Barry Smith, the Founder of the ICBO conference series, is one of the most widely
cited contemporary philosophers. His pioneering work on the science of ontology led
to the establishment of Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), which is the most commonly
adopted top-level ontology development framework. In 2021, BFO was approved as an
ISO standard top-level ontology (in ISO/IEC:21838-2). This makes it the first
example of a piece of philosophy that has been elevated to the level of an
international standard. His work led also to the formation of the OBO (Open
Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry, a suite of interoperable ontology modules designed
to support information-driven research in biology and biomedicine. The methodology
underlying BFO and the OBO Foundry is today being applied in a range of different
domains, including military intelligence, industrial engineering and quantum
physics.
Maurício Barcellos
Talk: A BFO-BASED AUTHORITY FRAMEWORK FOR HEALTHCARE CORPORATIONS
PhD in Information Science with Post-doctorate at the State University of New York
(US), researcher at the Ontology Research Group (US), leader of the ReCol group
(BR), CNPq Level 2 Productivity Scholar. Mauricio is currently a professor at the
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) where he conducts research on Knowledge
Representation and Applied Ontology. He is the author of more than 200 national and
international publications on the subject.
Renata Guizzardi
Talk: ETHICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR AI SYSTEMS
Renata Guizzardi is an Assistant Professor at the Industrial Engineering and Business
Information Systems Department of the University of Twente, in the Netherlands.
Moreover, she is a founding member of the Ontology & Conceptual Modeling Research
Group (NEMO) and of the Laboratory of Supporting Technologies for Collaborative
Networks (LabTAR), at UFES, Brazil, where she was based from 2009-2016. For around
30 years, she has been busy with research work on Computer-Assisted Education,
Requirements Engineering, Conceptual Modeling and Ontologies, focusing on the
interplay of these research areas to improve the development of information systems
and organizational practices. Since 2021, she is the steering committee chair of the
Iberoamerican Conference on Software Engineering (CIbSE), also having been part of
the organization committee of numerous other conferences, such as ER, RCIS, CAiSE
and EDOC. She is also in the editorial board of the International Journal of
Knowledge and Learning and often serves as reviewer for relevant scientific
journals, such as the Springer Software and Systems Modeling and the IAOA Applied
Ontologies journals.
The Role of Ontologies in the Development of Ethical Systems
Ethics is an integral part of people's everyday life whether they are aware of this
or not. When a teacher grades exams of dozens of students aiming at consistency and
transparency, she is making ethical decisions. The same happens when doctors use
ethical criteria to choose which patients should be prioritized in face of limited
resources, or when people are treated fairly in job interview despite their color
and gender. With the speedy development of intelligent technology, systems are more
and more pervasive, and machines are also expected to make ethical decisions and act
ethically. However, to ensure that, system developers must be aware of ethical
principles. Moreover, such principles must guide development, thus being explicitly
embedded in system engineering methods. In this talk, I argue that ontologies may
play a crucial role in supporting awareness, besides being essential in the
development of engineering practices leading ethical and trustworthy systems. In
particular, I describe our own current efforts in the development of ontology-based
requirements engineering and what that entails. We will talk about promising
directions and results of this research and discuss what else is to be expected as
next steps.
About Talk
Ethical behavior is an integral part of people’s everyday life whether they are aware of this or not. When a teacher grades exams of dozens of students aiming at consistency and transparency, she is making ethical decisions. The same happens when doctors use ethical criteria to choose which patients should be prioritized in face of limited resources, or when people are treated fairly in job interview despite their color and gender. With the speedy development of intelligent technology, systems are more and more pervasive, and machines are also expected to make ethical decisions and act ethically. However, to ensure that, system developers must be aware of ethical principles. Moreover, such principles must guide development, thus being explicitly embedded in system engineering methods. In this talk, I argue that ontologies may play a crucial role in supporting awareness, besides being essential in the development of engineering practices leading ethical and trustworthy systems. In particular, I describe our own current efforts in the development of ontology-based requirements engineering and what that entails. We will talk about promising directions and results of this research and discuss what else is to be expected as next steps.
Mathias Brochhausen
Talk: IMPROVING ONTOLOGIES TO FOSTER AI IN BIOMEDICINE.
Mathias Brochhausen is a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and
the Department of Humanities in Medicine of the University of Arkansas for Medical
Sciences. In the Department of Biomedical Informatics, he is the Vice-Chair for
Academic Programs and Faculty Development. He is a member of UAMS' Translational
Research Institute, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, and the Institute of
Digital Health and Innovation.
Mathias has worked in Biomedical Ontologies and Applied Ontologies since 2005. He
has held positions in that area at Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany and
the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. His research interests include
semantic technologies, particularly knowledge representation and reasoning applied
to clinical and clinical research data. Dr. Brochhausen developed and co-developed
multiple ontologies coded in Web Ontology Language (OWL), such as the Document Act
Ontology (d-acts), the Ontology for Biobanking (OBIB) Apollo-SV, etc. He has
received funding through the National Institutes of Health, most notably as the
Principal Investigator of the CAFÉ/TIPTOE project, which assesses the impact of
organizational parameters on patient outcomes in trauma care. He is the author of
over 60 peer-reviewed publications, is an associate editor of BMC Medical
Informatics and Decision Making, a member of the Editorial Board of Applied
Ontology. He has refereed for over a dozen journals, and has served on numerous
conference program committees.
