METHOD AND DEVICE FOR ENCODING AND SYNTHETICALLY REPRESENTING A PARTIALLY SATURATED ONTOLOGY, A DATA STRUCTURE AND A CORRESPONDING DATA STRUCTURE SERVER

摘要

The invention relates to a method for encoding and synthetically representing a partially saturated ontology comprising at least a concept hierarchy formed by original concepts and at least one defined concept represented by a lattice and information items not linked to the concepts. The inventive method consists at least in encoding (A) the concept lattice by assigning an identifier (IDi) formed by at least one integer number sequence to each concept (Ci) and to a lattice node associated thereto, wherein each integer number sequence defines an access path between the considered concept (Ci) and an universal concept (T) by means of successive head concepts, the identification comprises the all integer number sequences each of which defines the access path between the considered concept (Ci) and the universal concept (T) to which an integer number representing the considered concept (Ci) is added, in calculating (B) mutual exclusions between the concepts for each considered concept, in storing (C) the concept lattices encoded in the form of a data structure subdivided into blocs enclosing at least one concept list containing a domain name and a list containing at least the considered concept, wherein each considered concept encloses at least one identifier formed by a list of at least one path and a list of mutually exclusive concepts with the considered concept. Said invention can be used for transmitting and diffusing the ontologies through an IP network in the Internet.