Abstract.
Because botanical taxonomies are prototypical classifications it would seem that it should be easy to formalize them as concept lattices or type hierarchies. On closer inspection, however, one discovers that such a formalization is quite challenging to obtain. First, botanical taxonomies consist of several interrelated hierarchies, such as a specimen-based plant typology, a name hierarchy and a ranking system. Depending on the circumstances each of these can be primary or secondary for the formation of the taxonomy. Second, botanical taxonomies must comply with botanical nomenclature which follows a complicated rule system and is historically grown. Third, it may be difficult to design a formalization that is both mathematically appropriate and has a semantics which matches a taxonomist’s intuition. The process of formalizing botanical taxonomies with formal concept analysis methods highlights such problems and can serve as a foundation for solutions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Barwise, J., Seligman, J.: Information Flow. The Logic of Distributed Systems. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1997)
Brandom, R.: Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1994)
Berendsohn, W.G.: A taxonomic information model for botanic databases: the IOPI Model. Taxon 44, 207–212 (1997)
CYC. A note about isa and genls (1997), Online available at http://www.cyc.com/cyc-2-1/footnotes.html#IsaGenls
Ganter, B., Wille, R.: Formal Concept Analysis. Mathematical Foundations. Springer, Heidelberg (1999a)
Graham, M., Kennedy, J.: Combining linking & focusing techniques for a multiple hierarchy visualisation. In: 5th International Conference on Information Visualisation - IV2001, University of London, London, pp. 425–432. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2001)
Greuter, W., Barrie, F.R., Burdet, H.M., Chaloner, W.G., Demoulin, V., Hawksworth, D.L., Jorgensen, P.M., Nicholson, D.H., Silva, P.C., Trehane, P., McNeill, J.: International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Tokyo Code), vol. 131. Regnum Veg (1994)
Pullan, M.R., Watson, M.F., Kennedy, J.B., Raguenaud, C., Hyam, R.: The Prometheus Taxonomic Model: a practical approach to representing multiple classifications. Taxon 49, 55–75 (2000)
Prometheus (2002), On-line available at http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/prometheus/
Reveal, J.: One and Only One Correct Name? (1997), On-line available at http://www.inform.umd.edu/PBIO/pb250/onename.html
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Priss, U. (2003). Formalizing Botanical Taxonomies. In: Ganter, B., de Moor, A., Lex, W. (eds) Conceptual Structures for Knowledge Creation and Communication. ICCS 2003. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 2746. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45091-7_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-45091-7_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-40576-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45091-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive