helps to analyze and design new technologies that support or orchestrate self-organizing communication systems, such as recent social tagging systems for the web. The article introduces and studies a microscopic model of communicating autonomous agents performing language games without any central control. We show that the system undergoes a disorder/order transition, going trough a sharp symmetry breaking process to reach a shared set of conventions. Before the transition, the system builds up non-trivial scale-invariant correlations, for instance in the distribution of competing synonyms, which display a Zipf-like law. These correlations make the system ready for the transition towards shared conventions, which, observed on the time-scale of collective behaviors, becomes sharper and sharper with system size. This surprising result not only explains why human language can scale up to very large populations but also suggests ways to optimize artificial semiotic dynamics.

Imitation is fundamental in the understanding of social system dynamics. But the diversity of imitation rules employed by modelers proves that the modeling of mimetic processes cannot avoid the traditional problem of endogenization of all the choices, including the one of the mimetic rules. Starting from the remark that human reflexive capacities are the ground for a new class of mimetic rules, I propose a formal framework, metamimetic games, that enable to endogenize the distribution of imitation rules while being human specific. The corresponding concepts of equilibrium - counterfactually stable state - and attractor are introduced. Finally, I give an interpretation of social differentiation in terms of cultural co-evolution among a set of possible motivations, which departs from the traditional view of optimization indexed to criteria that exist prior to the activity of agents.

The synchronization of two stochastically coupled one-dim ensional cellular automata (CA) is analyzed. It is shown that the transition to synchronizatio n is characterized by a dramatic increase of the statistical complexity of the patterns generated by t he difference automaton. This singular behavior is verified to be present in several CA rules display ing complex behavior. Despite all the efforts devoted to understand the meaning of complexity, we still do not have an instrument in the laboratories specially designed for quantifying this property. M aybe this is not the final objective of all those theoretical attempts carried out in the most diverse fields of know ledge in the last years [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8], but, for a moment, let us think in that possibility.

This paper presents a case study concerning the challenges and requirements posed by next generation language resources, realized as an overall model of open, distributed and collaborative language infrastructure. If a sort of "new paradigm" is required, we think that the emerging and still evolving technology connected to Grid computing is a very interesting and suitable one for a concrete realization of this vision. Given the current limitations of Grid computing, it is very important to test the new environment on basic language analysis tools, in order to get the feeling of what are the potentialities and possible limitations connected to its use in NLP. For this reason, we have done some experiments on a module of Linguistic Miner, i.e. the extraction of linguistic patterns from restricted domain corpora.

The prime number theorem, established by Hadamard and de la Vall'ee Poussin independently in 1896, asserts that the density of primes in the positive integers is asymptotic to 1 / ln x. Whereas their proofs made serious use of the methods of complex analysis, elementary proofs were provided by Selberg and Erd"os in 1948. We describe a formally verified version of Selberg's proof, obtained using the Isabelle proof assistant.