An information-base system based on the self-organization of concepts represented by terms

Since multimedia information is complicated inform and vast in amount, conventional database-management systems or knowledge-base-management systems are hardly appropriate to store, manage, and utilize expertise effectively. A new type of information model is developed according to an analysis of the information used by specialists for research and development, and a prototype information-management system is implemented. The system consists of three parts: (1) flexible storage without special constraints on format and representation; (2) self-organization of terms by extracting semantic relationships among them; and (3) advanced utilization functions such as analogical reasoning, inductive inference, abductive inference, as well as information retrieval, numerical calculation, and deductive inference. Thesauri which are automatically compiled and refined are used as conceptual structures of the information. Thus obtained, conceptual structures can be used for sophisticated applications, including analogical reasoning, induction, and abduction. The principle of open-world reasoning and an algorithm of analogy are developed. An example of practical application to polymer information is presented.