Semantic networks are an alternative to predicate logic as a form of

knowledge representation. The idea is that we can store our knowledge in the
form of a graph, with nodes representing objects in the world, and arcs
representing relationships between those objects.
It is a directed or undirected graph consisting of vertices, which represent concepts,
and edges, which represent semantic relations between concepts, mapping or
connecting semantic fields.
A semantic network is used when one has knowledge that is best understood
as a set of concepts that are related to one another.
It is argued that this form of representation is closer to the way humans
structure knowledge by building mental links between things than the predicate
logic we considered earlier
It is also defined as a graphical representation of knowledge.
NODES: Objects under consideration.
ARCS: Relationships with another nodes.

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

A particular problem is that we haven’t distinguished between nodes
representing classes of things, and nodes representing individual objects.

So, for example, the node labelled Cat represents both the single
(nameless) cat who sat on the mat, and the whole class of cats to which
Tom belongs, which are mammals and which like cream. The is_a link
has two different meanings – it can mean that one object is an individual
item from a class, for example Tom is a member of the class of cats, or
that one class is a subset of another, for example, the class of cats is a
subset of the class of mammals. This confusion does not occur in logic,
where the use of quantifiers, names and predicates makes it clear what
we mean so:
We can clean up the representation by distinguishing between nodes
representing individual or instances, and nodes representing classes. The
is_a link will only be used to show an individual belonging to a class.
The link representing one class being a subset of another will be labelled
a_kind_of, or ako for short.
Inheritance: This Prolog equivalent captures an important property of semantic
nets, that they may be used for a form of inference known as inheritance. The idea
of this is that if an object belongs to a class (indicated by an is_a link) it inherits all
the properties of that class.
So, for example as we have a likes link between cats and cream, meaning “all cats
like cream”, we can infer that any object which has an is_a link to cats will like
cream. So, both Tom and Cat1 like cream.
However, the is_coloured link is between Tom and ginger, not between cats and
ginger, indicating that being ginger is a property of Tom as an individual, and not
of all cats. We cannot say that Cat1 is ginger, for example; if we wanted to, we
would have to put another is_coloured link between Cat1 and ginger. Inheritance
also applies across the a_kind_of links. For example, any property of mammals or
animals will automatically be a property of cats. So we can infer, for example, that
Tom has fur, since Tom is a cat, a cat is a kind of mammal, and mammals have fur.
If, for example, we had another subclass of mammals, say dogs, and we had, say,
Fido is_a dog, Fido would inherit the property has fur from mammals, but not the
property likes cream, which is specific to cats. This situation is shown in the
diagram below:
Reification: An alternative form of representation considers the
semantic network directly as a graph. We have already seen ways of
representing graphs in Prolog. We could represent each edge in the
semantic net graph by a fact whose predicate name is the label on the
edge. The nodes in this graph, whether they represent individuals or
classes are represented by arguments to the facts representing edges.
This gives the following representation for our initial graph:
is_a(mat1,mats).
is_a(cat1,cats).
is_a(tom,cats).
is_a(bird1,birds).
caught(tom,bird1).
ako(cats,mammals).
ako(mammals,animals).
ako(birds,animals).
like(cats,cream).
owns(john,tom).
sat_on(cat1,mat1).
is_coloured(tom,ginger).
have(mammals,fur).
Alternatively, the graph could be built using the cells or pointers of an
imperative language. There are also special purpose knowledge
representation languages which provide a notation which translates
directly to this sort of graph. This process of turning a predicate into an
object in a knowledge representation system is known as reification. So,
for example, the constant symbol cats represent the set of all cats, which
we can treat as just another object.

FRAMES
• Frames are an artificial intelligence data structure used to
divide knowledge into substructures by representing
"stereotyped situations".
• They were proposed by Marvin Minsky in his 1974 article "A Framework
for Representing Knowledge".
• Representation should reflect Domain Structure.
• He proposed that knowledge is organized into small packets called frames.
• Frames contains slots which have values.
• Whenever a situation occurs, a series of related frames are activated and
reasoning is done.

Frames are more structured form of packaging knowledge, - used for representing
objects, concepts etc.
Frames are organized into hierarchies or network of frames.
Lower level frames can inherit information from upper level frames in network.

Nodes are connected using links viz.,

→ subc (links two class frames, one of which is subclass of other e.g.,
science_faculty class is ako of faculty class),
→ is_a (connects a particular instance of a class frame e.g., Renuka is_a
science_faculty)
→ a_part_of (connects two class frames one of which is contained in other e.g.,
faculty class is_part_of department class).

→ Property link of semantic net is replaced by SLOT fields.

A frame may have any number of slots needed for describing object. e.g.,faculty
frame may have name, age, address, qualification etc as slot names.

Each frame includes two basic elements: slots and facets.

- Each slot may contain one or more facets (called fillers) which may take many
forms such as:
value (value of the slot),
default (default value of the slot),
range (indicates the range of integer or enumerated values, a slot can have),
demons (procedural attachments such as if_needed, if_deleted, if_added etc.) and
other (may contain rules, other frames, semantic net or any type of other
information). 

Declarative Frames: Frame that merely contains description about objects is

called a declarative type.
Procedural Frames:
• It is also possible to attach slots which explain how to perform things. In
other words, it is possible to have procedural knowledge represented in a
frame
• Such frames are known as action- procedure frames.
• Action frame have following slots:
• Actor Slot
• Object Slot
• Source Slot
• Destination Slot
• Task Slot
SCRIPTS:
• A script is a structured representation describing a stereotyped
sequence events that take place in day-to-day activities.
• Scripts are used in natural language understanding systems to organize
a knowledge base in terms of the situations that the system should
understand.
• Special case of frame structure.
• Advantages of Scripts:
• Ability to predict events.
• A single coherent interpretation may be build up from a collection
of observations.
• Disadvantages:
 • Less general than frames.
• May not be suitable to represent all kinds of knowledge.
• Cannot be able to share knowledge across scripts as knowledge in
scripts is true to that script only

Conceptual Dependency

• Conceptual dependency is a theory of natural language processing

which mainly deals with representation of semantics of a language.
• Main motivations are:
• To construct computer program that can understand natural
language.
• To help in the drawing of inference from sentences.
• To be independent of the words used in the original input.
• That is to say: For any 2 (or more) sentences that are identical in
meaning there should be only one representation of that meaning.
• CD provides:
• a structure into which nodes representing information can be
placed
• a specific set of primitives
• at a given level of granularity.
• Sentences are represented as a series of diagrams depicting actions
using both abstract and real physical situations.
• The agent and the objects are represented
• The actions are built up from a set of primitive acts which can be
modified by tense.
Examples of Primitive Acts are:
ATRANS
-- Transfer of an abstract relationship. e.g. give.
PTRANS
-- Transfer of the physical location of an object. e.g. go.
PROPEL
-- Application of a physical force to an object. e.g. push.
MTRANS
-- Transfer of mental information. e.g. tell.
MBUILD
-- Construct new information from old. e.g. decide.
SPEAK
-- Utter a sound. e.g. say.
ATTEND
-- Focus a sense on a stimulus. e.g. listen, watch.
MOVE
-- Movement of a body part by owner. e.g. punch, kick.
GRASP
-- Actor grasping an object. e.g. clutch.
INGEST
-- Actor ingesting an object. e.g. eat.
EXPEL
-- Actor getting rid of an object from body. e.g. ????.

Six primitive conceptual categories provide building blocks which are the set

of allowable dependencies in the concepts in a sentence:
PP
-- Real world objects.
ACT
-- Real world actions.
PA
-- Attributes of objects.
AA
-- Attributes of actions.
T
-- Times.
LOC
-- Locations