Understanding the importance of common vocabularies for collective intelligence, the EIIF XG Incubator example for Emergency Management

1. Shared Vocabularies for
Collective Intelligence
DEST/IEEE 2009
Paola Di Maio, University of Strathclyde

2. Contents
 Collective Intelligence
 Shared Knowledge Representation
 Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics
 Shared vocabularies
 Emergency management
 EIIF W3C XG

3. Natural Ecosystem

4. Digital Ecosystem

5. Knowledge Ecosystem

7. Human Collective Intelligence.

The dynamic aggregation of cognitive,
reasoning and knowledge resources of
humans supported by intelligent and
networked information systems.

8. Intelligence as collective
property
 important parts of our intelligence reside in
collective properties, not individual properties
 important parts of our personal cognitive
processes are caused by unconscious and
automatic processes such as signaling and
mimicry.
 modeling humans as a distributed, network-based
intelligence and then layer on individual
cognitive processes is a radical change of
emphasis for most researchers. (Alex Pentland,
MIT)

9. CI as COMPLEX SYSTEM

Emergence results from dynamic combination of a
system components, and based on the dependence of
the whole on its parts, and their parts mutual
interdependence and specialization.

Pattern formation: are the visible, orderly outcomes of
self-organisation and the common principles behind
matching behaviors.

Paradoxes. Diverse and heterogeneous components of
a system can results in contrasting and sometimes
opposed characteristics both being present , such as
simplicity and complexity, order and disorder, random and
predictable behavior,

10. IMPLICIT VS EXPLICIT CI

In explicit CI, individuals actively contribute information, knowledge
and reasoning resources to a common repository – say a web based
environment – so that they can be combined and manipulated.

Implicit CI takes place when our intelligence is tapped without
individuals knowing it Whenever browsing the web while logged in
into our accounts, our search history is recorded, Google even
made it a useful feature: when 'search history' is on, a trail will be
kept, surely useful in many ways, and potentially a gold mine of
information. One of the caveats of implicity CI is intellectual
property.


11. BENEFIT: Speed of Aggregation

Speed advantage: Assume a fire emergency, of
wildfire spreading over a region. Classical Examples of
Collective Intelligence have sprung up during large
scale disasters in recent years, using simple tools such
as blogs, wikis and webboard where citizens would
post information incident related information.

12. BENEFIT: Capacity, Reach,
Quality, Complementarity

Diverse and complementary backgrounds and
opinions

widest breadth and depth

provided adequately engineered CI process are in,
the quality of the outcome from a collective efforts
is higher than in individual efforts.

13. CO EVOLUTION

14. LIMITATIONS OF CI

The way that ants map out their environment, that bees decide which
flower fields to exploit, or that termites build complex mounds, may
create the impression that these are quite intelligent creatures. The
opposite is true. Individual insects have extremely limited information
processing capacities. Yet, the ant nest, bee hive or termite mound as a
collective can cope with very complex situations. [...] The obvious
question is whether high collective intelligence can also emerge from
high individual intelligence. Achieving this is everything but obvious,
though. The difficulty is perhaps best illustrated by the frustration most
people experience with committees and meetings. Bring a number of
very competent people together in a room in order to devise a plan of
action, tackle a problem or reach a decision. Yet, the result you get is
rarely much better than the result you would have got if the different
participants had tackled the problem individually.

Francis Heylighen

15. Examples of CI
 Collective Knowledge Bases
 Indices
 Collective reasoning and problem solving
 Collective decisions Making
 Forecasting/Prediction Markets

16. Stochastic Determinism

Stochastic, from the Greek "stochos" means "aim, guess",
referring to conjecture and randomness. SD refers to the
global logic that underpins the development of a system as
the result of individual behaviors of a community of
individuals appear to be random, or at least not following a
hierarchical, centrally imparted behavior, yet resulting in an
organic, socially purposeful action. In human CI systems,
this principle corresponds to the state of randomness of
communities where participants are not selected on the
merit of their seniority, rank or expertise, but open
(uncrontrolled) participation is encouraged. Collective
intelligence relies on the principle of participation, thus
characterized by chaotic patterns of interaction.( W. Sulis)

17. Interactive Determinism

According to this principle, the interaction among the
constituents of a system results in some unique collective
property, a type of synergy where the sum is more than
just the sum of its factors. Thanks to ID, a system defines it
dynamic processes on the fly, as a constant flow of chain
reactions that are 'unpredictable' however they follow some
built in logic. Self organization is the result of ongoing
interactive determination and adjustments .( W. Sulis)

18. NON REPRESENTATIONAL
CONTEXTUAL DEPENDENCE

CI behavior is determined by adaptive responses to
the interaction among individuals and their
environment, and does not depend on a shared
cognitive representation (knowledge representation,
model of the world). Biological systems do not have
mental capabilities in the cognitive sense, and their
behavior can be boiled down to a set of environmental
responses. In biology, simple life forms do not posses
the cognitive apparatus to support mental capabilities
required for mental models to form, in contrast to
human systems whose communication depends on
shared conceptual and semantic models.( W. Sulis)

19. SHARED KR
 EXPLICIT HUMAN CI REQUIRES SHARED
KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION
 Models (Ontology, schemas)
 Artifacts (vocabularies)

20. Image by P Levy

21. Shared Vocabularies
 Different kinds of vocabularies: (taxonomies
thesauri, glossary data dictionary)
 Shared vocabulary is generally a controlled
vocabulary

22. Controlled Vocabulary Paradox:
No single definition of what a CV is
* A carefully selected set of terms - words and phrases -
such that each concept from the domain of discourse is
described using only one term in ...
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/controlled_vocabulary
* A set of standard subject terms used by a database to
describe the subject content of the items cited within
the database. Many, if not most, databases use a
controlled vocabulary. These controlled vocabularies
vary from database to database. ...
www.clarion.edu/395/63165/
…. many other definitions of what a controlled
vocabulary is …

23. Lexical Relations

24. Integration vs Interoperability

25. PRAGMATIC SEMANTIC
SYNTACTIC. Carlile

26. Syntax, Semantic, Conceptual,
Pragmatic

27. Shared Vocabulary Levels
 Syntax (schema, xml, rdf)
 Semantics (meanings)
 Conceptual (representation)
 Pragmatic (use)
 Procedural (common processes)

28. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
 In a broad sense, it is envisaged that there is a top level 'universal'
interoperability requirement, which is to support the communication and
mutual reinforcement of all potential agents able to provide capability to
deliver aid and act as first responders during an emergency to
interoperate
 Responders need the ability to easily and fluidly share information, voice
data and video. That is not possible with most deployed systems. [Bob
Block]
 In such unconstrained scenario responders may be a mixed bag of
organisations and individuals whose operations are regulated by
different protocols, who communicate in different languages and
following different rules, each providing a contribution to overall
emergency relief capability. The above is likely to be a chaotic 'open
world' scenario, where resources and decision making are distributed,
and coordination is the key strategic requirement

29. Functional Boundaries
 Resources and Assets
 Safety & Security
 Staff Responsibilities
 Utilities Management
 Patient, Clinical, Medical
 SLA and QoS
 Security
 Ethics

30. Problem Space
Terms/concepts used by different agencies in
the same operational field
Terms/concepts used by different agencies in
different operational fields
Terms/concepts used by agencies in different
countries, across 1. and 2. above

31. W3C EIIF
 Incubator Group
 Aim to create common framework for
information exchange
 EM Metadata
 Open, encourages wider participation
 Many challenges, creating the common view
is non trivial

32. Framework Diagram

33. Vocabulary

34. Conclusion
 Information Integration/Interoperability is
necessary for optimisation of the supply
chain in EM (and other fields) for innovation,
process transformation, agility
 Understanding the underlying challenge of
shared vocabularies may lead to more
problems initially,but to more realistic and
sound solutions in the long term
 Likely to remain work in progress

35. Qs?
 Thank you for listening
 Questions, comments, suggestions,
 Paola.dimaio at g/mai'l