Cheng defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Jessica Cheng successfully defended her dissertation, "Agreeing to Disagree: Applying a Logic-based Approach to Reconciling and Merging Multiple Taxonomies," on May 25. 

Her committee included Professor Bertram Ludäscher (chair); Professor Allen Renear; Assistant Professor Karen Wickett; and Nico Franz, professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University.

Abstract: Taxonomies are used to classify concepts into hierarchies via parent-child (is-a) relationships. The proliferation of taxonomies leads to interoperability challenges when one attempts to incorporate existing taxonomies with a newly created taxonomy, or to integrate multiple data in a digital library that were prepared by different taxonomies. To address these interoperability challenges, methods to systematically align two taxonomies and merge them into a single merged view have been developed in extant literature. However, merging taxonomies into a unified representation may result in the loss of important information that was present in the original taxonomies. The goals of this dissertation are thus to align and merge taxonomies that: (1) preserve the information in both taxonomies in the merged solution(s); (2) provide multiple possible solutions. Cheng applies a logic-based alignment approach to taxonomies in socio-geographic contexts, including the United States maps, country taxonomies, indigenous peoples' tribes, and historical sovereignties in biodiversity data. Through these use cases, it is demonstrated that the logic-based taxonomy alignment approach is feasible to reconcile conflicts in socio-geographic taxonomies. 

Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Kilhoffer defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Zachary Kilhoffer successfully defended his dissertation, "Human Factors in the Standardization of AI Governance: Improving the Design of Risk Management Standards for Ethical AI," on January 24, 2025.

Zak Kilhoffer - square

Han defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Kanyao Han successfully defended his dissertation, "Natural Language Processing for Supporting Impact Assessment of Funded Projects," on January 7, 2025.

Kanyao Han

Pettigrew finds balance as a student-athlete

Isiah Pettigrew started wrestling in his junior year of high school in Palatine, Illinois. He advanced in the sport quickly, placing fourth in his weight class at the state wrestling tournament in his senior year. He signed on with the Illini Wrestling team in 2020 as a freshman and has been wrestling throughout his academic career, which includes earning a bachelor's degree and beginning a master's degree at the iSchool.

Isiah Pettigrew

Get to know Cadence Cordell, MSLIS student

Cadence Cordell was inspired by her undergraduate work experience to pursue a degree in library and information science. She followed in her mother’s footsteps by selecting the iSchool for her MSLIS. After completing a recent research poster presentation, she combined her scholarly pursuit with her hobby by sewing her fabric poster into a squirrel plushie.

Cadence Cordell

Recent graduate committed to making libraries accessible and inclusive

Joshua Short knows firsthand the barriers to public library access that patrons living on modest wages experience. Having grown up in a self-professed "low-income environment," Short has made it his mission to reduce these barriers, such as library fines, inadequate transportation, and limited computer literacy.

Joshua Short