Subclass of:

• crm:E2 Temporal Entity

Superclass of:

• sdh:C21 Skill
• sdh:C28 Quantifiable Quality
• sdh:C4 Intention

Scope note:

This class comprises characteristics, qualities or conditions of persistent items or temporal entities at a given moment or during a time-span. It is inspired by the concept of qualities in DOLCE, defined as individualized properties that inhere in particulars: a specific quality inheres in each class instance and ceases to exist at the end of the life of the instance it inheres to. The value of the quality or quale (DOLCE), e.g. the color of an object, is associated to the entity quality and is possibly time-indexed, i.e. valid at and limited to a given time-span.

A characteristic or quality of an entity is conceptualised in the SDHSS ontology as a time-indexed observable phenomenon denoting the fact that the quality (DOLCE) of a given entity at a given time has a specific value or quale, and that this value is stable over the time span considered. Rather than modelling the quality as a distinct entity, as in DOLCE, the class dh:C1 Entity Quality is defined as a subclass of temporal entity and associates a specific quality value in a reference space, e.g. red, to an entity, e.g. a car. Thus, according to the present conceptualisation a quality, in this case the colour of the car, refers to a specific period of time and to a specific quality value, namely the observable phenomenon of the thing having this quality and value, and not to a quality in general, e.g. colour, which is conceptualised as a quality type.

The kind of quality observed (color, weight, etc.) is specified by a suitable quality type or creating subclasses with specific properties. No generic property is defined to associate any crm:E1 Entity with a quality. As a matter of fact not all subclasses of the sdh:C1 Entity Quality class concern the same types of entities and one cannot therefore extend an inheritance of a generic has quality property to all subclasses but they have to be considered distinctly. For instance, the crm:E3 Condition State class can be considered as representig a specialization of the sdh:C1 Entity Quality class and the crm:P44 has condition (is condition of) property opportunely associates a physical object with its physical condition or state. Thus, sdh:C1 Entity Quality is an abstract class and has no direct instances.

A characteristic or quality is initiated, influenced and ended by events (crm:E5 Event class) and this is modelled by correspondent properties.

Examples:

• The background color of the painting Lady with an Ermine before it was repainted in another darker color (sdh:C... Qualitative Quality)
• Blaise Cendrars' physical condition from 28 September 1915 to his death (crm:P2 has type "right hand amputated") (crm:E3 Condition State)

Context notes:

The class sdh:C1 Quality is situated in the taxonomy of classes at the same level as crm:E3 Condition or State and crm:E4 Period, both child classes of crm:E2 Temporal Entity. In fact, a careful ontological analysis shows that, strictly speaking, it is the class crm:E4 Period (or even more the class crmE5 Event) that corresponds to the class Perdurant in DOLCE, and not crm:E2 Temporal Entity, because no property of the latter associates it with objects or physical space, and therefore it only represents the temporal dimension of phenomena. At the same time, we observe that the crm:E2 Temporal Entity class is also a parent of crm:E3 Condition or State class, which appears to be equivalent to the sdh:C1 Quality class, albeit with a restriction to physical objects. The proposed modelling approach thus complies with the DOLCE's conceptualisation in defining the two classes crm:E4 Period (perdurant) and sdh:C1 Quality (quality-quale) as children of the crm:E2 Temporal Entity class. Of course the formalisation of the sdh:C1 class is different from that of DOLCE which expresses the association to a quale using a time-indexed property.

Qualities appear to be epistemic in the sense that the definition of their temporal extent, and thus their identity, is generally observer-dependent rather than intrinsic, although they are essentially observable phenomena. The epistemic dimension of qualities is also specific to physical features, regardless of the fact that these two classes are disjoint. Indeed, as stated in the CRM scope note of the crm:E26 Physical Feature class (versons 6.2 ez 7.1.2), features are defined as "fiat objects" which amounts to saying that their identity and extent is defined by the observers.

In First Order Logic:

• C1(x) ⇒ E2(x)

Outgoing properties:

• sdh:P23 has quality type (is quality type of) → sdh:C20 Entity Quality Type

Incoming properties:

• crm:E5 Event → sdh:P8 effects (result from)
• crm:E5 Event → sdh:P9 ends (is ended by)