An attribute-value system is a basic knowledge representation framework comprising a table with columns
designating "attributes" (also known as "properties", "predicates", "features", "dimensions", "characteristics",
"fields", "headers" or "independent variables" depending on the context) and "rows" designating "objects" (also
known as "entities", "instances", "exemplars", "elements", "records" or "dependent variables"). Each table cell
therefore designates the value (also known as "state") of a particular attribute of a particular object.
Example of attribute-value system[edit]
Below is a sample attribute-value system. It represents 10 objects (rows) and five features (columns). In this
example, the table contains only integer values. In general, an attribute-value system may contain any kind
of data, numeric or otherwise. An attribute-value system is distinguished from a simple "feature list"
representation in that each feature in an attribute-value system may possess a range of values (e.g.,
feature
below, which has domain of {0,1,2}), rather than simply being present or absent (Barsalou &
Hale 1993).
Sample Attribute-Value System
Object
1
2
0
1
1
1
2
0
1
1
2
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
2
1
2
1
0
2
1
0
0
1
2
2
2
0
0
1
0
0
1
2
2
1
2
1
0
2
2
2
0
0
1
0
Other terms used for "attribute-value system"[edit]
Attribute-value systems are pervasive throughout many different literatures, and have been discussed
under many different names:
Flat data
Spreadsheet
Attribute-value system (Ziarko & Shan 1996)
Information system (Pawlak 1981)
Classification system (Ziarko 1998)
Knowledge representation system (Wong & Ziarko 1986)
Information table (Yao & Yao 2002)