ATA> A graph consisting of nodes that represent physical or conceptual objects and arcs that describe the relationship between the nodes, resulting in something like a dATA flow diagram. Semantic nets are an effective way to represent dATA as they incorporate the inheritance mechanism that prevents duplication of dATA. That is, the meaning of a concept comes from its relationship to other concepts and the information is stored by interconnecting nodes with labelled arcs. (1999-01-07)