Multimed Tools Appl

DOI 10.1007/s11042-015-3113-4

A novel method for adaptive knowledge map construction

in the aircraft development

Yanjie Lv 1 & Gang Zhao 1 & Yong Yu 1

Received: 21 October 2015 / Revised: 3 November 2015 / Accepted: 19 November 2015

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Abstract Aircraft is a typical transportation facility and its development need to refer to the
existing knowledge. With the rapid increase of knowledge, a knowledge map may deliver
excess knowledge to users that they cannot manage at once, thereby causing the problem of
knowledge overload. Hence, a novel method for adaptive knowledge map construction was
proposed to solve this problem. First, the knowledge was semantically annotated and stored
with the domain ontology and a knowledge model that integrates context. Then, user require-
ment was described by the context of product design, and knowledge nodes that met users’
requirement could be extracted from the knowledge retrieval technology on the basis of
context similarity. Finally, the connection between knowledge nodes was constructed with a
composite connection model, and the knowledge map was visualized using a hierarchical
approach. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the constructed knowledge map
was applied in an airplane wing design to assist users in browsing the knowledge base. Results
indicate that the proposed method can change the displayed contents according to user
requirement and identify the displayed knowledge nodes at a highly acceptable level, the
constructed knowledge map can guide users efficiently, and the knowledge overload can be
reduced significantly.

Keywords Transportation facilities . Aircraft . Knowledge map . Knowledge overload . Domain

ontology

1 Introduction

Aircraft is a typical transportation facility. With advances in technology, its structure is

becoming more and more complicated [14]. Lots of knowledge is applied in the product

* Yanjie Lv
lvyanjie_std@163.com
* Gang Zhao
zhaog@buaa.edu.cn

1
School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing, China
 Multimed Tools Appl

development process and Knowledge has become increasingly critical to improve the effi-
ciency and quality of product development [5, 7, 10, 12, 20]. Many organizations deploy
knowledge management systems to gain a competitive edge and accumulate a substantial
amount of knowledge. Usually, designers look for knowledge via search engines. However,
knowledge overload is becoming considerably frequent because of the complexity of product
design and the increasing amount of knowledge that designers cannot describe their require-
ments accurately. Designers consume a significant amount of time to acquire knowledge, and
they can lose track of their progress easily. Therefore, new methods and tools need to be
developed to assist designers in obtaining the desired knowledge from vast knowledge
resources and overcome the problem of knowledge overload [2, 6, 25–28]. To solve this
problem, scholars have focused on presenting knowledge in the form of a knowledge map,
which provides a graphic representation of the distribution and relationship of knowledge. A
knowledge map can guide users to the desired knowledge that they cannot describe accurately
and return to the correlated knowledge source [4]. Although this approach provides users an
overall understanding of field knowledge or enterprise knowledge resources, most contents
displayed on a knowledge map are useless at the moment they are accessed initially. With the
growth of knowledge resources, knowledge overload will become increasingly serious.
Knowledge overload during the product design phase may be addressed by a system that
can connect with product design processes, offer a multi-dimensional display of knowledge
items and produce a knowledge map according to a user’s requirement.
To meet the above mentioned demands, a novel method for adaptive knowledge map
construction is proposed in this paper. The method takes the design context of users as the
input and acquires knowledge on the basis of context similarity. Knowledge connections
between knowledge items are established by using a composite connection model. The method
finally generates the adaptive knowledge map by making full use of hierarchical knowledge
visualization. In comparison with traditional methods, the novel method proposed in this paper
can show better navigated performance and do not need predefine before using.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the related work of this research.
Section 3 describes the details of the proposed method. It discusses the knowledge definition
and the process of knowledge map construction. Section 4 provides a sample implementation
of the proposed method. Section 5 summarizes the work and outlines the possible future.

2 Related work

Knowledge map is an effective approach of presenting knowledge, identifying the location of

knowledge, and presenting the relationship between knowledge from different sources. It
visually provides a full view of product design knowledge. The concept of the knowledge
map was first proposed in Fundamentals of Information Science by Brookes [33]. Since then,
the knowledge map had been viewed from various perspectives in literature. For instance,
Sveen et al. suggested that the knowledge map was a knowledge distribution guideline that
marked positions of knowledge [22]. Wexler et al. defined the knowledge map as a tool to
solve data smog and information overload problems in enterprises [30]. It simplified and
reorganized complicated knowledge resources, and helped users perform high-efficiency
browsing and retrieval from the knowledge library through visualization. Ong et al. viewed
the knowledge map as a classification catalog that was created through data resource capturing
with the use of a crawler program. He emphasized that the knowledge map served as a retrieval
Multimed Tools Appl

catalog to accomplish knowledge positioning [19]. Vail suggested that a knowledge map
displayed connections between knowledge visually and could facilitate a user’s communica-
tion at all levels [24]. Watthananon et al. defined the knowledge map as an effective
knowledge acquisition tool and a way to show knowledge [29]. Woo et al. pointed out that
knowledge connections and interactions were the main characteristics of the knowledge map
[31].
Recently, the knowledge map has been attracting attention from the information science and
mechanical engineering. Research on the knowledge map has extended from the original
connotation and functions to construction techniques. Although many scholars have studied
the meaning and functions of knowledge maps, no uniform construction method of knowledge
maps has been reported because knowledge maps have different roles and representations in
different application situations [12]. Some researchers have explored manual construction of
knowledge maps thoroughly. Su et al. drew a knowledge map manually by asking experts to
draw conceptual maps, connected nodes and knowledge resources, and combined all concep-
tual maps [21]. On the basis of requirement analyzed in the automobile industry and knowl-
edge collection, Li et al. constructed a R&D knowledge map for the automobile industry by
manually establishing knowledge elements and correlations between related knowledge [11].
With extracted definitions, descriptions and positions of knowledge, Yang et al. established
links and formed a knowledge network, and then generated a knowledge map by using
visualization technology [33].
The above methods implement knowledge acquisition, knowledge connection and map
visualization manually. These methods have advantages, such as high precision, certainty and
depth of the constructed knowledge map. However, they have certain disadvantages, as they
are inefficient and time consuming, and they neglect the timeliness of knowledge resources
and differences of user requirement. Moreover, these methods are difficult to update and
maintain.
Other researchers introduce related technologies (e.g., data mining and machine learning)
into knowledge map construction technology [8, 15, 17, 37]. Lin et al. combined the
hierarchical clustering method based on balanced iterative to reduce and cluster by using
hierarchies and partitioning clustering method based on k-means to construct a knowledge
map [13]. Zhang et al. established knowledge distribution, utilization and transmission maps
based on statistics and analysis of personnel information and data in a PDM system for
mechanical product design [35]. With the use of correlation analysis and naive Bayesian
classification in data mining as theoretical background, Lee et al. established a knowledge map
based on keywords by extracting information from a database [9]. Yoon et al. constructed a
keyword-based knowledge map on the basis of data mining and naive Bayesian classification
method [34]. Chiu et al. adopted independent chi-square text to examine the independence of
topics and applied genetic algorithm to preserve the relations among objects to construct
appropriate knowledge maps [4]. Lv et al. built an intelligent knowledge map but did not
describe the structure of knowledge items and the types of knowledge connections [16]. These
methods establish a connection between conceptual nodes and knowledge resources or
connections between different knowledge resources through automatic classification, cluster-
ing or correlation analysis of knowledge resources. They accomplish automatic construction of
a knowledge map, and they are able to overcome the difficulties related to updating and
maintaining a manual map to a certain extent. However, a large and comprehensive knowledge
map increases visual information load and the constructed knowledge maps are insensitive to
user’s requirement.
 Multimed Tools Appl

Since the traditional methods are either difficult to update and maintain or insensitive to
user’s requirement, thus this paper proposed a novel method for adaptive knowledge map
construction. This method takes the users’ requirement and the knowledge base as an input and
gives a corresponding knowledge map as an output, and then the knowledge users can be
navigated via a small number of knowledge items. The knowledge map is represented by a
mathematical graph in which vertices indicate the knowledge items, users or context, and
edges indicate the connection between vertices. Our approach differs from others because there
is no need to predefine the knowledge map before using it and the constructed knowledge map
can change with the users’ requirement.

3 Material and methods

The goal of knowledge map construction is to convert a knowledge database into a corre-
sponding knowledge map to find knowledge resources and increase knowledge sharing [12,
18]. A knowledge map consists of vertices and edges. Vertices represent knowledge nodes,
while edges represent the connections between knowledge nodes. In this section, we present an
overview of the proposed methodology. The main objective of our method is to construct an
adaptive knowledge map to alleviate knowledge overload. In this paper, we treat the knowl-
edge map as a diagrammatic representation of knowledge, creating nodes as knowledge items
or its properties and links as the relationships between them. A framework of knowledge map
is shown in Fig. 1. This framework contains three modules which are knowledge resource
layer, knowledge map construction layer and knowledge map visualization layer. Knowledge
resource layer stores different types of knowledge and organizes them into a network and the
basic knowledge map can be defined as a local description of the knowledge network.
Knowledge map construction layer constructs a knowledge map according to the designer’s

Fig. 1 Framework of knowledge map

Multimed Tools Appl

requirement and can be divided into knowledge acquisition and knowledge connection. The
knowledge map visualization layer exports a hierarchical knowledge map that supports the
display of multiple 2D visualizations to describe the knowledge from various aspects.
An overall illustration of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 2. The method includes four
main stages: knowledge definition, knowledge acquisition, knowledge connection and knowl-
edge map visualization. The first stage establishes the domain knowledge ontology for
semantic annotation and proposes a knowledge model integrating context to describe the
knowledge from different aspects. The second stage takes the context information as an input
and gives the knowledge items connected with the context as an output. It obtains the
knowledge items from the knowledge base according to the knowledge context similarity.
The third stage builds the knowledge nodes linkage according to the relation type determined
by the user. The last stage shows the knowledge map in 3D space. At the beginning of
browsing the knowledge base, user’s requirement is perceived and the knowledge items
satisfying user’s requirement are obtained based on context similarity. Then the knowledge
map is generated and it provides rich navigation paths to users so that the knowledge items can
be understood comprehensively in relation to relevant knowledge and knowledge context. The
following sections explain the stages in detail.

3.1 Knowledge definition

The knowledge database stores different types of data, such as documents and CAD models.
Knowledge definition involves converting data into a uniform format. The framework of a
knowledge management system is shown in Fig. 3. Knowledge items are got from the product
development process, and then there are extracted, annotated and stored in knowledge base.
Each succeeding knowledge item in the knowledge base will be represented in the same way.

3.1.1 Knowledge model integrating context

To denote the knowledge in a uniform format, we describe the knowledge on the basis of
Dublin Core (DC) and extend it according to the requirement of product development.
Metadata items are used to describe the knowledge items and can be divided into knowledge
content, knowledge owner and knowledge external properties. The extended knowledge model
is presented in Table 1.

Fig. 2 Overall illustration of the proposed method

 Multimed Tools Appl

Fig. 3 Framework of knowledge management system

Context is the condition, background and environment related to the design activities. It has
been recognized by many researchers as a crucial component to improve the understanding of
knowledge [32]. Knowledge is created in various contexts and cannot be understood perfectly
without contexts. Knowledge can be valuable only under a certain context. To distinguish and
identify the knowledge items, as well as promote the understanding and effective application
of knowledge, this paper designs a multi-dimensional context model according to the process
of product development. The context is described from multiple dimensions. Each dimension
consists of context elements and properties. The context model is denoted as follows:
Kcontext ¼ fD1 ; D2 ; :::; Di ; :::; Dn g ð1Þ
where KContext is the context model, and Di represents the context dimension. For product
development, the context mainly includes Goal, Task, Process, Actor, Activity, Domain,
Resource, Role, Part, Location and Organization. Thus, the context model of product devel-
opment can be denoted as:
KContext ¼ fGoal; Task; Process; Actor; Activity; Domain; Resource; Role; Part; Location; Organizationgð2Þ

The context elements and properties of different dimensional contexts are closely related to
each other and are shown in Fig. 4 and Table 2 presents the description and the key attributes
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Table 1 Extended elements of DC

Classification Items Required Option System

Knowledge content Title √

Domain √
Description √
Source √
Language √
Relation √
Coverage √
Knowledge owner Creator √
Publisher √
Contributor √
Rights √
External properties Date √
Type √
Identifier √
Important √
Rating √
Access √
… … … …

of the entities in KContext. <entity> denotes an entity used as an attribute. <entity>* denotes
multiple occurrence of an entity.
To combine knowledge and the complex product development process, this paper proposes
a knowledge model integrating context (KMIC) which is shown in Fig. 5. The knowledge
items can be understood comprehensively through the context information. We can obtain the
relevant knowledge items through the context similarity. Figure 6 illustrates the process of
obtaining the relevant knowledge items through the context.

3.1.2 Construction of domain ontology

To express the semantic information of knowledge to ensure that the knowledge is compre-
hensible to either humans or machines [1, 3], domain ontology is constructed to annotate the

Fig. 4 Context model

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Table 2 Description of each entity in the context model

Entity Description Key attributes

Goal The problem to be solved. Identification | Relation | <Process>

Task The process is divided into a series of tasks <Actor> | <Activity>* | <Part> | ID | Name |
and assigned to an actor to finish it. Description
Process A set of tasks to achieve the goal. <Task>* | <Actor>* | Name | Type
Actor Users are responsible for carrying out tasks. <Role> | ID | Name | <Task>* | <Activity>*
Activity All the activities are performed within a task. Name | <Task> | <Domain>* | <Resource>*
Activities can have relationships with each
other in a hierarchical way.
Domain Knowledge category to which an activity or Feature | Category | Relation
an actor belongs.
Resource The necessary objects in the product design Name | <Activities>* | <Domain>* | <Location>
process.
Role An abstract concept to reflect a kind of <Actor>* | name
social relation.
Part The output in the product design process. ID | Name | <Domain>* | <Task> | <Actor>
Location A determination of the place where something ID | Type | Link
is located.
Organization The act of forming something. Name | <Role>* | Department | Relationship

knowledge to specify the knowledge domain. The complexity of the ontology model will
increase dramatically with the increase of covering areas. Thus, this paper constrains the
ontology within a small scope to meet requirements. The source of the knowledge ontology
can be illustrated in Fig. 7.
To build the domain ontology, this paper proposes a method that refers to the skeleton
method, the 7-step method and IDEF5 [23, 36] for ontology modeling with consideration of
knowledge depth, width and complexity of product development. The modeling process is
shown in Fig. 8.

3.2 Knowledge acquisition

Knowledge is described and stored in the knowledge database and the knowledge items that
will be shown in the knowledge map will be determined in this step on the basis of context
similarity. To construct an adaptive knowledge map to satisfy the user’s requirement, a
knowledge acquisition method based on context similarity is proposed in this paper. The
acquisition process is shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 5 Knowledge model integrating context

Multimed Tools Appl

Fig. 6 Relationship between different knowledge items through the context

The process of complex product design is described through multiple dimensions and each
dimension contains some elements or attributes of the context. Then, the context can be
described by using a context tree. A context tree is used to describe the knowledge context
and consists of a root node, some middle nodes and several leaf nodes. The nodes can be tasks,
activities, actors and knowledge items. The context tree is built based on the multi-granularity
design of the context and then used to acquire knowledge items with a similar context. The
context tree is denoted as:
CT ¼ fV ; E; root ðCT Þg; vi ¼ ðCDi ; dvalueÞ; E ¼< vi ; v j > vi ; v j ; ∈ V ð3Þ

where V is a finite set that records the context dimension and value of the context, vi and vj are
elements of V, E is the edge and it represents the relationship between nodes vi and vj, CDi is a
context dimension, dvalue is the value of CDi, and root(CT) is the root of the context tree.
Figure 10 shows a diagram of the context tree model.
The similarity assessment method between different context trees consists of the following
steps:

(1) Finding the appropriate nodes

(2) Determining the weights of context elements and properties
(3) Calculating the similarity between the nodes

Figure 11 shows the process of calculating the similarity between different context trees.
To calculate the similarity between the nodes, we classify the nodes into two types: leaf
nodes and non-leaf nodes. The calculation method is shown below.

Fig. 7 Source of knowledge ontology

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Fig. 8 Process of building the ontology

(1) Calculating similarities between non-leaf nodes

Assuming V is a non-leaf node in the context tree, V has m sub nodes: V1,V2,…,Vi,...,Vm. V’
is the corresponding node of V in another context tree, wi is the weighting of Vi, and Sim(Vi, Vi’)
is the similarity between Vi and Vi’, then the similarity between V and V’ can be denoted as:
P
m
wi *SimðV i ; V i 0 Þ
0 i¼1
SimðV ; V Þ ¼ P
m ð4Þ
wi
i¼1

(2) Calculating similarities between leaf nodes

Assuming V is a leaf node in the context tree, V has m properties: Z1,Z2,…,Zi,…

Zm. V’ is the corresponding node of V in another context tree, wi is the weighting of

Fig. 9 Process of acquiring the knowledge based on context similarity

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Fig. 10 Diagram of the context tree model

Zi, and Simu(Zi, Zi’) is the similarity between Zi and Zi’, then the similarity between V
and V’ can be denoted as:
P
m
wi *SimðZ i ; Z i 0 Þ
0 i¼1
SimðV ; V Þ ¼ P
m ð5Þ
wi
i¼1

The properties of the leaf node can be divided into string, number and concept. For different
types of property, different calculation methods are given.

1) String

The similarity between strings can be determined by the number of same charac-
ters. Assuming that the value of context element Zi is pi and the value of context

Fig. 11 Context similarity calculation process

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element Zj is Pj, Pi and Pj are string. Then the similarity between Zi and Zj can be
denoted as:
 
 
  Pi ∩P j 
Simu Z i ; Z j ¼  
 ð6Þ
Pi ∪P j 

where |Pi∩Pj| represents the number of the same characters of the two strings, and
|Pi∪Pj| represents the number of the characters of the union set of the two strings.

2) Number

Assuming that the context elements Zi and Zj have the numerical properties, g(Zi) is the
attribute value of Zi, g(Zj) is the attribute value of Zj, then the similarity between Zi and Zj can
be denoted as:
    
  
  gðZ i Þ−g ðZ i Þ−g Z j 
Simu Z i ; Z j ¼   ð7Þ
 
g ðZ i Þ

3) Concept

Before calculating the semantic similarity of the concepts, we should quantify the figure
structure of the ontology domain. The rule is to maintain the concept nodes of kind-of and part-
of in the domain ontology to form the concept tree. Assuming that the value of context element
Zi is ci and the value of context element Zj is cj. ci and cj are concepts. If ci and cj have the
common parent node, and the conceptual level of ci in the concept tree is d(ci) and cj in the
concept tree is d(cj), then the shortest distance between two concepts is represented as dis(ci,
cj). Then the similarity between Zi and Zj can be denoted as:
  disðci ; c j Þ
Simu Z i ; Z j ¼   ð8Þ
d ðci Þ þ d c j

The similarities between different context trees can be obtained by calculating Eqs. (4), (5),
(6), (7) and (8).

3.3 Knowledge connection building

A knowledge map consists of nodes and connections. The connection between different
knowledge items is determined in this step. The input of this step is the knowledge items
determined in the previous steps, and the output is a determined knowledge map. The main
tasks consist of determining the connection type, calculating the connection intensity, and
determining the connections that remained and those that were deleted. Knowledge connection
makes the related nodes into a meaningful system.
The knowledge connection can guide users to find related knowledge items, and its
intensity will help workers to distinguish the different importance of knowledge items from
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each other. On the basis of the knowledge properties, this paper builds the framework of
knowledge connection classification, which is shown in Fig. 12.
The type of knowledge connection is classified into reference, the same and similarity.
Reference means that the knowledge items connect with others directly. The connection
intensity is 1 if a knowledge item refers to another and then the reference is stored in the
database. The same means that the knowledge items have some properties in common, such as
keywords and creators. If the two knowledge items have the same properties, then the same
type of connection intensity is 1, otherwise it will be 0. Similarity means that the knowledge
items are similar to others from a semantic aspect. The knowledge intensity can be calculated
by using latent semantic analysis, which is a semantic vector technique that analyzes the
relationships between a set of concepts related to the knowledge items.
Knowledge connection can be built according to the users’ requirements from different
aspects. However, for the complex requirements in the product development process, the
knowledge connection types mentioned above cannot satisfy all kinds of situations. Thus, a
composite connection model is needed. This model combines different types of connections
with compound operation, which is described in Table 3. R1 and R2 are the connection types. a,
b and c denote the knowledge items. (a,R,b) means that knowledge item a can reach
knowledge item b through knowledge connection R.
An example of the compound operation of cascade is shown in Fig. 13.
When determining the knowledge items set N and knowledge connections set R, knowl-
edge items can be traversed to build the knowledge connections. The traversing process tests
whether the knowledge items in N have a relationship with those in R. The algorithm is
described as Table 4.

3.4 Knowledge map visualization

Once we obtain the related knowledge items and their connections, the graphic engine is
applied to display them in a window. The knowledge map visualization process is shown in
Fig. 14.
To reduce visual overloading, a hierarchical knowledge map visualization approach is
proposed to display the knowledge map in 3D space. This approach places a number of
translucent visual 2D planes in 3D space, and different knowledge maps are drawn in their
own planes. These planes can be placed in parallel or in chosen placements. Connections
between visualizations can be revealed with a linkage.

Fig. 12 Framework of knowledge connection classification

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Table 3 Compound operation

Operation Instance Meaning

Cascade R1 Cascade R2 Satisfy (a,R1,c) and (c,R2,b) at the same time

And R1 And R2 Satisfy (a,R1,b) and (a,R2,b) at the same time
Or R1 Or R2 Satisfy (a,R1,b) or (a,R2,b)

4 Experiment and results

In this section, a case study is conducted to illustrate the application of the proposed
method. The goal of the experiment is to construct an adaptive knowledge map to satisfy
knowledge workers’ requirement, promote knowledge sharing and reduce knowledge
overload.

4.1 Case description

The Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) is an aircraft company in China and
focuses on aircraft design and manufacturing. AVIC has accumulated a large amount of
knowledge about aircrafts in the process of aircraft development and has acquired published
papers, standards and CAD models. Users are allowed to access these materials to improve
their work ability and efficiency. However, the efficiency of knowledge reuse is poor because
of too many knowledge items are stored in the knowledge database. As a result, the users
spend too much time to find relevant knowledge. To access and understand the knowledge
items as quickly as possible, an assistance tool is needed. We select the airplane wing, which is
an important aircraft component, to apply the proposed method.

Fig. 13 Example of cascade operation

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Table 4 Main process of knowledge connection building

Algorithm: BUILDING_KNOWLEDGEMAP_CONNECTION
Inputs: N(Knowledge Nodes Set), R(Relation Set)
Outputs: Knowledge_Map
1) Map map = new HashMap
2) map.put(N)
3) Iterator it = map.iterator()
4) While(it.hasNext)
5) For each relation in R do
6) node=it.next()
7) targets = FIND_TARGETS_OF_RELATION(node, relation)
8) Add (targets, relation) to node
9) end
10) end
11) return map

4.2 Preliminary work

A domain ontology of an airplane was constructed according to the proposed method. The
users collected the concepts, standards and knowledge resources in different ways according to
the application scope and requirements, and then analyzed the relationship between them to
build the domain ontology of the airplane and described it by using Web Ontology Language
(OWL). Figure 15 shows a fragment of domain ontology of an airplane and Fig. 16 describes
the domain ontology based on OWL. Knowledge items were stored in the database based on
the KMIC. Figure 17 shows a sample description of the properties of the knowledge items.

4.3 Execution

After signing into the system, the user is tasked with designing the shape of the airplane wing.
If the user has not previously performed this task, then he does not know how to complete it,
what he should look for and who he can ask for assistance. Then he needs to use the
knowledge map for navigation. By using the proposed method, the user simply needs to open
the knowledge map module and set some properties, such as task name and connection types.
Then, the adaptive knowledge map will be constructed.
First, the context information related to the task that the user is going to perform will be
collected, as shown in Fig. 18.

Fig. 14 Knowledge map visualization process

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Fig. 15 Fragment domain ontology of airplane

After the context information is obtained, the related knowledge items will be acquired with
the calculation of context similarity. Table 5 shows parts of the knowledge items based on the
context similarity. The user can decide which dimensions will be shown in the knowledge
map, and the objects of these dimensions will be listed through the analysis of the acquired
knowledge items. The connection between the objects will be constructed according to the
connection types defined by the users. Then, a knowledge map that can be used for navigation
is constructed. Figure 19 illustrates the interface of the knowledge map module and the
constructed knowledge map.

Fig. 16 Domain ontology model based on OWL

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Fig. 17 Example of knowledge

item representation

5 Conclusion and future work

To alleviate knowledge overload in the browsing process, a novel method for adaptive
knowledge map construction is proposed in this paper. We first analyze the importance of
knowledge in the development of transportation facility and disadvantages of the existing
knowledge map construction methods, and then a method that combines domain ontology and
knowledge model integrating context is proposed to store knowledge items and combine them
with the product design process. The corresponding knowledge map can be constructed by

Fig. 18 Process of obtaining the context information

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Table 5 Parts of knowledge items from context similarity

Name of knowledge items Domain Actor

Design and simulation of Placement Machine Wing, structural analysis Shi Youjin, Zhou Peng
Based on airplane wing
Knowledge-driver design of wing structural layout Wing, airplane design, Shi Youjin, Shi Kaojun
structure layout
Knowledge-driven rapid design on aircraft wing Wing, structure layout Huang Boyan, Xi Ping
structure
A Research on the Wing Structural Configuration Wing, structure layout Zhou Peng, Xi Ping
Selection
… … …

obtaining the related knowledge items through the calculation of context similarity and then
building the knowledge connection through a composite connection model. To demonstrate
the effectiveness of the novel method, an experiment on wing design is implemented. The
experimental results indicate that the novel method for adaptive knowledge map construction
can obtain better performance than most other methods and can decrease knowledge overload
significantly. The proposed method has the following advantages over traditional knowledge
map construction methods:

(1) It proposes a knowledge model integrating context and users can use this model to
navigate to knowledge items from different aspects by using the constructed knowledge
map.
(2) The knowledge map is constructed according to user’s requirements. Knowledge items
displayed in the knowledge map are closely connected to user’s requirements.
(3) It accomplishes visualization of a knowledge map with the assistance of hierarchical
knowledge visualization technology.

Fig. 19 Illustration of a knowledge map

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However, the following aspects of the method still need to be improved:

(1) Context similarity is used to acquire knowledge to satisfy the requirements of users.
However, the manner by which the context information is recognized and analyzed
should be determined to obtain the knowledge items accurately.
(2) Information visualization is important to improve the usability of the knowledge map.
Determining which type of knowledge map presentation can achieve improved perfor-
mance will be the next step in our research.

The method introduced in this paper can be used to develop a knowledge navigating
system. The system can navigate the users from different aspects according to users’ require-
ments and then the users can get the detailed information in the knowledge base. This system is
applicable to navigate users who can not describe their requirements using a topic or some
keywords when they want to obtain information.

Acknowledgments The research was supported by Chinese 863 - program - “the High Technology Research
and Development Program”. The project number is 2009AA043302.

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Multimed Tools Appl

Yanjie Lv is a Ph.D candidate at the Beihang University in Beijing, China, since 2008. He received his BS
degreen in Mechanism design, manufacturing and automatization from the Huazhong University of Science and
Technology in Wuhan, China. His research interests include Digital Design, Knowledge Management and
Information system.

Gang Zhao received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Beihang University, Beijing, China, in 1994 and 2001,
respectively. He is the professor at Beihang University. His research interests include virtual reality technology,
digital measurement technology, digital assembly technology and Advanced CAD/CAM/CNC. Prof. Zhao serves
as Head of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation.
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Yong Yu received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Beihang University, Beijing, China, in 1999 and 2005,
respectively. She is a master supervisor at Beihang University. Her research interests include CAD/CAM,
configuration management and digital definition and assembly of aircraft products.