We shall continue examples of graphic vocabularies . In this section, we shall consider simple graphic vocabularies based merely on color coding. Here is a description of a family tree. It includes both sexes and thus it is a bit more realistic comparing to our previous family tree example.
henry:man.
susan:woman.
tim:man[father->henry,
mother->susan].
theo:man[father->henry, mother->susan].
julia:woman.
mary:woman[father->tim, mother->julia].
peter:man[father->tim, mother->julia].
kate:woman.
mike:man[father->theo, mother->kate].
mary:woman.
john:man[father->james, mother->mary].
jack:man[father->james, mother->mary].
sophia:woman.
cleo:woman[father->peter, mother->sophia].
rosa:woman.
diana:woman[father->mike, mother->rosa].
Here is the graphic representation of our family knowledge base.
Although it is readable , it is not as vivid as customary drawn family trees in history textbooks. We may decide to represent all man by blue boxes and all woman by red boxes. Then we may represent relation mother by red arrows drawn from mother of a person to this person. Similarly we may represent relation father by blue arrows drawn from father of a person to this person.
Here is the transformed view of our knowledge base.
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Introducing new graphic symbols for instances of man, woman, and attributes father, and mother we have achieved a lot in terms of clarity and readability. In fact we have transformed our family knowledge base to a shape which may resemble real representations of family tree in history books. Yet this representation has precise computational semantic. It can be converted back to the basic GFL .
C 2003 S. Krivov Send your comments to skrivov@zoo.uvm.edu