IEML (Information Economy Meta-Language) is an

Open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

artificial method to represent the

semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

content of a

linguistic sign In semiotics, a sign is anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional, as when a word is uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, as when a symptom is t ...

. It was designed by

Pierre Lévy Pierre Lévy (; born 1956) is a Tunisian-born French people, French philosopher, Culture theory, cultural theorist and media scholar who specializes in the understanding of the cultural and cognitive implications of digital technologies and the p ...

as an

Open collaboration Open collaboration refers to any "system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who cooperate voluntarily to create a product (or service) of economic value, which is made freely available to ...

project as part of his works on

Collective intelligence Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that Emergence, emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiolog ...

in order to encode meaning in a computer readable way. Its design is based on mathematics and logic abstractions but with a clear inspiration from the organic structure of

natural language A natural language or ordinary language is a language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change. It can take different forms, typically either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages ...

Overview

The goal of the IEML system is to make real-world data machine-readable. It proposes a standard representation that enables the mapping of semantic representations with the data in a computer-friendly way. IEML's design starts with a small amount of primary

concepts A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psy ...

are arranged in a

matrix Matrix (: matrices or matrixes) or MATRIX may refer to: Science and mathematics * Matrix (mathematics), a rectangular array of numbers, symbols or expressions * Matrix (logic), part of a formula in prenex normal form * Matrix (biology), the m ...

and composed together in order to create new and slightly more complex concepts, which can be arranged in a new matrix and composed to form even more complex ones, and so on. The arrangement in the form of a matrix and its fractal design make the representation easy to manipulate, quick when calculating the

distance Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects, points, people, or ideas are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two co ...

between concepts and simple to encode. Each element in each matrix has a unique representation that easily indicates both its location and content. To maintain the integrity of the system, every public submission must pass an automatic analogical verification and must be reviewed by a reliable reviewer before being incorporated or updated into the system.

Challenges

IEML bypasses important challenges of the

Semantic web The Semantic Web, sometimes known as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable. To enable the encoding o ...

and other semantic representation systems such as vagueness, uncertainty, inconsistency. Some of the challenges for IEML include readability, annotation and adoption. Systems that use IEML must deal with these issues in order to work as intended. * Readability: In order to be computer-readable and semantically connected the system cannot use any one natural language as a representation, which makes it more difficult to be read by a human. Still, the metadata of each element allows user-suggested translations from the IEML concept to any given natural language. * Annotation: Until more advanced tools are implemented, annotation must be made manually. * Adoption: In order to grow and improve, the system depends on having an increasing number of users and submitters.

References

{{reflist Free and open-source software Software using the GNU General Public License

Overview

Challenges

See also

References