INT4204

INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND
EXPERT SYSTEM
SEMANTIC NET
 Semantic Networks
A collection of nodes and links
◦ Nodes represent concepts, objects, events
◦ Links (arcs) are directed and labelled
◦ Links represent relations between nodes (concepts)

Semantic network is a directed graph

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Semantic Networks

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Semantic Networks

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Semantic Networks

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Common Semantic
Relations
There is no standard set of relations for semantic networks, but the
following relations are very common:

INSTANCE: X is an INSTANCE of Y if X is a specific example of the general

concept Y.
Example: Elvis is an INSTANCE of Human

ISA: X ISA Y if X is a subset of the more general concept Y.

Example: sparrow ISA bird
◦ IS-A” (is an instance of). Refers to a member of a class, where a class is a group of objects with one or
more common attributes (properties). For example, “Tom IS-A bird”.

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Common Semantic
Relations
HASPART: X HASPART Y if the concept Y is a part of the concept X. (Or this can
be any other property)
Example: sparrow HASPART tail
◦  (part-subpart relationship): identify property relationships

A-KIND-OF : Relates one class to another, for example “Birds are A-

KIND-OF animals”.
HAS-A: Relates attributes to objects, for example “Mary HAS-A cat”.
CAUSE : Expresses a causal relationship, for example “Fire CAUSES
smoke”.
CAN – has the ability to
MADE OF, COLOR, TEXTURE, etc

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 Semantic Nets: Student
World Concepts

module award

BSc
MSc
AI C++

DB

F.Bloggs student
halls

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 Semantic Nets: Student World
Links between Concepts Define Meaning

module isa award

instance
isa
instance BSc
instance
MSc
AI
C++

DB

halls F.Bloggs student

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 Semantic Nets: student world

award
consist_ isa
instance module
of
BSc
DB
isa
instance instance

C++
AI
MSc

enrolled

halls resides F.Bloggs instance student

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Semantic Nets: Animal
World

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Semantic Nets
• Note that in our semantic
net we have represented
some specific individuals,
such as Fang, Bob, and
Fido, and have also
represented some general
classes of things, such as
cats and dogs.
• The specific objects are
generally referred to as
instances of a particular
class.
• Fido is an instance of the
class dog. Bob is an
instance of the class
Builder.

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Semantic Nets:
Inheritance
• allows us to specify
properties of a
superclass and then to
define a subclass,
which inherits the
properties of the
superclass
• example, mammals are
the superclass of dogs
and Fido.
• Dogs are the subclass
of mammals and the
superclass of Fido.

SLIDE ‹#› OF 9
 Object-attribute-value Triplets
One problem with semantic nets is that there is no standard definition of link
names. To avoid this ambiguity, we can restrict this formalism to a very simple
kind of a semantic network, which has only two types of links, “HAS-A” and
“IS-A”. Such a formalism is called Object-Attribute-Value (OAV) triplets, and it
is a widely used mode of knowledge representation (especially for representing
declarative knowledge). It is also the base of the Semantic Web KR model, called RDF.
Example: Consider object “airplane”. Some of its attributes are:
◦ number of engines;
◦ type of engines;
◦ type of wing design.
Possible values of these attributes are:
◦ number of engines: 2, 3, 4.
◦ type of engines: jet, propeller-driven.
◦ type of wing design: conventional, swept-back.
 Object-attribute-value triples
(example contd)
Object Attribute Value

Airplane NumberOfEngines 2
Airplane NumberOfEngines 3
Airplane NumberOfEngines 4
Airplane TypeOfEngines Jet
Airplane TypeOfEngines Propeller
Airplane TypeOfWings Conventional
Airplane TypeOfWings SweptBack
 Evaluation of SN
Advantages
◦ easy to understand, good at describing declarative knowledge
◦ Key feature: inheritance
◦ economy of effort: inference achieved through links
◦ reduce search time (nodes are connected to related nodes)
◦ flexibility in adding new nodes
◦ closer to human information storage

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Evaluation of SN
Limitations
◦ no standard representation, ambiguity in node/link
descriptions
◦ exceptions are difficult to handle (inherit all features)
◦ not temporal (i.e. doesn’t represent time or sequence)
◦ difficult to represent procedural knowledge, negation,
Semantic Networks: Bird Classification

bird
wings

animal yellow
fly

tweety

sing

canary small

A set of concepts

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Semantic networks: bird classification
isa
animal has_part
bird
wings

can

is ca
fly
a n

sing

size
canary small
Bird has wings,
colour and can fly and
instance can sing
yellow
tweety
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Quick Review
Question
Draw a semantic net , based on the below
information

◦ Garfield is a cat, cat have 4 legs, so Garfield has 4 legs.

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Quick Review
Question
Represent the following to semantic net
Tom is a cat.
Tom caught a bird.
Tom is owned by John.
Tom is ginger in colour.
Cats like cream.
The cat sat on the mat.
A cat is a mammal.
A bird is an animal.
All mammals are animals.
Mammals have fur.

SLIDE 21 OF 9
Quick Review
Question
Create a semantic network for the relationships among your
family members. List five questions that your semantic net
could easily be used to answer and five questions that
would be more of a challenge to answer.

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