| has gloss | eng: The General Formal Ontology (GFO) is an upper ontology integrating processes and objects. GFO has been developed by Heinrich Herre, Barbara Heller and collaborators (research group ) in Leipzig. Although GFO provides one taxonomic tree, different axiom systems may be chosen for its modules. In this sense, GFO provides a framework for building custom, domain-specific ontologies. GFO exhibits a three-layered meta-ontological architecture consisting of an abstract top level, an abstract core level, and a basic level. Primarily, the ontology GFO: * includes objects as well as processes and both are integrated into one coherent system, * includes levels of reality, * is designed to support interoperability by principles of ontological mapping and reduction, * contains several novel ontological modules, in particular, a module for functions and a module for roles, and * is designed for applications, firstly in medical, biological, and biomedical areas, but also in the fields of economics and sociology. |
