identifier

IRI: https://spec.industrialontologies.org/ontology/construct/Identifier

Defined In: https://spec.industrialontologies.org/ontology/core/Core/

SubClass Of: denoter · identifier

Class Hierarchy

owl:Thingbfo:entitybfo:continuantbfo:generically dependent continuantinformation content entitydenoteridentifier

Direct subclasses:

Definition

denoter that is used to uniquely identify an entity within a particular context

Explanatory Notes

  1. Identifier can be just one designative ICE or consist of a combination of them. It can also be a combination of other types of information; for example, in a particular domain of discourse, a combination of first name and last name can provide sufficient uniqueness for entities in that domain.
  2. The designative property enforces uniqueness as it is a functional property. In other words, on the instance level, each instance of identifier designates exactly one instance of an entity.

Examples

  • URI of a website; social security number of a person (living in the United States), a global location number assigned to the Amazon regional distribution center at 12300 Bermuda Rd in Henderson, NV; the lot identifier assigned to a batch of rivets just received from China by the Airbus final assembly plant in Toulouse, FR; the VIN number assigned to the Tesla in my garage; a credit card number, the value of a field in a company’s internal IT systems system used to uniquely identify a particular product and product revision.

Adapted From

  • https://www.omg.org/spec/Commons/Identifiers/Identifier

Primitive Class

This class is declared primitive and it does not have necessary and sufficient condiftions defined.

Primitive Rationale

There are insufficient constructs to create necessary and sufficient conditions. Namely patterns to connect context to the identifier are still missing

Formal Axioms

First-Order Logic Axioms

Identifier(x) → Denoter(x) ∧ ∃e(Entity(e) ∧ designates(x,e))

Semi-Formal Natural Language Axioms

if x is an ‘identifier’ then x is an ‘denoter’ that ‘designates’ some ‘entity’

Description Logic

EquivalentTo: _:Identifier

SubClassOf: constr:Denoter

SubClassOf: constr:designates some bfo:entity