Description (693)
The Impact & Alignment Tab helps users to visually analyze two different types of scenarios in their ontologies: (694)
- In an "Impact" analysis, a user can choose an instance in their ontology and view other instances that are related to the chosen "source" instance. (695)
- In an "Alignment" analysis, a user can choose to view paths in their ontology between two instance, two classes, an instance and a class, or a class and an instance. To elaborate slightly on the latter two cases, an alignment analysis between an instance and a class means that a user would like to see all paths in the ontology between a single source instance and all instances of a target class. An alignment analysis between a class and an instance means that a user would like to see all paths in the ontology between all instances of a source class and a single target instance. (697)
Documentation (69C)
- Specifying search criteria (8AY)
- Saving search configurations (8B1)
- Where are search configurations saved? (8B2)
- Additional screenshots (8B3)
- What if a search is taking too long? (8BC)
- How do I obtain search statistics? (8BE)
Specifying search criteria (8B9)
The upper left portion of the Impact & Alignment tab contains all of the User Interface components that allow users to specify their search criteria. The "Source" text area is used to specify a source instance for impact analyses. It is also used to specify a source class or instance for alignment analyses. The "Target" text area is used to specify the target class or instance for alignment analyses. To follow is a screenshot of the upper left portion of the tab, where a user has specified a source and target for a potential alignment analysis: (69D)
Users can narrow their search criteria by specifying the level of indirection or "radius" that the tab uses when constructing a visual graph of an impact or alignment analysis (via the "Radius" combo box). In the following screenshot, the user has specified a source instance, a radius of 1, and performed an impact analysis by clicking on the "Graph Impact" button. The resulting graph shows the source instance (in green) and all instances that are related to the source instance one level deep: (69G)
If the user were to change the radius to 3, the resulting graph shows the source instance (in green) and all instances related to the source instance three levels deep: (69I)
The second way to narrow search criteria is to constrain the set of slots that the tab traverses when constructing a visual graph of an impact or alignment analysis. To follow is a screenshot of the "Select Slots" dialog after a user has clicked on the "Slots..." button: (69K)
Unchecking a check box next to a slot name means that the slot will not be examined when the tab is searching for relationships between the source class or instance and other classes and instances in the ontology. (69M)
Saving (and opening and deleting) search configurations (8BA)
Once a user has designated the search parameters for a particular impact or alignment analysis, the Impact & Alignment tab provides the ability to save search configurations. To follow is a screenshot of the lower left portion of the tab, which displays a list of names of saved search configurations and a button panel with an open, save, and delete button: (69N)
To open a previously saved search configuration, select a search name in the Saved Searches list and click the open button. All of the necessary search parameters will be auto-populated, including the source, target, radius, and list of slots that the tab will traverse. To save a search configuration, click the save button. A small "Saved Searches" dialog box will appear that allows users to enter a name for their search. To delete a search configuration, select a named search in the list and click the delete button. (69S)
Where are search configurations saved? (8BB)
All of the search configurations are saved in an XML configuration file in the location: (8AV)
<protege-install-dir>/plugins/edu.stanford.smi.protegex.impact_tab/ImpactAlignmentConfig.xml (8AW)
To follow is a screenshot (for those who are curious) of what the contents of an example XML configuration file looks like: (69Q)
Please note the following: (69T)
- Search configurations are specific to Protege projects. If a user has saved several search configurations for Project A, those configurations will not be displayed when a user opens Project B. (69U)
- Hand-editing of the Impact & Alignment tab's XML configuration file is not recommended! (69V)
Additional screenshots (69W)
To follow are some screenshots of alignment analyses performed using the Impact & Alignment tab. (8BQ)
In the first screenshot, the user designated a source and target instance (an instance -> instance alignment) and clicked on the "Graph Aligment" button to produce a graph that shows the various paths through the ontology between the source and target: (69X)
In the second screenshot, the user performed a class -> instance search. In other words, the user was interested in seeing all of the paths in the ontology between all instances of Class A and a single instance of Class D (called "Instance of D"). Note that source nodes are shown in green and the target node is shown in red: (69Z)
In the third screenshot, the user performed an instance -> class search. In other words, the user was interested in seeing all of the paths in the ontology between a single instance of Class W (called "Instance of W") and all instances of Class Z. Note that the source node is shown in green and the target nodes are show in red: (6A1)
In the fourth screenshot, the user performed a class -> class search. In other words, the user was interested in seeing all of the paths in the ontology between two classes (in this case, the paths between Class A and Class Z). Note that intermediate nodes in the class to class alignments are shown in pale yellow to represent class objects, as opposed to the pale purple that represents instance objects: (734)
What if a search is taking too long? (8BD)
Each time a user clicks the Graph Impact or Graph Alignment button, the Impact & Alignment tab displays a "search status" dialog. While a search is in progress, the dialog contains the text "In progress" followed by a constantly regenerating ellipsis to indicate that the search is still in progress: (8BF)
If a search is taking too long, a user can click on the "Cancel Search" button to stop the search. (The tab is multi-threaded to support this type of cancel operation). The text in the dialog will be updated to "Search cancelled", and a user can click on the OK button to return to the main window. (8BI)
How do I obtain search statistics? (8BH)
After a search runs to completion, the search status dialog box displays the total search time in seconds, the number of impacted instances for impact searches, or the number of paths found for alignment searches. (8BJ)
Screenshot of statistics for an impact search: (8BM)
Screenshot of statistics for an alignment search: (8BO)
