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)