A SEMANTIC NET REPRESENTATION FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF MINERALS

A program is described which uses a variation of a semantic net, the t ree network, to represent the classification of minerals together with their properties and values. The tree network efficiently represents the hierarchical nature of the mineral classification. The inheritance and recognition principles characteristic of the semantic network und erlie the query mechanism. PROLOG is used as the representation langua ge, this provides a declarative method of representing the tree networ k and allows queries to be posed in a natural user-friendly manner. Mi nerals are represented by nodes in the tree network which are connecte d by the structural links IS-A and ARE. Properties and their values ar e connected to mineral nodes by (attribute, property) and (property, v alue) pairs. Several different search strategies are described for per forming recognition and inheritance type queries of the tree network.