Vol. 33 (2006) N°3

 

Knowledge Organization

International Journal

Devoted to Concept Theory, Classification, Indexing, and Knowledge Representation

 

 

 

CONTENT

Announcement
Information Access for the Global Community: An International Seminar on the Universal Decimal Classification

 

Articles
Claudio Gnoli.
Phylogenetic Classification

AbstractOne general principle in the construction of classification schemes is that of grouping phenomena to be classified according to their shared origin in evolution or history (phylogenesis). In general schemes, this idea has been applied by several classificationists in identifying a series of integrative levels, each originated from the previous ones, and using them as the main classes. In special schemes, common origin is a key principle in many domains: examples are given from the classification of climates, of organisms, and of musical instruments. Experience from these domains, however, suggests that using common origin alone, as done in cladistic taxonomy, can produce weird results, like having birds as a subclass of reptiles; while the most satisfying classifications use a well balanced mix of common origin and similarity. It is discussed how this could be applied to the development of a general classification of phenomena in an emergentist perspective, and how the resulting classification tree could be structured. Charles Bennett's notion of logical depth appears to be a promising conceptual tool for this purpose.

Mela Bosch.
Ontologies, Different Reasoning Strategies, Different Logics, Different Kinds of Knowledge Representation: Working Together

Abstract The recent experiences in the building, maintenance and reuse of ontologies has shown that the most efficient approach is the collaborative one. However, communication between collaborators such as IT professionals, librarians, web designers and subject matter experts is difficult and time consuming. This is because there are different reasoning strategies, different logics and different kinds of knowledge representation in the applications of Semantic Web. This article intends to be a reference scheme. It uses concise and simple explanations that can be used in common by specialists of different backgrounds working together in an application of Semantic Web.

Wang Zhonghong, Abdus Sattar Chaudhry, and Christopher Khoo.
Potential and Prospects of Taxonomies for Content Organization

AbstractWhile taxonomies are being increasingly discussed in published and grey literature, the term taxonomy still seems to be stated quite loosely and obscurely. This paper aims at explaining and clarifying the concept of taxonomy in the context of information organization. To this end, the salient features of taxonomies are identified and their scope, nature, and role are further elaborated based on an extensive literature review. In the meantime, the connection and distinctions between taxonomies and classification schemes and thesauri are also identified, and the rationale that taxonomies are chosen as a viable knowledge organization system used in organization-wide websites to support browsing and aid navigation is clarified.

Andrei I. Kapterev.
Governing the Professional and Intellectual Potential of a Modern Organization: Sociological Approach

AbstractGoverning the professional and intellectual potential is an interdisciplinary field of scientific research using a systematic process of developing innovation technologies for transforming individual knowledge and specialists’ experience in such a way that would apply the knowledge and experience to the processes, services and products offered by an organization to reach its strategic goals. From the technological standpoint, governing the professional and intellectual potential represents modeling, forming, using and developing the corporate system of governing the professional and intellectual potential. We consider structuring knowledge using this model rather valuable during the stage of forming the governance system of professional and intellectual potential. Understanding, i.e., explicit definition of these factors, would allow for constant observation of the behavioral trends and for organizing the activity in a way conducive for influencing the favorable change of these factors. In addition, the presence of the critical management factor (CMF) system enables one to check the significance of any activity (i.e., any processes within a company) against these factors.

 

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