EA Conceptual Mapping (WIP)

How to navigate conceptual galaxies (ancient Chinese compass)

Preamble

Ontological prisms are meant to provide a comprehensive, reasoned, and interoperable representation of facts (data), categories (information), and concepts (knowledge). This post introduces an OWL/Protégé test bed for conceptual mapping:

Examples are listed under the Tutor/Concepts entry (left, bottom).

Remarks and suggestions can be discussed in the LinkedIn group Caminao.

Languages & Grammars

Beyond their sheer diversity languages are characterized by grammars intertwining four functional layers:

  • Syntactic, for categories of terms and their use independently of their meaning
  • Lexical, for the individual meaning of terms
  • Semantic, for the meaning of the syntactic constructs (aka phrases)
  • Pragmatic, for the meaning of the semantic constructs depending on contexts
Languages & Grammars

Sources

The aim of the proposed approach is to extract meanings from documents taking advantage of four kinds of representation: XML and RDF for syntax, system (eg UML), data (eg SQL), and ontology (eg OWL) languages for semantics.

Syntactic (dotted line) and semantic (solid lines) mappings

Meanings can be obtained directly through thesauruses (or generative language models) by fleshing out RDF with semantics (left, clockwise), or indirectly by crossing documents with models (right, counter clockwise).

OWL Notation

Nodes

Caminao ontological prisms support three kinds of representations: concepts, categories, and facts, with prefixes used to anchor entries, respectively #, ◊, and @:

Postfixes are used for built-in constructs (_), ontological modalities (Ξ), modeling templates (≈), and user-defined anchors (#), eg:

OWL hierarchies are represented by a yellow color, Caminao connectors by blue ones.

Annotations contain definitions and references to Caminao online documentation (rdfs:seeAlso).

Connectors

Caminao semantic connectors represent the semantic gravitational forces between concepts:

WebProtégé ad-hoc filters are used the build the maps.

Filters

Maps can be trimmed manually or through ad-hoc filters.

To create filters:

  • Select the Entity Graph icon (top center)
  • Select the filters icon (*, bottom)

To use filters:

  • Add filter: the Entity Graph icon (top center), click the add icon (+, bottom), select in the pop-up list
  • Remove filter: click X icon on name

Semantic Connectors

Basic filter for concepts with extensions for hierarchies and categories realisation

  • The concepts of Message and Channel are defined (G#) in terms of Communication and are often used jointly (G>), as it’s also the case for Request and Message.
  • Message is also used jointly with Agent, but the reverse can only be induced.
  • Actor is defined (G#) in terms of Agent in association (G>) with Activity; by contrast Role can be defined on its own then paired (G>) with Organisation and Agent

OWL Hierarchies & Links to Categories

Grammatical connectors (G◊) can be used directly for syntactic roles, or indirectly between grammatical forms, eg: Channel and Connect, or Request and Require.

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Using grammatical connectors (trimmed graph)

Typical Masking Filters

Mapping Strategies

Broadly speaking conceptual maps can be obtained through language models or conceptual graphs.

Language Models

Language models use machine learning technologies to extract meanings from massive corpuses of documents and datasets:

Language Models

Conceptual Graphs

Conceptual graphs rely on a three-pronged approach combining thesauruses (semantics), taxonomies (categories), and ontologies (pragmatics).

Conceptual Mapping

Mapping Outcomes

Whatever the strategy, conceptual maps must inform on:

  • Anchors (#) identify actual or symbolic individuals, the former from facts, the latter from organisations
  • Semantic attraction (+) and opposition (–), synonymy (=), analogy (≈), and antonymy (≠), are obtained through thesauruses
  • Structural or functional associations (>), are observed in documents and comforted through databases
  • Grammatical roles (◊)

Conceptual mapping can also be carried out across abstraction levels:

  • Thesauruses, from terms to concepts
  • Taxonomies (÷), from subsets to subtypes
  • Ontologies (Ξ), from categories to knowledge modalities

Sample (screenshots)

The screenshots of trimmed conceptual maps using the OWL/Protégé Caminao ontological kernel. Relevant online documentation are referenced in rdfs:seeAlso annotations.

It must be stressed that these are conceptual maps meant to be built on purpose and are therefore partial and biased. Examples are referenced under Tutor/Caminao (bottom, list on the left).

Prism Conceptual roots

Fact

The concept of #Fact

Concept


The concept of #Concept

Category


The concept of #Category

Pagoda Blueprint

Overview

Caminao concept of #Pagoda

Anchor

Caminao concept of #Anchor

Use case

Caminao concept of #Use-case

Interoperability

Along with semantic connectors covering concepts (thesauruses), ontological and category connectors are used to map concepts and realisations.

Concepts/Categories

Interoperability of concepts & categories

Facts/Categories

Interoperability of facts & categories

Further Readings

Kaleidoscope Series

Other Caminao References

External References