AnalyticoSynthethic Classification and Facet Analysis

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Analytico-Synthethic Classification and Facet
Analysis

• Devika P. Madalli
• Documentation Research and Training Centre,
• Indian Statistical Institute,
• Bangalore, INDIA

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Classification

• Chief Objective
• To classify a Universe of concepts or a
• sub-set of it - such as a subject - as means
  of representing uniquely the concepts and
  individualize them through notation or symbols

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Types Of Classification System

• Enumerated
• Faceted

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Which one? Issues to be considered

• Consider the feature of Knowledge is mostly
  hierarchical
• Hierarchies are achieved though successive
  classification or division

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Enumerated Systems

• Enumerated systems deal with all subjects in
  the same way!
• For example, consider DDC
• It classifies and sub-classifies all subjects
  and their parts successively and UNIFORMLY into
  ten parts or categories!

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What it implies?

• All subjects have the same number of branches
• and
• All branches have the same number of concepts at
  the same number of levels in the hierarchy/ies

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Knowledge Structures by Disciplines

• A MAPPING PROBLEM
• Knowledge structures for different domains are
  different!

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Knowledge Structures by Disciplines

• Applied Sciences

• Humanities

Generic level
Generic level
Specific Level
Specific Level
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Knowledge structure and Classification

• Hence we cannot possibly have UNIFORM model for
  mapping knowledge!

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Knowledge structure and Classification

• Some of the sections will not have that many
  concepts and the others maybe over crowded!

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What is Analytico-Synthetic Classification?

• Analytico-Synthetic Classification is a faceted
  classification system that
• First
• Analyses subjects into facets
• And then
• Synthesizes them according into a facet formula

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Analytico Synthetic Classification

• ANALYSIS
• Postulate of Fundamental Categories - Ranganathan
• There are five and only five fundamental
  categories in a subject

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Five Fundamental Categories

• Personality (P)
• Matter (Matter-Property) (M)
• Energy (E)
• Space (S)
• Time (T)
• Popular Acronym
• PMEST

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Five Fundamental Categories

• TIME
• This is probably the most distinct. The time
  isolates identified maybe like
• - Century, decade, year, so on
• Other types of time are
• - Day/night
• - Seasons summer,winter
• or sometimes more seminal
• - wet dry or stormy weather

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Five Fundamental Categories

• SPACE
• Space comes next to Time and it is easy to
  identify as there are some concrete
  manifestations.
• What it contains
• - Surface of earth, all space inside of it and
  outside of it.
• Usual Geographical isolates such as continents,
  countries
• Oceans and seas
• Physiographical deserts, prairie, plateau,
  mountain, river, lakes
• Population clusters city, town, village, hamlet
  

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Five Fundamental Categories

• ENERGY
• Manifestation of Action of all kinds
• Action maybe among or by all kinds of entities
  such as inanimate, animate, conceptual,
  intellectual and intuitive

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Five Fundamental Categories

• MATTER
• Material or a Property of an entity
• Example
• Table made of wood (wood Matter)
• Disease (Property of the Human body)

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Five Fundamental Categories

• PERSONALITY
• Central idea of a subject
• Method of Detection Reductio Ad absurdum
• Residue method!

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Personality

• Identified by main focus in subjects
• Examples
• Sciences
• Botany Plants/trees and parts
• Zoology Animal and their parts of the body
• Medicine Human body and parts
• Engineering automobiles and their parts
• Humanities
• Linguistics Language, sentence, word, phrase
• Religion Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
  Buddhism, Jainism
• Social Sciences
• Education student, child (primary education),
  adolescent (college), adult (university)
• Law state, legal setup courts, judiciary,
  treaty

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Basic Facet

• Postulate of Basic Facet
• Every compound subject has a basic facet
• Definition Compound Subject is a what is
  generally understood as subject for teaching
  and learning process. The compound subject would
  have one basic facet that indicates its subject
  along with one or more facet isolates (P, M,E )

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Basic Facet

• Basic Facet maybe explicit or implicit or absent
• Examples
• Fundamentals of Mathematics - Mathematics -
  Explicit
• C Programming Computer Sc. Implicit
• Absent Fanciful titles
• Lily (story of a dog!)
• Butterfly (biography of Indian Cine Actress!)

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Identification Fundamental Categories

• Verbal plane creates homonyms. The homonyms
  should be resolved properly placing a term in
  context!
• (Warning Dont start work in classification
  till the meaning of words is made explicit)

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Identification Fundamental Categories

• For example History of India
• Here the term India may directly denote a
  place or space concept but it is not be
  treated as space.
• Here it is personality isolate of the Basic
  Subject History

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Identification Fundamental Categories

• Now consider History in India
• Here India is Space

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Resolution of Personality and Matter

• One isolate maybe a Personality in one subject
  but matter in another

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Resolution of Personality and Matter

• For example Consider Cotton
• Cotton - under crops is a manifestation of
  personality isolate in the subject agriculture
• Cotton - under material is a manifestation of
  matter in Textile Technology
• This can be resolved only by context

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Qualifiers

• Qualifiers modify or refine the meaning of a
  facet/isolate
• Warning
• Many qualifiers pose as isolates but must be
  recognized as qualifiers and not as a facet.

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Qualifiers

• Examples
• - Viral Infection should be treated as a
  disease caused by virus and not VIRUS as
  personality
• - consider 2006-Ford would be a ford car model
  of 2006 and 2006 is not a time isolate
• - Victorian Period is indicating a time
  period in History and has nothing to do with
  Queen Victoria

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Rounds and Levels of Facets

• Postulate of Rounds for Energy
• The fundamental category Energy may manifest
  itself in one and same subject more than once.
• The first manifestation is to be taken to end
  Round 1 of occurrence/s of basic categories
  Personality, Matter and Energy.
• The second manifestation of Energy is taken as
  to end Round 2 and so on
• (Knowledge is multidimensional and with complex
  relations!)

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Rounds and Levels of Facets

• Postulate of Rounds for Personality and Matter
• Each of the fundamental categories Personality
  and Matter may manifest once or more times in
  Round 1, Round 2 and so on

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Rounds and Levels of Facets

• They are to be represented as 1P if it occurs
  in Round 1 and 2P if it occurs in Round 2
• Similarly 1M, 2M

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Rounds and Levels of Facets

• Space and Time normally manifest only once and
  in the last round but they may have levels
  represented by S1, S2 and T1 and T2 and so on

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Levels of Facets

• Any of fundamental categories Personality or
  matter may manifest itself more than once in
  the same Round in a subject.
• The first occurrence of the Personality or
  Matter within Round1 is level 1
• and
• second occurrence of these within same Round is
  level 2

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Levels of Facets

• Hence we may have
• Personality First occurence
• Round 1 Level 1 1P1
• Second Occurrence
• Round 1 Level 2 1P2
• In the next Round
• First occurence
• Round 2 Level 1 2P1
• Second Occurrence
• Round 2 Level 2 2P2

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Rounds and Levels

• Consider Example
• Prevention of Disease in stem of Rice plants by
  Spraying Chemicals
• Analysis
• Agriculture BF. Prevention 1E. Disease
  1M1. Rice plant 1P1. Stem. 1P2. Spraying
  2E. Chemicals 2M1.

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Rounds and Levels

• Consider Example
• Prevention of Disease in stem of Rice plants by
  Spraying Chemicals diluted with Ferrous Sulphide
• Analysis
• Agriculture BF. Prevention 1E. Disease
  1M1. Rice plant 1P1. Stem. 1P2. Spraying
  2E. Chemicals 2M1. Ferrous Sulphide 2M2.

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Facet Sequence Synthesis

• Postulate of First Facet
• After analysis, facets going with a basic facet
  should be arranged together. The basic facet
  should be given the first position among the
  facets of a compound subject

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Facet Sequence

• Postulate of Concreteness
• The five fundamental categories fall into the
  sequence P,M, E, S, T in the order of decreasing
  concreteness

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Facet Formula

• Facet Formula for a subject gives the GENERIC
  FRAMEWORK for a subject
• BF/BS,PME.S T

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Indicators

• Colon Classification uses five indicators
• , -- implies Personality
• -- implies Matter
• -- implies Energy
• . implies Space
• implies Time

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Generalized Facet Formula with Indicators and
Rounds and Levels

• (BS) ,1P1,1P2 ...,1Pn
• 1M11M2 1Mn
• 1E
• ,2P1,2P2 ,2Pn
• 2M12M2 2Mn
• 2E
• ,rP1,rP2 ,rPn
• rM1rM2 rMn
• rE
• .S1.S2
• T1 T2
• Where r and n would have integral values

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Semantics in formal Language

• It is the facets, their arrangements, and their
  indication (indicators) that takes forward the
  semantics or meaning even in formal
  representation of subjects
• Ranganathan defines it as the ability to achieve
  co-extensiveness with the thought content of
  documents

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Semantics in formal Language

• It is important to note
• By the method of facetization we have faceted
  knowledge Structure (Analysis)
• By method of using indicators we can express ALL
  facets of subject along one line and still
  maintain the multidimensionality of subjects!
  (Synthesis)

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Semantics in formal Language

• MAPPING PROBLEM solved!
• Knowledge is multidimensional.
• These dimensions are represented by facets of a
  subjects in various rounds and levels.
• And these facets are again Expressed in one
  dimension but using distinct FORMAL NOTATION to
  indicate the different dimensions

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Application of Facet Theory

• Way forward Building Faceted Ontologies

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• Thank you
• Questions?