Abstract:

To enable the automatic identification of the relations between terms in semantic retrieval, ontology structure and inference methods are studied. A six-element based ontological structure is proposed for semantic retrieval. Description logic is adoped as an expression tool to semantically describe the atomic term, complex terms, instances, instances descriptions, attribute assignments and axioms. Then, the new structure is evaluated by the Gruber’s rules including explicitness, objectivity, consistency, extensibility, minimal encoding bias and minimal ontological commitment. Based on the new structure, this paper proposes two types of reasoning (terms-oriented and instances-oriented) for the application of semantic retrieval, as well as the conversion mechanisms and determining algorithm. Finally, this paper puts forward four kinds of rules for information retrieval, and analyzes the applications of this new structure in semantic retrieval.