Concept Trees: Building Dynamic Concepts from Semi-structured Data Using Nature-Inspired Methods

This paper describes a method for creating structure from heterogeneous sources, as part of an information database, or more specifically, a ‘concept base’. Structures called ‘concept trees’ can grow from the semi-structured sources when consistent sequences of concepts are presented. They might be considered to be dynamic databases, possibly a variation on the distributed Agent-Based or Cellular Automata models, or even related to Markov models. Semantic comparison of text is required, but the trees can be built more, from automatic knowledge and statistical feedback. This reduced model might also be attractive for security or privacy reasons, as not all of the potential data gets saved. The construction process maintains the key requirement of generality, allowing it to be used as part of a generic framework. The nature of the method also means that some level of optimisation or normalisation of the information will occur. This gives comparisons with databases or knowledge-bases, but a database system would firstly model its environment or datasets and then populate the database with instance values. The concept base deals with a more uncertain environment and therefore cannot fully model it beforehand. The model itself therefore evolves over time. Similar to databases, it also needs a good indexing system, where the construction process provides memory and indexing structures. These allow for more complex concepts to be automatically created, stored and retrieved, possibly as part of a more cognitive model. There are also some arguments, or more abstract ideas, for merging physical-world laws into these automatic processes.