What's the Damage? Abnormality in Solid Physical Objects

The representation of damage to solid physical objects is complex in nature. Beginning with real world usecases of partially damaged used goods, we derive the description of damage through the approach of representing partial abnormality. We propose four predicates for partial abnormality corresponding to the fundamental characteristics and parthood relationships within solid physical objects: ab portion,ab piece,ab component, and ab containment. Such parthood relations and mereological pluralism concepts are drawn from the Ontology of Solid Physical Objects (SoPhOs), a general suite of upper ontology modules we proposed and axiomatized in First Order Logic. This paper reviews the SoPhOs ontologies that axiomatize parthood, spatial parthood and parthood connection theories and the foundational matter and shape characteristic ontologies that support them. We map the foundational solid physical object ontology to solving the problem of representing damaged goods in various domains including manufacture and e-commerce.