TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter is concerned with the representation of referents from a constructional viewpoint, modelling them as structural systems. In this chapter we shall discuss structural systems and their graph representations in decomposition and construction.
We know that any natural or man-made referent may be represented as interrelated components. We can state this more precisely by recalling the generic notion of system :
It is convenient to consider S as a finite system, having a finite element set E = { e 1, e 2, e n }, and a finite interrelationship set R = { r 1, r 2, r m } defined over elements of E.
Interpreting expression 7.1 for a structural representation of the referent, we get:
where E s stands for the set of components, each component representing a part of the referent,
and R s is the set of relationships among the components.
Thus, for a referent divisible into k number of parts, the system has a set E s = {comp 1, comp 2 comp k}, elements of E s being linked by the relations of a set R s = { r S1, r S2, r Sm}.
Referents can be divided into parts in many different ways, and the parts of any decomposition may be intertwined by many different relationships. The problem solver must select from this...
