[topicmapmail] Inference rules

[Dan Corwin]

Murray Altheim wrote:

> Put it this way: I believe strongly enough in Topic Maps as a
> foundation for knowledge representation that I started a Ph.D.
> program to explore the possibilities. If you've been following
> along with the conversation involving Jack Park, Dan Corwin,
> and myself, you'd see that we've discussing inferencing at a
> fairly high level, that of Conceptual Graphs.

I've drafted a summary of that other thread, which I initiated
to test this group's interest in Conceptual Graphs, and explore
feasibility for defining XTM ontologies to standardize them:

   http://www.lexikos.com/psi/words/CG_ontologies.htm

My summary includes a bibliography, and suggests a catchy name
for such a standard - "Conceptual Topic Maps" or CTM.  It also
includes an expanded analysis of how CGs relate to inferencing,
which shows they are isomorphic to typed XTM associations.

I conclude that only two new CTM ontologies are required, plus
an open set of extensions for specific tools, applications and
inference engines.  The former types are now well documented at
public URLs.  And extensions would help clients interoperate
better if they all extended a common CTM baseline of types.

Before CTM goes past early summaries and analysis, feedback
from the readers of this current thread would be most welcome,
especially on segment 2 - the part discussing facts and rules,
and how CTM might standardize their notation under XTM 1.0 to
match the popular strategies adopted in Conceptual Graphs.

Thanks in advance, and also for the related comments you have
already posted, which directly contributed. :-)

Dan Corwin