3 research outputs found
Comparison of Conceptual Graphs for Modelling Knowledge of Multiple Experts : Application to Traffic Accident Analysis
When modelling knowledge of multiple experts, it is interesting to build a common expertise model corresponding to the kernel of knowledge common to the experts. Therefore the expertise conflicts between the expertise models of the different experts must be tackled. The domain level of an expertise model can be described through concepts linked by relations, and represented through Sowa's conceptual graph formalism. This report presents a method for conflict management during knowledge modelling from multiple experts: this method relies on the comparison and integration of several conceptual graphs corresponding to different viewpoints, the integration being guided by different integration strategies. For the comparison of the conceptual graphs, we define and exploit possible relations that can link such graphs. The appendix presents a base of conceptual graphs obtained by modelling the knowledge of several experts in traffic accident analysis
Document management and retrieval for specialised domains : an evolutionary user-based approach
Browsing marked-up documents by traversing hyperlinks has become probably the most
important means by which documents are accessed, both via the World Wide Web (WWW) and
organisational Intranets. However, there is a pressing demand for document management and
retrieval systems to deal appropriately with the massive number of documents available. There
are two classes of solution: general search engines, whether for the WWW or an Intranet, which
make little use of specific domain knowledge or hand-crafted specialised systems which are
costly to build and maintain.
The aim of this thesis was to develop a document management and retrieval system suitable for
small communities as well as individuals in specialised domains on the Web. The aim was to
allow users to easily create and maintain their own organisation of documents while ensuring
continual improvement in the retrieval performance of the system as it evolves. The system
developed is based on the free annotation of documents by users and is browsed using the
concept lattice of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA). A number of annotation support tools were
developed to aid the annotation process so that a suitable system evolved. Experiments were
conducted in using the system to assist in finding staff and student home pages at the School of
Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales.
Results indicated that the annotation tools provided a good level of assistance so that documents
were easily organised and a lattice-based browsing structure that evolves in an ad hoc fashion
provided good efficiency in retrieval performance. An interesting result suggested that although
an established external taxonomy can be useful in proposing annotation terms, users appear to
be very selective in their use of terms proposed. Results also supported the hypothesis that the
concept lattice of FCA helped take users beyond a narrow search to find other useful
documents. In general, lattice-based browsing was considered as a more helpful method than
Boolean queries or hierarchical browsing for searching a specialised domain.
We conclude that the concept lattice of Formal Concept Analysis, supported by annotation
techniques is a useful way of supporting the flexible open management of documents required
by individuals, small communities and in specialised domains. It seems likely that this approach
can be readily integrated with other developments such as further improvements in search
engines and the use of semantically marked-up documents, and provide a unique advantage in
supporting autonomous management of documents by individuals and groups - in a way that is
closely aligned with the autonomy of the WWW
Comparing the conceptual systems of experts
The knowledge to be acquired for the development of knowledge based systems is often distributed across a group of experts rather than available for elicitation from a single expert. Group elicitation presents major problems because experts can disagree on the use of concepts and vocabulary, and this disagreement may be tacit causing confusion. This paper describes a computer-supported methodology for knowledge acquisition from groups in which the conceptual frameworks of different experts are compared in a way that makes such disagreements overt and readily identifiable