Most formal work on semantic networks has concentrated on inheritance hierarchies, which focus on representing taxonomic information. Although semantic networks can be used to represent general binary relations, their use has been limited because they do not offer a method for determining when a path through the network corresponds to valid reasoning. We introduce a new type of semantic network, called the Enhanced Semantic Network (ESN), that uses regular expressions to formally characterize valid reasoning within a network. We show how one can translate ESNs to theories of first-order logic.
The work described in this paper was motivated by a commercial application: designing an automated recommendation system for banking and insurance sales. We discuss how enhanced semantic networks are used in this application.
By: Leora Morgenstern; Erik T. Mueller; Doug Riecken; Moninder Singh; Leiguang Gong
Published in: RC23436 in 2004
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