An Intuitive Graphical Query Interface for Protégé Knowledge Bases

Emily is a graphical query engine for Protege knowledge bases that was developed by the Structural Informatics Group (SIG) at the University of Washington. Currently this application is adapted for a specific knowledge model, the Foundational Model of Anatomy (FMA) [1], but it could readily be generalized for use with other Protege knowledge bases. In developing the Emily query interface, our intent was to provide a tool that was simple and intuitive to use, like the Queries tab provided with Protege, but with improved information retrieval capabilities. Although some more advanced query mechanisms exist, currently they are too complicated for non-expert end users. The Algernon tab [2], for example, provides extensive Protege query capabilities but requires users to learn a query scripting language. We sought to develop a query interface that was intuitive enough for end users to operate, with only minor instruction, yet was powerful enough to gather interesting information from a knowledge base that was not easily attained by browsing alone.