Antonio Vaquero

Thinking precedes action: using software engineering for the development of a terminology database to improve access to biomedical documentation

Relational databases have been used to represent lexical knowledge since the days of machine-readable dictionaries. However, although software engineering provides a methodological framework for the construction of databases, most developing efforts focus on content, implementation and time-saving issues, and forget about the software engineering aspects of software and database construction. We have defined a methodology for the development of lexical resources that covers this and other aspects, by following a sound software engineering approach to formally represent knowledge. Nonetheless, the conceptual model from which it departs has some major limitations that need to be overcome. Based on a short analysis of common problems in existing lexical resources, we present an upgraded conceptual model as a first step towards the methodological development of a hierarchically organized concept-based terminology database, to improve the access to medical information as part of the SINAMED and ISIS projects.

Conceptual design for domain and task specific ontology-based linguistic resources

Regardless of the knowledge representation schema chosen to implement a linguistic resource, conceptual design is an important step in its development However, it is normally put aside by developing efforts as they focus on content, implementation and time-saving issues rather than on the software engineering aspects of the construction of linguistic resources Based on an analysis of common problems found in linguistic resources, we present a reusable conceptual model which incorporates elements that give ontology developers the possibility to establish formal semantic descriptions for concepts and relations, and thus avoiding the aforementioned common problems The model represents a step forward in our efforts to define a complete methodology for the design and implementation of ontology-based linguistic resources using relational databases and a sound software engineering approach for knowledge representation.

Some Software Engineering and Knowledge Representation Principles for the Design and Construction of Ontology-Based Linguistic Resources

Nowadays, ontologies have become a common component of natural language processing systems as well as of many others. Nevertheless, in spite of the existing explosion of ontological resources, they have been developed without a rigorous methodological approach. Furthermore the usage of semantic relations between concepts has been so subjective that has led to errors affecting the coherence of these ontologies. In this article, we introduce a methodology for the construction of ontological linguistic resources based on software engineering, and develop the first of its 3 stages, introducing notions of knowledge organization and control of semantic relations for the gradual and systematic development of well-designed and coherent ontologies.

Bringing Forward Semantic Relations: Issues and Proposals

Semantic relations are an important element in the construction of ontologies and models of problem domains. Nevertheless, they remain fuzzy or under-specified. This is a pervasive problem in software engineering and artificial intelligence. Thus, we find semantic links that can have multiple interpretations in wide-coverage ontologies, semantic data models with abstractions that are not enough to capture the relation richness of problem domains, and improperly structured taxonomies. However, if relations are provided with precise semantics, some of these problems can be avoided, and meaningful operations can be performed on them. In this paper we present some insightful issues about the modeling, representation and usage of relations including the available taxonomy structuring methodologies as well as the initiatives aiming to provide relations with precise semantics. Moreover, we explain and propose the control of relations as a key issue for the coherent construction of ontologies.

Methodologically designing a hierarchically organized concept-based terminology database to improve access to biomedical documentation

Relational databases have been used to represent lexical knowledge since the days of machine-readable dictionaries However, although software engineering provides a methodological framework for the construction of databases, most developing efforts focus on content, implementation and time-saving issues, and forget about the software engineering aspects of database construction We have defined a methodology for the development of lexical resources that covers this and other aspects, by following a sound software engineering approach to formally represent knowledge Nonetheless, the conceptual model from which it departs has some major limitations that need to be overcome Based on a short analysis of common problems in existing lexical resources, we present an upgraded conceptual model as a first step towards the methodological development of a hierarchically organized concept-based terminology database, to improve the access to medical information as part of the SINAMED and ISIS projects.

Improving the Language Mastery through Responsive Environments

This paper is devoted to a way of intending to improve the language mastery of students in every subject and in a broad range of education levels by using computer-based tools involving linguistic resources. Lexicon concepts useful for language learning are involved in dictionaries and other kinds of linguistic resources. These concepts (vocabulary, meanings, semantic categories, semantic relationships, and taxonomy) are pointed out. Claim is made for using new environments and computer-human interfaces based on these concepts which define the pedagogical goals. Envisioning the foreseen collaborative instruction tasks, claim is made for the constructionist model of learning. Authoring and consulting electronic linguistic resources are the main tasks to reach the defined goals. The conceptual model appropriate for developing any software system taking into account all these principles is discussed, and the reached entity-relationship model is presented. We further present the developed tools for creating bilingual linguistic resources, which could allow reaching the foreseen learning goals. The authoring tool supports consistency of the intended semantics of the lexicon and enables the detection of omissions and inconsistencies, and the user tool is a graphical user interface for queries. These tools can be advantageously used in language teaching.

Learning Linguistic Concepts Through the Construction of Dictionaries with a Directed Acyclic Graph Shaped Taxonomy

In general the global pedagogical goal of the creation and use of dictionaries is the mastery of languages. The specific goal is to facilitate the assimilation of basic linguistic concepts: lexicon, sense (meaning), semantic categories, lexico-semantic relations, etc. In this paper, we describe the linguistic concepts that constitute the pedagogical goals to attain, as well as the constructivist model of learning. The conceptual knowledge linked to the terms is arranged in taxonomies. However, in our previous work, the concepts and their relationships were represented as simple hierarchical trees. Nevertheless, these taxonomies are quite limited and thus do not capture the complexities of reality in a given area, as they only allow a category to have one parent category. We thus opted for a directed acyclic graph (DAG) to represent the conceptual knowledge as this structure allows a more specific category to be the child of multiple broader categories. With these requirements we have developed tools to direct the activities that allow building and querying monolingual dictionaries based on a DAG-shaped taxonomy. Using these tools to build a dictionary, users can learn in a simple and natural way some semantic aspects that are necessary for the mastery of languages.