Abstract
Faceted browsing has become ubiquitous with modern digital libraries and online search engines, yet the process is still difficult to abstractly model in a manner that supports the development of interoperable and reusable interfaces. We propose category theory as a theoretical foundation for faceted browsing and demonstrate how the interactive process can be mathematically abstracted. Existing efforts in facet modeling are based upon set theory, formal concept analysis, and light-weight ontologies, but in many regards, they are implementations of faceted browsing rather than a specification of the basic, underlying structures and interactions. We will demonstrate that category theory allows us to specify faceted objects and study the relationships and interactions within a faceted browsing system. Resulting implementations can then be constructed through a category-theoretic lens using these models, allowing abstract comparison and communication that naturally support interoperability and reuse.
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Notes
One may want the interface to include the name of the type as a selectable facet. This meta-facet is mostly an organizational tool that aids in drawing the faceted taxonomy.
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Acknowledgments
The project described was supported by the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant UL1TR000117. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. This work would not be possible without support from Drs. Jerzy W. Jaromczyk, Todd R. Johnson, and Ramakanth Kavuluru.
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Harris, D.R. Foundations of reusable and interoperable facet models using category theory. Inf Syst Front 18, 953–965 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-016-9658-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-016-9658-6