Patrick Browne

Patrick Browne is a retired lecturer, formerly lecturing in Computer Science at Dublin Institute of Technology (now TUDublin). For over 20 years, prior to 2000, he worked as a cartographer/software engineer at the Irish Ordnance Survey. Patrick obtained a BSc.(1994) and MSc.(1997) in computer science from Dublin City University. He also obtained full professional membership of the British Computer Society by examination in 1994.

He is interested in the roles of logic, knowledge representation, and computation in the construction and use of ontologies that represent Geographic Information (GI). He is now studying for a PhD in Knowledge Representation for GI. There is a large body of GI-research that uses Haskell to formalize algebras to represent GI-domains [e.g. [1]) His overall goal to improve the Haskell approach by developing a method that allows the GI-researcher to work at an appropriate level of abstraction during ontological based research. His approach is based on Goguen and Burstall's Theory of Institutions(TOI)[2] and Sowa's Conceptual Graphs(CG)[3] and Lattice of Theories(LOT)[3]. He is using the CafeOBJ[4] system which includes equational logic for computation, and first order logic for representing theories. Conceptual graphs are being studied in order to provide a relatively simple unified visual representation of the underlying CafeOBJ systems that provide multiple logics, proof, computation, and modularization.

[1] Spatial and Temporal Resolution of Sensor Observations Auriol Degbelo

[2] Institutions: abstract model theory for specification and programming by Joseph Goguen and Rod Burstall

[3] Knowledge Representation: Logical, Philosophical, and Computational Foundations (Book)

[4] CafeOBJ