Conceptual factoring and unification of graphs representing semantic models

• US 20030050915A1
• Filed: 08/23/2002
• Published: 03/13/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Poppet International Pty Limited
• Original Assignee: Poppet International Pty Limited
• Inventors: Allemang, Dean T., Simos, Mark A.
• Granted Patent: US 6,847,979 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/36 Creation of semantic tools, e.g. ontology or thesauri
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/367 Ontology
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Techniques for factoring one or more source graphs into a composite graph containing nodes representing analogous elements of the source graphs and a variability graph containing nodes representing differences in the source graphs. The composite graph is made by taking analogous input trees from the source graphs and traversing the trees from top to bottom looking for nodes in each tree at each level that are analogous to the nodes at that level in the other input trees. The sets of analogous nodes are found by first automatically correlating the nodes in the level currently being examined. Correlation may, for example, be based on similar values of a property of the nodes being correlated. Representations of the sets of correlated nodes are then displayed to a user, who indicates which sets of correlated nodes are in fact analogous. The user may also indicate that the nodes in a set of correlated nodes are not analogous or that nodes that were found by the automatic correlation not to be autonomous are in fact. The analogous nodes are allocated to a corresponding node at a corresponding level in the composite graph; the other nodes are allocated to a set of anomalous nodes. One application for the techniques is managing graphs which are models of catalogs of items.

Claims

1. A method performed in a system having a processor, a memory accessible thereto, and a user interface of unifying child nodes of a plurality of parent nodes from one or more other graphs into composite graph child nodes of a composite graph parent node in a composite graph, the graphs being stored in the memory and

the method comprising the steps performed by the processor of:

correlating the child nodes, including any of the composite graph child nodes, to produce one or more sets of possibly analogous nodes;

displaying a representation of the set of possibly analogous nodes in the user interface and receiving an indication via the user interface whether nodes in the represented set are taken to be analogous; and

making siblings of the composite graph child nodes of the composite graph parent node as required to provide a composite graph child node corresponding to each of the indicated sets of analogous nodes.

2. A method performed in a system having a processor and a memory accessible thereto of correlating a node in a first graph with a possibly analogous node in a second graph, both graphs being stored in the memory and

the method comprising the steps performed by the processor of:

analyzing the first node'"'"'s relationship to another node in the first graph to obtain a first result;

analyzing the second node'"'"'s relationship to another node in the second graph to obtain a second result; and

using the results to determine at least in part whether the first node is correlated with the second node.