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From: asa@vall.dsv.su.se (]sa Rudstr|m)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Wanted:  Tools and references on Frames & Semantic Nets
Keywords: Frames, semantic_nets
Message-ID: <898@vall.dsv.su.se>
Date: 11 Sep 90 09:40:44 GMT
References: <15260@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Organization: University of Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 26

In article <15260@shlump.nac.dec.com> heintze@grane.enet.dec.com (Siegfried Heintze) writes:
>I would like some examples of using frames or semantic nets.  I understand 
>these two terms are synonymous.
> 
> ...

WHAT!!! I do not agree at all that "frames" and "semantic nets" are
synonymous. If you open any introductory book on AI, you will find that
most (all?) authors agree with me. Both are structures for representing
knowledge, but...

Originally, a frame was a general term denoting a description of some kind
of stereotypical situation ("... like being at a child's birthday party...", 
see "A framework for representing knowledge" by Marvin Minsky, in Winston:
The Psychology of Computer Vision,McGraw-Hill, 1975 (Minsky is the one who
"invented" the term)). However, the term has now come to denote a kind of 
record structure, with some extra features (inheritance,procedural 
attachment...). 

KEE, for example, uses frames for representing both objects and rules.

A semantic network is a more fuzzy term, but one example is John Sowa's
conceptual structures (Addison-Wesley, 1984)


Aasa Rudstrom