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  1. A conceptual investigation of the ontological commensurability of spatial data infrastructures among different cultures.D. J. Saab - 2009 - Earth Science Informatics 2 (4):283-297.
    Humans think and communicate in very flexible and schematic ways, and a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the Amazon and associated information system ontologies should reflect this flexibility and the adaptive nature of human cognition in order to achieve semantic interoperability. In this paper I offer a conceptual investigation of SDI and explore the nature of cultural schemas as expressions of indigenous ontologies and the challenges of semantic interoperability across cultures. Cultural schemas are, in essence, our ontologies, but they are (...)
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  2. Ontological Complexity and Human Culture.D. J. Saab & F. Fonseca - forthcoming - In R. Hagengruber (ed.), Proceedings of Philosophy's Relevance in Information Science.
    Ontologies are being used by information scientists in order to facilitate the sharing of meaningful information. However, computational ontologies are problematic in that they often decontextualize information. The semantic content of information is dependent upon the context in which it exists and the experience through which it emerges. For true semantic interoperability to occur among diverse information systems, within or across domains, information must remain contextualized. In order to bring more context to computational ontologies, we introduce culture as an essential (...)
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  3. Culture as Mediator for what is Ready-to-hand: A Phenomenological Exploration of Semantic Networks.D. J. Saab - manuscript
    Upon what philosophical foundation are semantic network graphs based? Does this foundation allow for the legitimization of other semantic networks and ontological diversity? How can we design our computational and informational systems to accommodate this ontological diversity and the variety of semantic networks? Are semantic networks segmentations of larger semantic landscapes? This paper explores semantic networks from a Heideggerian existentialist and phenomenological perspective. The analysis presented uses cultural schema theory to bridge the syntactic and lexical elements to the semantic and (...)
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