Semantic networks are “a graphic notation for representing knowledge in patterns of interconnected nodes and arcs” 1
Sowa, John F. (1992): Semantic Networks in Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence.edited by S. C. Shapiro, Wiley, New York, 1987; revised and extended for the secondedition. New York 1987.
, i.e. a representation of knowledge as a structure of interconnected nodes and connections.
Semantic networks are thus a graph. They provide a formalism for human-computer interaction in which the meaning of the data can be placed in the context of the respective user 2 Sowa, John F. (1976): Conceptual Graphs for a Data Base Interface. In: IBM J. Res. &Dev. 20 (4), S. 336–357. o.O. 1976. .
They offer three fundamental advantages:
– direct assignment of information to relational databases;
– Use as a semantic basis for the analysis of natural language; ;
– Calculation of the relationships that were not explicitly entered.
Various ontology languages are used to model ontologies based on semantic networks. For example, the “RDF data model” largely meets the requirements of semantic networks 3
Gómez-Pérez, Asunción; Fernández-López, Mariano; Corcho, Oscar (2004):Ontological engineering. With examples from the areas of knowledge management, ecommerce and the Semantic Web. London, New York 2004.
.
The RDF data model is based on graphs4
Antoniou, G.; van Harmelen, Frank (2008): A semantic Web primer. 2. Aufl.Cambridge 2008
, as are semantic networks. The ontology language RDF (Resource Description Framework) is based on XML 5
Stein, A. (2007): Semantic Web vs. Web 2.0. In: Heinz Lothar Grob und GottfriedVossen (Hg.): Entwicklungen im Web 2.0 aus technischer, ökonomischer und sozialerSicht. Münster (51), S. 13–22.
. Similar to a sentence, triples of subject, predicate and object are used, e.g. “ google.com ” “represents” “ Google Inc. ”
An advantage of RDF is the independence of the formalism from the domain of knowledge to be described 4
Antoniou, G.; van Harmelen, Frank (2008): A semantic Web primer. 2. Aufl.Cambridge 2008
.
Sowa, John F. (1992): Semantic Networks in Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence.edited by S. C. Shapiro, Wiley, New York, 1987; revised and extended for the secondedition. New York 1987.
Gómez-Pérez, Asunción; Fernández-López, Mariano; Corcho, Oscar (2004):Ontological engineering. With examples from the areas of knowledge management, ecommerce and the Semantic Web. London, New York 2004.
Antoniou, G.; van Harmelen, Frank (2008): A semantic Web primer. 2. Aufl.Cambridge 2008
Antoniou, G.; van Harmelen, Frank (2008): A semantic Web primer. 2. Aufl.Cambridge 2008