The extent to which interoperability between CG and non-CG tools can be assessed against the semiotic ladder

This paper applies Stamper’s semiotic ladder to assess the extent to which Conceptual Graph (CG) software tools can interoperate with each other and others. The CharGer CG editor, the Amine multifaceted CG environment, and the non-CG multi-agent simulation environment SeSAm were selected as a representative set of tools for this purpose. Using these exemplars, the paper explores through the semiotic ladder the interoperation that CG tools presently reach. It identifies that an external XML converter is required for any meaningful interoperability, and suggests this is where future research on obtaining CG tools interoperability is directed.