The Impact of an Ontological Theory of
        Relations in Enterprise Modeling

                            João Paulo A. Almeida

         Ontology & Conceptual Modeling Research Group (NEMO),
             Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Brazil
                          jpalmeida@ieee.org



Abstract. Conceptual models capture invariant aspects of entities in the domain
of inquiry along with the relations they establish. Explicit attention to these re-
lations is a key aspect of the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO), which pro-
poses the reification of mediating entities called relators. Examples of relators
include marriages, enrollments and employments. Relators ‘connect’ entities in
the scope of a relationship, and become the focus of our modeling effort when
applying the relator pattern. This pattern allow us to zoom in on what would
usually be represented as an opaque predicate (e.g., ‘married to’, ‘enrolled in’,
‘employed by’). As a consequence, we may identify roles played by the relata in
the scope of the relation, we may explore the various types of relators (in relator
taxonomies), as well as identify the decomposition of relators into parts (rela-
tional aspects that inhere in an entity but depend on another related entity). Over
the years, we have applied the notion of relator and the relator pattern in a number
of organizational domains. This has led to improvements to enterprise modeling,
with consequences to the representation of phenomena involving services, service
networks, contracts, trust, value and risk. A number of examples from ArchiMate
(and its various extensions) reveal the benefits of applying UFO’s micro-theory
of relators to enterprise modeling.

Short bio. João Paulo A. Almeida is Associate Professor at the Federal Univer-
sity of Espírito Santo, Brazil, and Senior Member of the Ontology & Conceptual
Modeling Research Group (NEMO). He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from
the University of Twente, The Netherlands. Since 2007, he has been working on
the application of ontologies in conceptual modeling, enterprise architecture and
enterprise modeling. He is a senior member of the IEEE and of the ACM. He
has served as Dean of the Graduate School in Computer Science at the Federal
University of Espírito Santo, as member of the Executive Committee of the In-
ternational Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA) and as chair of
the Steering Committee of the IEEE EDOC Enterprise Computing Conference.