Settembrini Publishers is partnering with Unifiedroot S&M to design semantic networks for top-level domain name publishing services. Semantic networks organize information by linking related concepts and data, giving meaning to the relationships. They correspond to how humans naturally think about organizing information and are a flexible way to represent knowledge.

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Semantic Networks
Settembrini Publishers
Dick H. Ahles
December 2012
Settembrini Publishers is the official global Partner for Unifiedroot S&M
to design Semantic Networks for the Top Level Domain Names TLD Publishing Services

2. . Organizing information 2
• There are many ways to organize, store and retrieve
information
• A natural way to organize information and to enrich it is by
referring to similar or other relevant data and concepts
• That’s why the Internet is
so popular: hyperlinks are an easy
way to jump from one webpage
to the next webpage containing
relevant information
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

3. . Networks of information 3
• If one chooses to organize the available information by
offering all kinds of references to other information then we
could store this information into a data network or so called
network database
• In linguistics or the world of librarians such networks with
their references are called semantic networks, thesauri or
ontologies and are especially used for indexing of documents
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4. . What is a Semantic Network? 4
• DEFINITION
collection of (names of) objects that refer to each other
• A semantic network has the following characteristics:
– references have specific meanings (semantic = meaning of
words)
– these relationships thus give meaning to the object
– relationships have a specific meaning into one direction: its
"points" from Object1 to object2. The reverse - object2 to
Object1 - relationship has usually a different meaning
– to further determine the meaning of an object, objects in a
semantic network are often categorized
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

5. . Example 5
• “Time Square" from the category "streets" has a relationship
"is located in" with the object “New York " from the category
“geographical places". This categories and relationship and
thus given meaning to the object “Time Square”
• But “Time Square" has also a relationship “cross street with"
the objects “Broadway“ and “w42nd St".
• And the object “McDonald“ (category: “fast food”) has
another relationship “located at" “Time Square ";
• Likewise has “42nd Street Shuttle" (category: “Public
transportation”) a relationship "has stop" with the same
“Time Square".
• And of course the revers relationship now from the viewpoint
of the object “New York“ has the meaning of “includes“
with “Time Square".
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

6. . Example semantic network around “Time Square” 6
McDonald’s
Located at of Time
stop
Square
42nd
New York Street
Time Shuttle
Square
Located at Cross streets
Cross streets W 42nd St Broadway
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

7. . Setting up a semantic network 7
If you want to set up a formal semantic network it should meet
the following characteristics:
1. Names of the objects are unique and checked. The list of
objects is called an ontology
2. Spelling variants and other synonyms are identified as such
and refer to a "main term"
3. Objects are classified or categorized; these classifications
have a hierarchy. A classification is also called a taxonomy
4. Ontology of named relations between the names of objects
is also called Thesaurus
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

8. . What makes a semantic network interesting ? 8
• Main reason: it corresponds to a natural way of organizing
information and the way human’s think!
• In addition, it is a very flexible way of organizing data: you can
easily extend the structure of semantic networks if needed
• You can easily convert almost any other data structures to a
semantic network
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D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

9. . Didn’t you know of semantic networks!? ?9
• Maybe you have never heard of or understand the concept of
semantic networks or ontologies
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• Don’t worry because you are anyway L X
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already used to thinking in semantic A
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networks
• And think of an ontology as by example:
– list of products that you are selling
– list of contacts or clients in your database
• And you are used to classify your contacts or products in:
customers, private, business, suppliers,
product types, etc
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

10. . Semantic Networks for Business 10
There are several arguments for Business to use Semantic Netwoks in
their Business process
See our presentions on slideShare “Semantic Networks for Business”.
Click here!
The main reason is that in the new Internet era your Business needs:
1. to merge data from several databases into one platform
2. to maintain translation of the names and documents
3. to publish a selection of the same data for several platforms
(print, html, Apps) and in several languages
4. to maintain the data by non-IT people
5. to index and classify relevant documents
Semantic networking helps the business to handle this activities
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

11. . What do you need for building semantic networks? 11
• For each semantic network you need the classification, main
terms and relations predefine
• Choice of classification and relationship types depends on
what you want to achieve with semantic networks and who is
going to make use of.
• Also need to determine how the names in the network are
used to index the documents to which you want to refer
• Further you obviously need a system that you can build and
that maintains semantic networks
• The Unifiedroot TLD Publishing services is such a system!
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012

12. . Settembrini Publishers 12
• Settembrini Publishers has much (practical) experience to
present and maintain semantic networks
• For information d.ahles@settembrini.nl
• Dick Ahles is your consultant
Settembrini Publishers is the global Partner for
Unifiedroot S&M to design Semantic Networks for the
Top Level Domain Names TLD Publishing Services
www.unifiedroot.com
D.Ahles - Semantic Networks - 0812012