CA2451737A1 - Hypertext-based system and method for knowledge editing - Google Patents
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Abstract
A system, which is a bona fide knowledge editor, provides a tool for projecting knowledge into hypertext, modifying it, and returning it to human memory, with an option of storing projections on data carriers. Hypertextual knowledge representation is created and manipulated via a knowledge model in a hypertext editing window.
Knowledge elements are created directly in the hypertext editing window or dragged into it as words and phrases from an optional text window. Properties are assigned automatically to graphical elements and their respective nodes or links in the internal model of hypertext. Ease of use and background XML encoding make the system accessible to any computer user. The system and method facilitate thinking and learning, allow to create simple and sophisticated ontologies, concept maps, domain knowledge models, other semantic artifacts, and also to merge models produced by many authors into averaged semantic representations ready for further use in Semantic Web.
Knowledge elements are created directly in the hypertext editing window or dragged into it as words and phrases from an optional text window. Properties are assigned automatically to graphical elements and their respective nodes or links in the internal model of hypertext. Ease of use and background XML encoding make the system accessible to any computer user. The system and method facilitate thinking and learning, allow to create simple and sophisticated ontologies, concept maps, domain knowledge models, other semantic artifacts, and also to merge models produced by many authors into averaged semantic representations ready for further use in Semantic Web.
Description
HYPERTEXT-BASED SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR KNOWLEDGE EDITING
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to the field of knowledge management.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a hypertext-based system and method for editing knowledge.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Hypertext There are different interpretations of the meaning of hypertext. The term "hypertext" was coined by Ted Nelson in the 1960s in connection with electronic documents processing.
At the basic level, hypertext is a distinctly electronic technology involving computers.
At a more sophisticated level, hypertext is an organizational form of presenting information, and it is not inherently tied to any particular technology, content, or medium. It is a format that may be delivered on paper as well as electronically. Hypertextual representation of information existed in literature and in other forms of cognitive artifacts long before the introduction of computers. An often cited example of a hypertextual literary work is Nabokov's novel "Pale Fire".
It is generally agreed, that hypertext is the presentation of information as a network of linked nodes which can be navigated in a non-linear fashion. The most familiar example of hypertext is the World Wide Web.
Knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) originated from an attempt to use information technology for raising productivity of companies by making the most of their intangible assets, such as employees' knowledge. By now KM has outgrown business environment and is used in many other areas, such as e-learning, content management, personal information management.
KM includes knowledge acquisition, processing, and application. Application of knowledge is outside of the context of this invention. Knowledge acquisition and processing are at the heart of the matter.
As used herein, the term "knowledge" represents information that resides in the memory of a system that may act on that information. The main purpose of knowledge is to solve problems.
When a problem arises, a matching knowledge model is required to solve the problem at hand.
Such model may describe a sequence of actions, or other relevant structured information representing a solution to the problem. Building an actionable model for a particular case may be easy when pre-existing solutions are available in an accessible knowledge repository. It is typical, for example, of human experts and also of expert systems and other computer-based knowledge systems.
In more complex cases, however, new knowledge needs to be acquired by transfernng additional information into memory, or by deriving new knowledge from knowledge already existing in the memory, or by the combination of both. Each cycle of adding new knowledge and thus elaborating the conceptual model is followed by testing the model against the problem until the model provides an acceptable solution to the problem. Such models may remain internal to memory, or they may be built in an external medium, which provides new ways of studying a problem, and of communicating it to others.
The terms "knowledge representation", knowledge model", and "model" are used interchangeably throughout the text.
The processes of projecting knowledge from memory to an external medium, modeling that knowledge in the medium, manipulating the models with continual feedback and testing against its associated problem, and thereby modifying knowledge residing in the memory, constitute knowledge editing, as the term is used herein.
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to the field of knowledge management.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a hypertext-based system and method for editing knowledge.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Hypertext There are different interpretations of the meaning of hypertext. The term "hypertext" was coined by Ted Nelson in the 1960s in connection with electronic documents processing.
At the basic level, hypertext is a distinctly electronic technology involving computers.
At a more sophisticated level, hypertext is an organizational form of presenting information, and it is not inherently tied to any particular technology, content, or medium. It is a format that may be delivered on paper as well as electronically. Hypertextual representation of information existed in literature and in other forms of cognitive artifacts long before the introduction of computers. An often cited example of a hypertextual literary work is Nabokov's novel "Pale Fire".
It is generally agreed, that hypertext is the presentation of information as a network of linked nodes which can be navigated in a non-linear fashion. The most familiar example of hypertext is the World Wide Web.
Knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) originated from an attempt to use information technology for raising productivity of companies by making the most of their intangible assets, such as employees' knowledge. By now KM has outgrown business environment and is used in many other areas, such as e-learning, content management, personal information management.
KM includes knowledge acquisition, processing, and application. Application of knowledge is outside of the context of this invention. Knowledge acquisition and processing are at the heart of the matter.
As used herein, the term "knowledge" represents information that resides in the memory of a system that may act on that information. The main purpose of knowledge is to solve problems.
When a problem arises, a matching knowledge model is required to solve the problem at hand.
Such model may describe a sequence of actions, or other relevant structured information representing a solution to the problem. Building an actionable model for a particular case may be easy when pre-existing solutions are available in an accessible knowledge repository. It is typical, for example, of human experts and also of expert systems and other computer-based knowledge systems.
In more complex cases, however, new knowledge needs to be acquired by transfernng additional information into memory, or by deriving new knowledge from knowledge already existing in the memory, or by the combination of both. Each cycle of adding new knowledge and thus elaborating the conceptual model is followed by testing the model against the problem until the model provides an acceptable solution to the problem. Such models may remain internal to memory, or they may be built in an external medium, which provides new ways of studying a problem, and of communicating it to others.
The terms "knowledge representation", knowledge model", and "model" are used interchangeably throughout the text.
The processes of projecting knowledge from memory to an external medium, modeling that knowledge in the medium, manipulating the models with continual feedback and testing against its associated problem, and thereby modifying knowledge residing in the memory, constitute knowledge editing, as the term is used herein.
2 Prior art Knowledge editing is used in industry-standard knowledge management systems and knowledge bases. With currently available support tools, for example as described in the U.S. Pat. No.
6,591,258, knowledge editing has to be performed by trained specialists who are familiar with the system-specific representation formalism.
Richard Power, et al., What You See Is What You Meant: direct knowledge editing with natural language feedback, in: Proceedings of 13th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 675-681, Brighton, UK, 1998, describes a WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Meant) knowledge editor supporting production of software documentation in English and French. Although this knowledge base is presented through documents in natural language and knowledge editing does not require training for domain experts, the knowledge editor is limited to one knowledge-based system.
Another prior art knowledge editing system is the "MindMapper" software program from SimTech Systems Inc. The product of MindMapper is a "mind map" which is a graphical representation of concepts based on the Tony Buzan's idea of Radiant Thinking.
He postulates that one should start arranging key concepts "from the center or main idea and branch out as dictated by the individual ideas and general form of the central theme", http://www.mind-mappin .cg o~u~ . Concepts are represented as named nodes with assignable external links.
Several types of relationships are displayed as lines connecting nodes.
However useful for certain tasks, MindMapper and other similar programs, often called "thinking tools", for example ConceptDraw from Computer Systems Odessa, are designed to describe knowledge representations rather than to interact with them, explore, rearrange, and find optimal solutions. Mind maps are flat and they do not make full use of the multidimensionality of hypertext. The formats of mind maps are proprietary, therefore the maps are not open to interoperability, merging, and reuse across platforms.
The most recent and fast growing knowledge editing environment was created by ontology technologies that emerged in the 1990s. Ontologies provide explicit formal specifications of domain information by representing concepts and relations characterizing domains. Ontologies are widely used on the World Wide Web, for example to categorise and describe products for sale, such as on Amazon.com.
Ontology editors are used to build and modify ontologies. Commercial products include standalone editors for building ontologies in any domain, and editors integrated in software suites for broad enterprise solutions. Other editors are developed by academic and government funded projects on ontologies. An example of such software is Protege-2000, htt~://protege.stanford.edu/ . It is an ontology and knowledge-base editor that allows the user to construct domain ontologies. Now it also supports editing Semantic Web ontologies in OWL
Web Ontology Language. Although versatile by today's standards and equipped with a GUI, this editor models concepts as a class hierarchy and provides only a flat simplification of hypertext.
Prior art systems support only a fraction of hypertext functionality each, and they essentially remain within the confines of the linear paradigm. None of them combines easy input, full hypertext functionality, and editable three-dimensional display of knowledge.
Therefore, there is still an unsatisfied need for a knowledge-editing system that provides a combination of feature-rich hypertextual knowledge representation with an easy user interface.
The present invention solves many or all of the foregoing problems by introducing a system and method that implement a synergetic combination of the latest information processing technologies in order to model and edit knowledge in accordance with recent findings in cognitive science.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Recent developments in cognitive science have shown that human knowledge is encoded in hierarchical multidimensional structures with a network of associations between elements.
Hypertext has a similar structure of nodes and relationships between nodes.
Therefore hypertext can serve as a preferred format for representation and manipulation of knowledge in general.
The present invention provides a system and method for knowledge editing by using a hypertextual medium. It enables a user to create a hypertextual representation of knowledge and modify such a representation, while maintaining control over the arrangement and description of hypertextual nodes and relationships between nodes. The present invention thus provides a user with a tool to optimise and improve existing knowledge, as well as to record modified knowledge in electronic format for interchange or further processing.
Knowledge editing in hypertext by means of the present invention serves two main objectives.
First, the editing process, as described herein, facilitates knowledge acquisition and manipulation by the user. Second, knowledge models resulting from the application of the present invention, are encoded in a standard hypertext format; therefore knowledge represented in such models is ready for platform-independent interchange, for further processing and editing, or for an easy deployment on media capable of carrying hypertext, such as, but not limited to, memory chips, computer hard drives, e-book reading devices, and the World Wide Web.
The core component of the system in accordance with the present invention is a hypertext module providing a hypertext medium capable of carrying modifiable knowledge representations. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a hypertext module may implement software and hardware resources widely known in the art, such as, for example, hypertext engines and mechanisms supporting the user's interaction with the hypertext.
Hypertext knowledge representations, described herein, consist of nodes and links between nodes, encoded in standard XML-based notations. Nodes and links may have external characteristics, which are defined by their relationships to other nodes, links, and other external objects, and internal semantic content, which is usually, but not always, expressed by text.
As mentioned earlier, material for knowledge editing is provided by extracting knowledge elements from memory, as a result of thinking. In many cases thinking is supported with the acquisition of new knowledge elements from texts. Such new knowledge elements may be exteriorized with minimal delay into an external model, along with pre-existing elements of knowledge. It may happen so seamlessly that one is tempted to assume that knowledge is transferred from a text directly into an external model, which is obviously an erroneous assumption. First, information must be transferred from a text into memory, where it becomes knowledge, then it may be exteriorized into a knowledge model, and as a result of manipulations with the model, new knowledge is created in the memory.
Since texts are probably the single most important source of new knowledge, the system includes a text module. Mechanisms readily understood by those skilled in the art can be used to transfer words and phrases describing new knowledge from texts to appropriate node specifications in a hypertext module.
Another component of the system is a user interface, which, primarily, allows the user to interact with the hypertext and text modules. Major advantages of this user interface, compared to prior art, are its unparalleled simplicity of operation and multiple controls over the feature-rich visual representation of knowledge. The operation of a graphical user interface will be detailed below in the depiction of a preferred embodiment.
The system may have various additional features, such as a data storage device for storing electronic files with knowledge representations, a background hypertext processor for an optimal use of computing resources with larger knowledge representations, and a query module for obtaining custom views of knowledge space. However, such additions are not essential for the related method of knowledge editing.
The method of knowledge editing, as disclosed in the present invention, is based on the structural similarity of hypertext and human memory. Hypertext as a network of linked nodes has essentially the same organisation as a mental network of concepts linked together by associations. Therefore hypertext may be used as an efficient medium for constructing, exploring and editing knowledge models.
Conceptually, the method, disclosed in this invention, consists of three stages: a) identification of original knowledge; b) replication of original knowledge into a hypertext medium and editing of original knowledge; and c) storing modified knowledge back in memory or in a data storage device.
In the first stage, the user identifies relevant knowledge elements that already exist in the user's memory. The user may do so by thinking about the subject in question and recognizing knowledge elements one at a time. A variant of this process is when a user reads a text and recognizes knowledge elements while reading, as described above in reference to text module.
In the second stage, the user transfers previously identified knowledge elements, one after another, into a hypertext module by creating one hypertext node for each knowledge element and by assigning properties to each node. Next, the user creates links between nodes and assigns their properties.
The resulting hypertextual model of the user's knowledge is visually displayed to the user, preferably by means of a spatial three-dimensional model. Visualization allows people to understand information that is difficult to perceive, because there is too much of it or it is very abstract. Effective visualizations can facilitate mental insights, increase productivity, and foster a better use of data in countless ways. In addition, the user may manipulate the visual model of knowledge by adding or deleting nodes and relationships; rearranging node structures; changing points of view; entering new information about nodes and relationships and commanding the system to update the visual representation; and combining and merging knowledge representations. Changes to the visual model may be transferred to the underlying knowledge representation in a hypertext medium in real time and visualized in an updated model after a minimal delay.
In the third stage, edited knowledge returns to the user's memory. The transfer of new knowledge from a visual model to the memory occurs when, as a result of knowledge editing, the user creates a knowledge configuration that is perceived as optimal, and experiences the feeling of accomplishment associated with finding a solution to a problem as a whole or to its part, or with any instance of completing a knowledge entity.
The end results of knowledge editing may be easily stored on data carriers in a linear or non-linear format, depending on the properties of the carrier. Preferably, edited knowledge may be stored in electronic format, which facilitates interchange with other knowledge users or further knowledge processing by people or machines.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1. A block diagram depicting a computer system with which the invention may be practiced.
FIG. 2. A screen shot showing graphic display provided using the system of FIG. 1.
FIG. 3. A schematic diagram depicting a node definition dialog box.
FIG. 4. A flow diagram of a method of knowledge editing that may be employed with the system for FIG. I .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The preferred embodiment of the present invention is implemented on a computer processing system suitable for running a Windows (TM) operating system from Microsoft Corporation. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that alternative computer processing systems may be employed.
The components of the present invention, as generally described and illustrated in the Figures, may be implemented in a variety of ways. Thus, the following description of the embodiments of the system and method of the present invention is not intended to limit the scope of the invention, as claimed, but is merely representative of presently preferred embodiments of the invention.
Throughout the following description, various components of the invention are described as "modules." In some implementations, the modules may be implemented as software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof, using well known techniques understood by those skilled in the art. The identified modules need not be located together, but may be stored in different locations, which together implement the described functionality of the module.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a system 100 in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention and with which the present invention may be advantageously practiced. In the presently disclosed embodiment, system 100 is based upon a commonly available computer of the "personal computer" class, based on an Intel Corp.
Pentium (TM) microprocessor running at clock speeds of 300 MHz or so. It is believed that other general purpose computers may be equally suitable for the purposes of practising the present invention, including, without limitation, workstations available, for example, from Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA, or Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, CA.
As shown in FIG. 1, a knowledge editing system 100 comprises:
A text module 110 for opening text documents in a document viewer and supporting various operations with a text. Document viewer module 112 is a part of the text module 110. The primary functionality thereof consists in providing access to text documents in all major formats, such as Microsoft Word (TM), plain text, portable document format (PDF) (TM), WordPerfect (TM), PS, HTML, XML. Therefor the module 112 includes document handlers or converters.
The document viewer preferably operates within a separate "window" provided by the operating system. The text module 110 may also include a string designation module 114 for handling highlighted character strings, as described in more detail below in relation to FIG. 2. Although the text module 110 also processes Web pages which represent hypertext, such pages are treated as flat text in this environment, therefore there is no semantic contradiction between "text" and "hypertext" modules.
A hypertext module 120 for storing and processing hypertextual knowledge representations. A
hypertext module 120 includes a hypertext processor 122, alternatively called a hypertext engine.
The functionality of the hypertext processor 122 includes, but is not limited to, the capability of processing one or more hypertextual knowledge representations into an internal model which represents knowledge contained in those representations in such a manner that it is consistently accessible by clients of the processor. A hypertext module 120 may include a background processor 124 for processing hypertextual knowledge representations in the background, as its name suggests, whenever the necessary resources are allocated for the purpose.
The main tasks of the background processor 124 are to optimize the link structure of a loaded hypertextual knowledge representation, and to administer serialized knowledge representations queued for merging. The background processor 124 may be activated when the hypertext processor 122 switches to idle mode. In an alternative embodiment, a hypertext module 120 may also include a search module 126 for processing queries of hypertextual knowledge representations. A
search module 126 processes queries initiated by a user, using a query language, for example XQuery 1.0, and delivers custom views of hypertextual knowledge representations.
A hypertext interface module 130 for managing communication between a hypertext module 120 and other system components, such as a text module 110, a graphical user interface (GUI) 140, and a data storage device 150. A hypertext interface module 130 includes, preferably, graphical module 132 and I/O module 134. A graphical module 132 is responsible for the transformation of hypertextual knowledge representations into graphical format, preferably in three dimensions, when data flows from a hypertext module 120 to a GUI 140, and for the transformation of modifications made by the user in the hypertext window of a GUI 140, when data flows from a GUI 140 to a hypertext module 120. For that purpose, a graphical module 132 may implement, for example, Java 3D API, although a variety of other implementations are possible within the scope of the invention.
The role of the I/O module 134 is to handle file operations, such as storing hypertextual knowledge representations residing in a hypertext module 120 in a data storage device 150, or opening previously stored files for processing or merging with other files.
A graphical user interface (GUI) 140, which enables the user to visually interact with the modules of the present invention. FIG. 2 shows a screen shot 200 illustrating a GUI 140. A text module 110 operates in the text window 210, and a hypertext module 120 operates in the hypertext window 220. The concept of a window is well known to those skilled in the art of graphical user interfaces. As shown in FIG. 2, a document viewer 112 of a text module 110 displays a document 214 in the text window 210. The document 214 is the table of contents of the book "Web Searcher's Handbook. Case Studies in 3D", published in 2001, URL: http://how-to-search-the-web.com .
The hypertext window 220 displays a three-dimensional representation of the document 214, created by the process described in more detail below with reference to FIG.
2. The three-dimensional model is based on the hypertextual representation of the document 214 residing in the hypertext module 120. Graphical nodes of the three-dimensional representation correspond to hypertextual nodes in the hypertext module 120, and lines representing relationships in the hypertext window 220 also have their hypertextual counterparts. In the preferred embodiment, nodes and relationships are described using XML Topic Maps (XTM) Version 1.0 interchange language, although other encoding systems may be used in alternative embodiments.
Dialog boxes are used extensively to provide a highly interactive user interface, as it is schematically illustrated in FIG. 3. Such dialog boxes are opened in a standard fashion for Microsoft Windows (TM) compatible applications by clicking a mouse button, and appear directly under the mouse cursor. The operation of a GUI 140 is described below in greater detail in relation to FIG. 2.
Data storage device 150 for storing files with hypertextual knowledge representations. Data storage devices 150 may be found within a single workstation, or may be distributed among a plurality of workstations in a network.
Referring now to FIG. 2, a text window 210 is shown as displaying a document 214. In this example, the document viewer 112 is a conventional word processor, and the document 214 is a formatted text document, although the invention is not limited in this respect.
A user may, while reading a document 214 displayed in the document viewer window 210, identify a word or phrase corresponding to a concept, or a fact, or any other knowledge element that the user perceives as a semantically significant unit. Thereafter the user may designate the character string, i.e. a word or a phrase, that represents the said unit in the document 214.
Preferably, the user does so by blocking, highlighting or otherwise marking the designated words within the document viewer window 210. For instance, a user may position a pointer, by means of a mouse or other pointing device, on the first character of the designated word, as for example the word "SEARCH" 220 and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the last character of the designated word 220. As a result, a typical document viewer 112 may highlight the selected word 220.
In an alternative embodiment, the user may designate a single word by positioning the pointer over the designated word and clicking twice the left mouse button. In still other embodiments, other techniques using a keyboard, a mouse, or other relevant devices, may be implemented.
Thereafter the user may drag and drop the selection to the hypertext window 212. The drag-and-drop is performed in a manner generally practiced in Microsoft Windows (TM) compatible applications. The user may position a pointer, by means of a mouse, on the selection and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the hypertext window 212 and release the left mouse button.
When a selection is dropped in the hypertext window 212, the hypertext module 120 creates a new node for the dropped character string. Immediately thereafter, a node definition dialog box, an example of which is depicted in FIG. 3, is opened within a hypertext window 212. The dialog box 300 presents a set of automatically assigned attributes for confirmation or modification by a user, as well as a plurality of named fields to fill in, such as Display name 310, which is a short node name that is displayed in the hypertext window 212, Name 320, which is the base name for the node, and other fields as needed.
Several attributes are automatically assigned to a node at the time of its creation, such as Display name 310 and Reference 330, which references the document 214 and the selected character string within the document, such as the character string 220 in this example.
The usual technique of referencing Web documents is by their URL. After completing the dialog, the user clicks on the OK button to confirm, and a new node is displayed in the hypertext window 212, as for example the node "Search" 222 in FIG. 2, which corresponds to the character string 220 within the document viewer window 210.
Another way to create a new node is by means of a context sensitive pop-up menu. A context sensitive menu is displayed whenever a user clicks the right mouse button within the hypertext window 212 away from any objects. This context sensitive menu includes a variety of standard options, depending, for example, on the type of embodiment of this invention.
One of menu items is New node... . Clicking on the item opens a dialog box 300. Having filled in the data fields of the dialog, a user may confirm the operation by clicking on the OK
button, and a newly created node is immediately displayed in a hypertext window 212.
Still another way to create a new node is by means of a menu bar pull-down menu. In that case the New node... menu item is located in one of the pull-down menus on a menu bar, and the item is used in the standard manner for all Microsoft Windows (TM) compatible applications.
A new node may remain unrelated to other nodes by explicit links, as for example the node "Context" 216 in FIG. 2. Otherwise, one or more relationships of a node to other nodes may be specified. There are several methods of specifying relationships between nodes. In one method, a user right-clicks on a node to open a context sensitive pop-up menu, then the user chooses the New relationship... item from the menu. Next, the user uses a dialog window to specify one or more nodes with which relationships are to be established, then specifies properties of each relationship, and confirms the end of the operation by clicking on the OK
button.
In another method, a user just draws a line between two nodes. In order to draw a line, a user may activate a line drawing tool in a tools menu, then position a pointer, by means of a mouse or other pointing device, on the first node, as for example on the node "Search"
222 in FIG. 2, and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the node "Tools"
230 and release the left mouse button. When the button is released, a relationship definition dialog box is displayed within the hypertext window 212. The dialog box presents a set of fields for the user to describe the relationship. After completing the dialog, the user clicks on the OK button to confirm, the hypertext module 120 processes input, and the relationship is displayed in the hypertext window 212. A hypertext graphical module 132 optimizes graphical representation of a relationship, which may assume the shape of a straight or a curved line.
Every node and relationship in a hypertext window 212 may be edited. A user may position a pointer, by means of a mouse or other pointing device, on a node or a line representing a relationship within a hypertext window 212 and click the right mouse button to open a contextual pop-up menu. The menu includes an Edit... item. By clicking on the Edit...
menu item, the user opens a corresponding dialog with a listing of the properties of a node, as illustrated by a dialog box 300, or, alternatively, with a listing of the properties of a relationship. Next, the user may modify or delete the content of any or all the fields in the dialog box. To confirm the results of editing, the user clicks on the OK button of the dialog.
A resulting hypertextual representation of knowledge may be saved in an external storage device 150 by means of an input-output module 134, which is a part of a hypertext interface module 130. The preferred embodiment uses XML Topic Maps (XTM) Version 1.0 of an XML
grammar based on the ISO International Standard, ISO/IEC 13250:2000, to encode knowledge. However, a variety of other knowledge encoding systems, for example Resource Description Framework (RDF), may be used in alternative embodiments for the same purpose.
FIG. 4 provides a flow diagram that summarises, in general terms, the interaction of a user with an illustrative embodiment of a knowledge editing system 100 in accordance with the principles of the present invention. A user identifies a knowledge entity in step 410 either only mentally or by selecting a character string in a text window 210 to designate an entity.
In step 420, the user creates a node for that entity in a hypertext medium by means of a hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140. In step 430, the user assigns attributes to the node via a dialog box 300. In step 440, the user decides whether to create another node, or not. If yes, the user repeats the above node creation cycle of steps 410 through 430. If not, the user may make a decision in step 450, whether to terminate all operations, or to proceed to step 460 and create a relationship. In step 460, the user identifies a relationship. In step 470, the user creates a relationship in a hypertext medium. Unlike a node, a relationship cannot be created by a drag-and-drop operation from a text window 210 to a hypertext window 212. A relationship is created in a hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140 by drawing a line between two nodes, or by using menu items, as described above in reference to FIG. 2. In step 480, the user assigns attributes to the relationship via a dialog box.
Relationships may be typed as superclass - subclass, whole - part, and other standard types, or as custom types defined by the user in the Custom type... field of the relationship definition dialog box. In step 490, the user chooses between creating another relationship, or terminating.
A resulting model which consists of a network of linked nodes residing in a hypertext medium represents a user's knowledge of a topic.
Next, the user may edit the hypertext-based knowledge model by making modifications in a hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140. The user may add or delete nodes and relationships between nodes, change attributes of nodes and relationships, merge different models, stored in many files, into one model. When changes in the hypertext window 212 are committed to the hypertext module 120, the hypertext processor 122 updates the model, and the graphical module 132 sends updated visualization of the model to the hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140.
Although the present invention has been described in accordance with the embodiments shown, one of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that there could be variations to the embodiments and those variations would be within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Accordingly, many modifications may be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
6,591,258, knowledge editing has to be performed by trained specialists who are familiar with the system-specific representation formalism.
Richard Power, et al., What You See Is What You Meant: direct knowledge editing with natural language feedback, in: Proceedings of 13th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pages 675-681, Brighton, UK, 1998, describes a WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Meant) knowledge editor supporting production of software documentation in English and French. Although this knowledge base is presented through documents in natural language and knowledge editing does not require training for domain experts, the knowledge editor is limited to one knowledge-based system.
Another prior art knowledge editing system is the "MindMapper" software program from SimTech Systems Inc. The product of MindMapper is a "mind map" which is a graphical representation of concepts based on the Tony Buzan's idea of Radiant Thinking.
He postulates that one should start arranging key concepts "from the center or main idea and branch out as dictated by the individual ideas and general form of the central theme", http://www.mind-mappin .cg o~u~ . Concepts are represented as named nodes with assignable external links.
Several types of relationships are displayed as lines connecting nodes.
However useful for certain tasks, MindMapper and other similar programs, often called "thinking tools", for example ConceptDraw from Computer Systems Odessa, are designed to describe knowledge representations rather than to interact with them, explore, rearrange, and find optimal solutions. Mind maps are flat and they do not make full use of the multidimensionality of hypertext. The formats of mind maps are proprietary, therefore the maps are not open to interoperability, merging, and reuse across platforms.
The most recent and fast growing knowledge editing environment was created by ontology technologies that emerged in the 1990s. Ontologies provide explicit formal specifications of domain information by representing concepts and relations characterizing domains. Ontologies are widely used on the World Wide Web, for example to categorise and describe products for sale, such as on Amazon.com.
Ontology editors are used to build and modify ontologies. Commercial products include standalone editors for building ontologies in any domain, and editors integrated in software suites for broad enterprise solutions. Other editors are developed by academic and government funded projects on ontologies. An example of such software is Protege-2000, htt~://protege.stanford.edu/ . It is an ontology and knowledge-base editor that allows the user to construct domain ontologies. Now it also supports editing Semantic Web ontologies in OWL
Web Ontology Language. Although versatile by today's standards and equipped with a GUI, this editor models concepts as a class hierarchy and provides only a flat simplification of hypertext.
Prior art systems support only a fraction of hypertext functionality each, and they essentially remain within the confines of the linear paradigm. None of them combines easy input, full hypertext functionality, and editable three-dimensional display of knowledge.
Therefore, there is still an unsatisfied need for a knowledge-editing system that provides a combination of feature-rich hypertextual knowledge representation with an easy user interface.
The present invention solves many or all of the foregoing problems by introducing a system and method that implement a synergetic combination of the latest information processing technologies in order to model and edit knowledge in accordance with recent findings in cognitive science.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Recent developments in cognitive science have shown that human knowledge is encoded in hierarchical multidimensional structures with a network of associations between elements.
Hypertext has a similar structure of nodes and relationships between nodes.
Therefore hypertext can serve as a preferred format for representation and manipulation of knowledge in general.
The present invention provides a system and method for knowledge editing by using a hypertextual medium. It enables a user to create a hypertextual representation of knowledge and modify such a representation, while maintaining control over the arrangement and description of hypertextual nodes and relationships between nodes. The present invention thus provides a user with a tool to optimise and improve existing knowledge, as well as to record modified knowledge in electronic format for interchange or further processing.
Knowledge editing in hypertext by means of the present invention serves two main objectives.
First, the editing process, as described herein, facilitates knowledge acquisition and manipulation by the user. Second, knowledge models resulting from the application of the present invention, are encoded in a standard hypertext format; therefore knowledge represented in such models is ready for platform-independent interchange, for further processing and editing, or for an easy deployment on media capable of carrying hypertext, such as, but not limited to, memory chips, computer hard drives, e-book reading devices, and the World Wide Web.
The core component of the system in accordance with the present invention is a hypertext module providing a hypertext medium capable of carrying modifiable knowledge representations. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a hypertext module may implement software and hardware resources widely known in the art, such as, for example, hypertext engines and mechanisms supporting the user's interaction with the hypertext.
Hypertext knowledge representations, described herein, consist of nodes and links between nodes, encoded in standard XML-based notations. Nodes and links may have external characteristics, which are defined by their relationships to other nodes, links, and other external objects, and internal semantic content, which is usually, but not always, expressed by text.
As mentioned earlier, material for knowledge editing is provided by extracting knowledge elements from memory, as a result of thinking. In many cases thinking is supported with the acquisition of new knowledge elements from texts. Such new knowledge elements may be exteriorized with minimal delay into an external model, along with pre-existing elements of knowledge. It may happen so seamlessly that one is tempted to assume that knowledge is transferred from a text directly into an external model, which is obviously an erroneous assumption. First, information must be transferred from a text into memory, where it becomes knowledge, then it may be exteriorized into a knowledge model, and as a result of manipulations with the model, new knowledge is created in the memory.
Since texts are probably the single most important source of new knowledge, the system includes a text module. Mechanisms readily understood by those skilled in the art can be used to transfer words and phrases describing new knowledge from texts to appropriate node specifications in a hypertext module.
Another component of the system is a user interface, which, primarily, allows the user to interact with the hypertext and text modules. Major advantages of this user interface, compared to prior art, are its unparalleled simplicity of operation and multiple controls over the feature-rich visual representation of knowledge. The operation of a graphical user interface will be detailed below in the depiction of a preferred embodiment.
The system may have various additional features, such as a data storage device for storing electronic files with knowledge representations, a background hypertext processor for an optimal use of computing resources with larger knowledge representations, and a query module for obtaining custom views of knowledge space. However, such additions are not essential for the related method of knowledge editing.
The method of knowledge editing, as disclosed in the present invention, is based on the structural similarity of hypertext and human memory. Hypertext as a network of linked nodes has essentially the same organisation as a mental network of concepts linked together by associations. Therefore hypertext may be used as an efficient medium for constructing, exploring and editing knowledge models.
Conceptually, the method, disclosed in this invention, consists of three stages: a) identification of original knowledge; b) replication of original knowledge into a hypertext medium and editing of original knowledge; and c) storing modified knowledge back in memory or in a data storage device.
In the first stage, the user identifies relevant knowledge elements that already exist in the user's memory. The user may do so by thinking about the subject in question and recognizing knowledge elements one at a time. A variant of this process is when a user reads a text and recognizes knowledge elements while reading, as described above in reference to text module.
In the second stage, the user transfers previously identified knowledge elements, one after another, into a hypertext module by creating one hypertext node for each knowledge element and by assigning properties to each node. Next, the user creates links between nodes and assigns their properties.
The resulting hypertextual model of the user's knowledge is visually displayed to the user, preferably by means of a spatial three-dimensional model. Visualization allows people to understand information that is difficult to perceive, because there is too much of it or it is very abstract. Effective visualizations can facilitate mental insights, increase productivity, and foster a better use of data in countless ways. In addition, the user may manipulate the visual model of knowledge by adding or deleting nodes and relationships; rearranging node structures; changing points of view; entering new information about nodes and relationships and commanding the system to update the visual representation; and combining and merging knowledge representations. Changes to the visual model may be transferred to the underlying knowledge representation in a hypertext medium in real time and visualized in an updated model after a minimal delay.
In the third stage, edited knowledge returns to the user's memory. The transfer of new knowledge from a visual model to the memory occurs when, as a result of knowledge editing, the user creates a knowledge configuration that is perceived as optimal, and experiences the feeling of accomplishment associated with finding a solution to a problem as a whole or to its part, or with any instance of completing a knowledge entity.
The end results of knowledge editing may be easily stored on data carriers in a linear or non-linear format, depending on the properties of the carrier. Preferably, edited knowledge may be stored in electronic format, which facilitates interchange with other knowledge users or further knowledge processing by people or machines.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1. A block diagram depicting a computer system with which the invention may be practiced.
FIG. 2. A screen shot showing graphic display provided using the system of FIG. 1.
FIG. 3. A schematic diagram depicting a node definition dialog box.
FIG. 4. A flow diagram of a method of knowledge editing that may be employed with the system for FIG. I .
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The preferred embodiment of the present invention is implemented on a computer processing system suitable for running a Windows (TM) operating system from Microsoft Corporation. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that alternative computer processing systems may be employed.
The components of the present invention, as generally described and illustrated in the Figures, may be implemented in a variety of ways. Thus, the following description of the embodiments of the system and method of the present invention is not intended to limit the scope of the invention, as claimed, but is merely representative of presently preferred embodiments of the invention.
Throughout the following description, various components of the invention are described as "modules." In some implementations, the modules may be implemented as software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof, using well known techniques understood by those skilled in the art. The identified modules need not be located together, but may be stored in different locations, which together implement the described functionality of the module.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a system 100 in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention and with which the present invention may be advantageously practiced. In the presently disclosed embodiment, system 100 is based upon a commonly available computer of the "personal computer" class, based on an Intel Corp.
Pentium (TM) microprocessor running at clock speeds of 300 MHz or so. It is believed that other general purpose computers may be equally suitable for the purposes of practising the present invention, including, without limitation, workstations available, for example, from Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA, or Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, CA.
As shown in FIG. 1, a knowledge editing system 100 comprises:
A text module 110 for opening text documents in a document viewer and supporting various operations with a text. Document viewer module 112 is a part of the text module 110. The primary functionality thereof consists in providing access to text documents in all major formats, such as Microsoft Word (TM), plain text, portable document format (PDF) (TM), WordPerfect (TM), PS, HTML, XML. Therefor the module 112 includes document handlers or converters.
The document viewer preferably operates within a separate "window" provided by the operating system. The text module 110 may also include a string designation module 114 for handling highlighted character strings, as described in more detail below in relation to FIG. 2. Although the text module 110 also processes Web pages which represent hypertext, such pages are treated as flat text in this environment, therefore there is no semantic contradiction between "text" and "hypertext" modules.
A hypertext module 120 for storing and processing hypertextual knowledge representations. A
hypertext module 120 includes a hypertext processor 122, alternatively called a hypertext engine.
The functionality of the hypertext processor 122 includes, but is not limited to, the capability of processing one or more hypertextual knowledge representations into an internal model which represents knowledge contained in those representations in such a manner that it is consistently accessible by clients of the processor. A hypertext module 120 may include a background processor 124 for processing hypertextual knowledge representations in the background, as its name suggests, whenever the necessary resources are allocated for the purpose.
The main tasks of the background processor 124 are to optimize the link structure of a loaded hypertextual knowledge representation, and to administer serialized knowledge representations queued for merging. The background processor 124 may be activated when the hypertext processor 122 switches to idle mode. In an alternative embodiment, a hypertext module 120 may also include a search module 126 for processing queries of hypertextual knowledge representations. A
search module 126 processes queries initiated by a user, using a query language, for example XQuery 1.0, and delivers custom views of hypertextual knowledge representations.
A hypertext interface module 130 for managing communication between a hypertext module 120 and other system components, such as a text module 110, a graphical user interface (GUI) 140, and a data storage device 150. A hypertext interface module 130 includes, preferably, graphical module 132 and I/O module 134. A graphical module 132 is responsible for the transformation of hypertextual knowledge representations into graphical format, preferably in three dimensions, when data flows from a hypertext module 120 to a GUI 140, and for the transformation of modifications made by the user in the hypertext window of a GUI 140, when data flows from a GUI 140 to a hypertext module 120. For that purpose, a graphical module 132 may implement, for example, Java 3D API, although a variety of other implementations are possible within the scope of the invention.
The role of the I/O module 134 is to handle file operations, such as storing hypertextual knowledge representations residing in a hypertext module 120 in a data storage device 150, or opening previously stored files for processing or merging with other files.
A graphical user interface (GUI) 140, which enables the user to visually interact with the modules of the present invention. FIG. 2 shows a screen shot 200 illustrating a GUI 140. A text module 110 operates in the text window 210, and a hypertext module 120 operates in the hypertext window 220. The concept of a window is well known to those skilled in the art of graphical user interfaces. As shown in FIG. 2, a document viewer 112 of a text module 110 displays a document 214 in the text window 210. The document 214 is the table of contents of the book "Web Searcher's Handbook. Case Studies in 3D", published in 2001, URL: http://how-to-search-the-web.com .
The hypertext window 220 displays a three-dimensional representation of the document 214, created by the process described in more detail below with reference to FIG.
2. The three-dimensional model is based on the hypertextual representation of the document 214 residing in the hypertext module 120. Graphical nodes of the three-dimensional representation correspond to hypertextual nodes in the hypertext module 120, and lines representing relationships in the hypertext window 220 also have their hypertextual counterparts. In the preferred embodiment, nodes and relationships are described using XML Topic Maps (XTM) Version 1.0 interchange language, although other encoding systems may be used in alternative embodiments.
Dialog boxes are used extensively to provide a highly interactive user interface, as it is schematically illustrated in FIG. 3. Such dialog boxes are opened in a standard fashion for Microsoft Windows (TM) compatible applications by clicking a mouse button, and appear directly under the mouse cursor. The operation of a GUI 140 is described below in greater detail in relation to FIG. 2.
Data storage device 150 for storing files with hypertextual knowledge representations. Data storage devices 150 may be found within a single workstation, or may be distributed among a plurality of workstations in a network.
Referring now to FIG. 2, a text window 210 is shown as displaying a document 214. In this example, the document viewer 112 is a conventional word processor, and the document 214 is a formatted text document, although the invention is not limited in this respect.
A user may, while reading a document 214 displayed in the document viewer window 210, identify a word or phrase corresponding to a concept, or a fact, or any other knowledge element that the user perceives as a semantically significant unit. Thereafter the user may designate the character string, i.e. a word or a phrase, that represents the said unit in the document 214.
Preferably, the user does so by blocking, highlighting or otherwise marking the designated words within the document viewer window 210. For instance, a user may position a pointer, by means of a mouse or other pointing device, on the first character of the designated word, as for example the word "SEARCH" 220 and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the last character of the designated word 220. As a result, a typical document viewer 112 may highlight the selected word 220.
In an alternative embodiment, the user may designate a single word by positioning the pointer over the designated word and clicking twice the left mouse button. In still other embodiments, other techniques using a keyboard, a mouse, or other relevant devices, may be implemented.
Thereafter the user may drag and drop the selection to the hypertext window 212. The drag-and-drop is performed in a manner generally practiced in Microsoft Windows (TM) compatible applications. The user may position a pointer, by means of a mouse, on the selection and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the hypertext window 212 and release the left mouse button.
When a selection is dropped in the hypertext window 212, the hypertext module 120 creates a new node for the dropped character string. Immediately thereafter, a node definition dialog box, an example of which is depicted in FIG. 3, is opened within a hypertext window 212. The dialog box 300 presents a set of automatically assigned attributes for confirmation or modification by a user, as well as a plurality of named fields to fill in, such as Display name 310, which is a short node name that is displayed in the hypertext window 212, Name 320, which is the base name for the node, and other fields as needed.
Several attributes are automatically assigned to a node at the time of its creation, such as Display name 310 and Reference 330, which references the document 214 and the selected character string within the document, such as the character string 220 in this example.
The usual technique of referencing Web documents is by their URL. After completing the dialog, the user clicks on the OK button to confirm, and a new node is displayed in the hypertext window 212, as for example the node "Search" 222 in FIG. 2, which corresponds to the character string 220 within the document viewer window 210.
Another way to create a new node is by means of a context sensitive pop-up menu. A context sensitive menu is displayed whenever a user clicks the right mouse button within the hypertext window 212 away from any objects. This context sensitive menu includes a variety of standard options, depending, for example, on the type of embodiment of this invention.
One of menu items is New node... . Clicking on the item opens a dialog box 300. Having filled in the data fields of the dialog, a user may confirm the operation by clicking on the OK
button, and a newly created node is immediately displayed in a hypertext window 212.
Still another way to create a new node is by means of a menu bar pull-down menu. In that case the New node... menu item is located in one of the pull-down menus on a menu bar, and the item is used in the standard manner for all Microsoft Windows (TM) compatible applications.
A new node may remain unrelated to other nodes by explicit links, as for example the node "Context" 216 in FIG. 2. Otherwise, one or more relationships of a node to other nodes may be specified. There are several methods of specifying relationships between nodes. In one method, a user right-clicks on a node to open a context sensitive pop-up menu, then the user chooses the New relationship... item from the menu. Next, the user uses a dialog window to specify one or more nodes with which relationships are to be established, then specifies properties of each relationship, and confirms the end of the operation by clicking on the OK
button.
In another method, a user just draws a line between two nodes. In order to draw a line, a user may activate a line drawing tool in a tools menu, then position a pointer, by means of a mouse or other pointing device, on the first node, as for example on the node "Search"
222 in FIG. 2, and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the node "Tools"
230 and release the left mouse button. When the button is released, a relationship definition dialog box is displayed within the hypertext window 212. The dialog box presents a set of fields for the user to describe the relationship. After completing the dialog, the user clicks on the OK button to confirm, the hypertext module 120 processes input, and the relationship is displayed in the hypertext window 212. A hypertext graphical module 132 optimizes graphical representation of a relationship, which may assume the shape of a straight or a curved line.
Every node and relationship in a hypertext window 212 may be edited. A user may position a pointer, by means of a mouse or other pointing device, on a node or a line representing a relationship within a hypertext window 212 and click the right mouse button to open a contextual pop-up menu. The menu includes an Edit... item. By clicking on the Edit...
menu item, the user opens a corresponding dialog with a listing of the properties of a node, as illustrated by a dialog box 300, or, alternatively, with a listing of the properties of a relationship. Next, the user may modify or delete the content of any or all the fields in the dialog box. To confirm the results of editing, the user clicks on the OK button of the dialog.
A resulting hypertextual representation of knowledge may be saved in an external storage device 150 by means of an input-output module 134, which is a part of a hypertext interface module 130. The preferred embodiment uses XML Topic Maps (XTM) Version 1.0 of an XML
grammar based on the ISO International Standard, ISO/IEC 13250:2000, to encode knowledge. However, a variety of other knowledge encoding systems, for example Resource Description Framework (RDF), may be used in alternative embodiments for the same purpose.
FIG. 4 provides a flow diagram that summarises, in general terms, the interaction of a user with an illustrative embodiment of a knowledge editing system 100 in accordance with the principles of the present invention. A user identifies a knowledge entity in step 410 either only mentally or by selecting a character string in a text window 210 to designate an entity.
In step 420, the user creates a node for that entity in a hypertext medium by means of a hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140. In step 430, the user assigns attributes to the node via a dialog box 300. In step 440, the user decides whether to create another node, or not. If yes, the user repeats the above node creation cycle of steps 410 through 430. If not, the user may make a decision in step 450, whether to terminate all operations, or to proceed to step 460 and create a relationship. In step 460, the user identifies a relationship. In step 470, the user creates a relationship in a hypertext medium. Unlike a node, a relationship cannot be created by a drag-and-drop operation from a text window 210 to a hypertext window 212. A relationship is created in a hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140 by drawing a line between two nodes, or by using menu items, as described above in reference to FIG. 2. In step 480, the user assigns attributes to the relationship via a dialog box.
Relationships may be typed as superclass - subclass, whole - part, and other standard types, or as custom types defined by the user in the Custom type... field of the relationship definition dialog box. In step 490, the user chooses between creating another relationship, or terminating.
A resulting model which consists of a network of linked nodes residing in a hypertext medium represents a user's knowledge of a topic.
Next, the user may edit the hypertext-based knowledge model by making modifications in a hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140. The user may add or delete nodes and relationships between nodes, change attributes of nodes and relationships, merge different models, stored in many files, into one model. When changes in the hypertext window 212 are committed to the hypertext module 120, the hypertext processor 122 updates the model, and the graphical module 132 sends updated visualization of the model to the hypertext window 212 of a GUI 140.
Although the present invention has been described in accordance with the embodiments shown, one of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that there could be variations to the embodiments and those variations would be within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Accordingly, many modifications may be made by one of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Claims (10)
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. A system for editing knowledge, comprising:
a hypertext module providing means for string and processing a hypertextual knowledge representation, wherein said hypertextual knowledge representation consists of a plurality of nodes and links between said nodes, the totality of which represents knowledge introduced by a user of the system;
means for providing a graphical user interface including a hypertext editing window for displaying and interacting with a visual model of knowledge, said visual model comprising graphical elements, wherein means are provided for a user to create and manipulate said graphical elements, with each said graphical element representing a knowledge element identified by the user in user's memory and considered by the user to be relevant for the knowledge model;
means for creating nodes and links within said hypertextual knowledge representation stored in the hypertext module, wherein each graphical element of said visual model of knowledge is converted into either a node or a link within said hypertextual knowledge representation, with all data assigned to each graphical element being encoded with its respective node or link within said hypertextual knowledge representation;
means of associating said visual model of knowledge and said hypertextual knowledge representation, wherein any change produced in the content of said visual model of knowledge causes respective change in said hypertextual knowledge representation, and any change of said hypertextual knowledge representation produced as a result of internal processing causes respective change in its respective visual model of knowledge.
a hypertext module providing means for string and processing a hypertextual knowledge representation, wherein said hypertextual knowledge representation consists of a plurality of nodes and links between said nodes, the totality of which represents knowledge introduced by a user of the system;
means for providing a graphical user interface including a hypertext editing window for displaying and interacting with a visual model of knowledge, said visual model comprising graphical elements, wherein means are provided for a user to create and manipulate said graphical elements, with each said graphical element representing a knowledge element identified by the user in user's memory and considered by the user to be relevant for the knowledge model;
means for creating nodes and links within said hypertextual knowledge representation stored in the hypertext module, wherein each graphical element of said visual model of knowledge is converted into either a node or a link within said hypertextual knowledge representation, with all data assigned to each graphical element being encoded with its respective node or link within said hypertextual knowledge representation;
means of associating said visual model of knowledge and said hypertextual knowledge representation, wherein any change produced in the content of said visual model of knowledge causes respective change in said hypertextual knowledge representation, and any change of said hypertextual knowledge representation produced as a result of internal processing causes respective change in its respective visual model of knowledge.
2. A system as defined in claim 1, further comprising data storage means for storing serialized hypertextual knowledge representations on storage media.
3. A system as defined in claim 1, further comprising a graphical user interface providing a first window for displaying said visual model of knowledge, said window being identical to the hypertext editing window in claim 1, and a second window for viewing a text provided by a text module, and further comprising means allowing a user to select a character string in said second window, drag and drop said character string into said first window, whereupon a graphic element corresponding to said character string is created in said first window, properties are assigned to said graphic element, and a respective node is created within said hypertextual knowledge representation in the hypertext module.
4. A system as defined in claim 1, wherein said visual model of knowledge is three-dimensional.
5. A system as defined in claim 1, further comprising means for querying said hypertextual knowledge representation.
6. A system as defined in claim 2, further comprising means for combining and merging a plurality of serialized knowledge representations stored in external sources.
7. A method of editing knowledge, comprising the steps of:
a) projecting knowledge from human memory into hypertext, comprising the substeps of:
(1) identifying a knowledge element in said human memory by means of thinking, thereupon creating a graphical element describing said knowledge element in the hypertext editing window of claim 1, thereby causing an automatic creation of an associated node in the hypertextual knowledge representation of claim 1;
(2) repeating substep (1) of step a);
(3) selecting one of:
(A) repeating substep (1) of step a), (B) identifying a relationship between said knowledge elements in said human memory by means of thinking, and creating a graphical element describing said relationship in the hypertext editing window of claim 1, thereby causing an automatic creation of respective link in the hypertextual knowledge representation of claim 1;
(4) repeating substeps (1), (2), and (3) of step a) until all relevant knowledge elements and relationships between said knowledge elements are projected from said human memory into said hypertextual knowledge representation;
b) editing knowledge projected into hypertext, said knowledge being embodied in said hypertextual knowledge representation and displayed in said hypertext editing window as said visual model of knowledge, comprising one or more of the following substeps in any order:
(1) exploring said visual model of knowledge, thereby reinforcing cognitive structures from which said knowledge elements corresponding to hypertext elements under consideration originated;
(2) adding one or more said graphical elements into said hypertext editing window, said graphical elements corresponding to new knowledge elements and relationships identified in substep (1) of step b), said graphical elements being matched by respective nodes and links duly created in said hypertextual knowledge representation;
(3) deleting one or more said graphical elements in said hypertext editing window, said graphical elements corresponding to knowledge elements and relationships identified in substep (1) of step b) as requiring to be removed from the visual knowledge model, with respective nodes and links in said hypertextual knowledge representation being duly removed;
(4) changing data assigned to one or more said graphical elements in the hypertext editing window, if any of said changes were identified as desirable in substep (1) of step b), with respective changes being duly passed on to respective nodes and links in said hypertextual knowledge representation;
c) terminating the process of knowledge editing at the user's discretion, with original knowledge changed as a result of knowledge editing.
a) projecting knowledge from human memory into hypertext, comprising the substeps of:
(1) identifying a knowledge element in said human memory by means of thinking, thereupon creating a graphical element describing said knowledge element in the hypertext editing window of claim 1, thereby causing an automatic creation of an associated node in the hypertextual knowledge representation of claim 1;
(2) repeating substep (1) of step a);
(3) selecting one of:
(A) repeating substep (1) of step a), (B) identifying a relationship between said knowledge elements in said human memory by means of thinking, and creating a graphical element describing said relationship in the hypertext editing window of claim 1, thereby causing an automatic creation of respective link in the hypertextual knowledge representation of claim 1;
(4) repeating substeps (1), (2), and (3) of step a) until all relevant knowledge elements and relationships between said knowledge elements are projected from said human memory into said hypertextual knowledge representation;
b) editing knowledge projected into hypertext, said knowledge being embodied in said hypertextual knowledge representation and displayed in said hypertext editing window as said visual model of knowledge, comprising one or more of the following substeps in any order:
(1) exploring said visual model of knowledge, thereby reinforcing cognitive structures from which said knowledge elements corresponding to hypertext elements under consideration originated;
(2) adding one or more said graphical elements into said hypertext editing window, said graphical elements corresponding to new knowledge elements and relationships identified in substep (1) of step b), said graphical elements being matched by respective nodes and links duly created in said hypertextual knowledge representation;
(3) deleting one or more said graphical elements in said hypertext editing window, said graphical elements corresponding to knowledge elements and relationships identified in substep (1) of step b) as requiring to be removed from the visual knowledge model, with respective nodes and links in said hypertextual knowledge representation being duly removed;
(4) changing data assigned to one or more said graphical elements in the hypertext editing window, if any of said changes were identified as desirable in substep (1) of step b), with respective changes being duly passed on to respective nodes and links in said hypertextual knowledge representation;
c) terminating the process of knowledge editing at the user's discretion, with original knowledge changed as a result of knowledge editing.
8. A method as defined in claim 7, wherein all or part of knowledge elements represented by graphical elements in steps a) and b) of 7 are identified when a user of said method is reading a text.
9. A method as defined in claim 7, wherein the resulting hypertextual knowledge representation is saved in an electronic file.
10. A method as defined in claim 7, wherein, instead of step a) of claim 7, a hypertextual knowledge representation is loaded into said hypertext module from an electronic file.
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| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
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| EP2300966A1 (en) * | 2008-05-01 | 2011-03-30 | Peter Sweeney | Method, system, and computer program for user-driven dynamic generation of semantic networks and media synthesis |
| US9595004B2 (en) | 2008-08-29 | 2017-03-14 | Primal Fusion Inc. | Systems and methods for semantic concept definition and semantic concept relationship synthesis utilizing existing domain definitions |
| WO2017091120A1 (en) * | 2015-11-25 | 2017-06-01 | MiNDiGO AB | A system and a method for ontology based browsing |
| US10579689B2 (en) | 2017-02-08 | 2020-03-03 | International Business Machines Corporation | Visualization and augmentation of human knowledge construction during material consumption |
-
2003
- 2003-12-19 CA CA002451737A patent/CA2451737A1/en not_active Abandoned
Cited By (9)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP2300966A1 (en) * | 2008-05-01 | 2011-03-30 | Peter Sweeney | Method, system, and computer program for user-driven dynamic generation of semantic networks and media synthesis |
| EP2300966A4 (en) * | 2008-05-01 | 2011-10-19 | Peter Sweeney | Method, system, and computer program for user-driven dynamic generation of semantic networks and media synthesis |
| US11868903B2 (en) | 2008-05-01 | 2024-01-09 | Primal Fusion Inc. | Method, system, and computer program for user-driven dynamic generation of semantic networks and media synthesis |
| US9595004B2 (en) | 2008-08-29 | 2017-03-14 | Primal Fusion Inc. | Systems and methods for semantic concept definition and semantic concept relationship synthesis utilizing existing domain definitions |
| US10803107B2 (en) | 2008-08-29 | 2020-10-13 | Primal Fusion Inc. | Systems and methods for semantic concept definition and semantic concept relationship synthesis utilizing existing domain definitions |
| US12032616B2 (en) | 2008-08-29 | 2024-07-09 | Primal Fusion Inc. | Systems and methods for semantic concept definition and semantic concept relationship synthesis utilizing existing domain definitions |
| WO2017091120A1 (en) * | 2015-11-25 | 2017-06-01 | MiNDiGO AB | A system and a method for ontology based browsing |
| US10579689B2 (en) | 2017-02-08 | 2020-03-03 | International Business Machines Corporation | Visualization and augmentation of human knowledge construction during material consumption |
| US11250086B2 (en) | 2017-02-08 | 2022-02-15 | International Business Machines Corporation | Visualization and augmentation of human knowledge construction during material consumption |
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