Theory COMPONENT-ASSEMBLIES

• Last modified: Wednesday, 7 September 1994
• Source code: component-assemblies.lisp
• List of other known theories

Theory documentation:

A COMPONENT is a structure that can have parts and connections. The parts are also components, and the connections are to other components. The concept of components defined in this theory is a fundamental abstraction that applies in many engineering domains. Component structures appear as physical parts in a machine, modules in a software program, functions in a functional description, and model fragments in a model library. The part relation for components is called SUBCOMPONENT-OF, and it is not tied to physical inclusion. For named part relations, the relations HAS-SUBPART-SLOT and SUBPART-SLOT-OF are defined. Each subpart-slot is a unary-function from a component to one of its subcomponent.

Connection in this theory is also an abstract primitive notion. Two varieties of connections are defined. The binary relation CONNECTED-COMPONENTS is the minimal, most abstract relation between connected components. Connections may also be reified as CONNECTION objects.

What makes something a component is how it is related to other objects by the subcomponent and connection relations. That is why this theory is called component assemblies, and why the notions of part and connection are combined with the notion of component structure.

Components and subcomponent relations are quite different from classes and subclass relations (CLASS and SUBCLASS-OF). There is no property inheritence through subcomponent or connection relations.

Notes:

• Copyright (c) 1994, Thomas R. Gruber and Gregory R. Olsen
• This is pretty abstract. What is it for?

  With this vocabulary one may define hierarchical configurations of components. There are tools that commit to this ontology that can draw and analyze graphs of these hierarchies without any more information about the nature of the components and connections.

Cross Reference Report:

Theories included by Component-Assemblies:

  Frame-Ontology

Theories that include Component-Assemblies:

  Components-With-Constraints
  Dme-Cml
  Mechanical-Components

3 classes defined:

    Component
       Connection
    Subpart-Slot

6 relations defined:

  Connected-Components
  Connects-Components
  Has-Subcomponent
  Has-Subpart-Slot
  Subcomponent-Of
  Subpart-Slot-Of

No functions defined.

No instances defined.

The following constants were used from included theories:

• Antisymmetric-Relation defined as a class in theory Frame-Ontology
• Arity defined as a function in theory Frame-Ontology
• Class defined as a class in theory Frame-Ontology
• Documentation defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Domain defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Domain-Of defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Individual-Thing defined as a class in theory Frame-Ontology
• Instance-Of defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Inverse defined as a function in theory Kif-Relations
• Irreflexive-Relation defined as a class in theory Frame-Ontology
• Minimum-Value-Cardinality defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Range defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Relation defined as a class in theory Kif-Relations
• Subclass-Of defined as a relation in theory Frame-Ontology
• Symmetric-Relation defined as a class in theory Frame-Ontology
• Unary-Function defined as a class in theory Kif-Relations
• Value defined as a function in theory Kif-Relations
• Value-Cardinality defined as a function in theory Frame-Ontology

All constants that were mentioned were defined.