SDF: A Sign Description Framework for Cross-Context Information Resource Representation and Interchange

While Internet is experiencing a drastic change, semantic representation study becomes more and more important in electronic business and enterprise systems. To semantically represent information resources, this paper proposes a novel Sign Description Framework, which is an abstract specification that represents any object in reality as signs. Based on a quaternary model of sign in semiotics, the proposed framework has several advantages such as non-ambiguity of resource representation in meaning, easy resource modeling, and easy cross-context heterogeneous resource mapping.