HOMEWORK #2

Introduction to Ontology

1. In HW #1, you were asked to write down (some of) the information needed in order to represent and solve McCarthy's "getting to the airport" problem.

   Presumably, you realized that you couldn't write down all the information that would be involved (e.g., since the problem concerns airports, it's possible that you decided that you had to represent something about airplanes, but I doubt that you thought it necessary to represent that the Wright brothers are credited with inventing the airplane in 1903).

   But suppose you had been asked, instead, to represent as much information as possible about airports, just in case at some time in the future you were (or your computer was) asked a question about them, and you wanted to be fully prepared.

   So, here's another discussion question with many answers, none clearly right or wrong (is all of KRR really this vague and fuzzy?):

   Write down as much information as you can about airports. You may include facts about what kinds of things airports are (and what other things are of the same kind, e.g., railroad stations), properties that they have, their parts, the relationships that they have to other things, etc. You might also want to include "conditional rules", e.g., that if an airport has lots of planes flying out of it from a single airline, then it is a hub for that airline (that's just an example).

   For each of the things that you represent, you might also want to represent the same kind of information about them (i.e., their classes, their properties, their parts, rules about them, etc.). As with HW #1, you'll eventually have to stop, so you'll need to make a decision about what to include and what not to include. (This sort of information, or "knowledge", is called an "ontology".)

   You may use any language that you like, but, if it isn't English, please explain your notation (i.e., give the "syntax" and "semantics" of your knowledge representation language).

2. Create the same kind of ontology for the domain of geographical landscape features, such as bodies of water (lakes, oceans, etc.), mountains and valleys, etc. You can include general kinds of features (e.g., oceans) as well as specific ones (e.g., the Atlantic Ocean), and you might include conditional rules (e.g., valleys are located between two mountains). Follow the same general advice as above.

   DUE: AT THE BEGINNING OF LECTURE, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4

   
   
   

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   Copyright © 2005 by William J. Rapaport (rapaport@cse.buffalo.edu)
   file: 563S05/hw02-2005-01-28.html