A Formalization of Document Models with Semantic Modelling

Abstract

In this paper, we formalize the general concept of a document model in terms of the Semantic Modelling (SM) paradigm. We argue that the idea of using documents as a basic metaphor for modelling appears to be very useful, since it provides a balance between the logical tools for knowledge processing and cognitive aspects for a much wider audience than the community of professional mathematicians. A subject domain can be arbitrarily complex by its nature, but humans tend to choose those primitives, which are convenient for cognition. The notion of a document is an example of such a primitive, which has been employed for centuries and clearly remains topical in the era of information systems. The significant outcome of constructing the semantics of document models within the SM paradigm is that Semantic Modelling makes document models executable. Executable models can be directly used as practical information systems, and this feature makes the programming stage unnecessary. Replacing programming with modelling has a great impact on the efficiency of IT systems development and maintenance, and makes these systems friendly for the Artificial Intelligence tools.

Keywords

• semantic modelling
• document model