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An evolutionary approach to Function

Phillip Lord¹

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1. School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, UK

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Document Type:

Manuscript

Date:

Received 07 May 2009 11:34 UTC; Posted 11 May 2009

Subjects:

Bioinformatics

Tags:

• upper ontology
• semantic
• ontology
• function

Abstract:

The distinction between function and role is a vexed and difficult one. While the distinction appears to be useful, in practice it is hard to apply; this can be even worse when applying this distinction to biology. In this paper, I take an evolutionary approach, considering a series of examples, to develop and generate definitions for these concepts. I test them in practice against work performed on the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). Finally, I give an axiomatisation and discuss methods for applying these definitions in practice.

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This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How to cite this document:

Lord, Phillip. An evolutionary approach to Function. Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2009.3228.1> (2009)

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