2. A View of the Road Ahead
• Allí donde no existe la visión, la gente
peligra. - Proverbios 29:18
• There where the vision does not exist,
people are in danger. - Proverbs 29:18
• Look before you leap…
3. On Relational Thinking
"When we seek for connection, we restore
the world to wholeness. Our seemingly
separate lives become meaningful as we
discover how truly necessary we are to
each other."
– Margaret J. Wheatley*
Leadership and the New Science, Barrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 1999
4. News Item
“’Underground’ Tunnels Discovered As
Means for Communication Between
Immune System Cells”*
– “The research not only proves cells other than
neurons are capable of long-distance
communication, but it reveals a heretofore
unknown mechanism cells use for exchanging
information.”
* ScienceDaily.com . 29 September, 2005
5. Nicholas Rashevsky
and Relational Thinking
• Rashevsky (1954)* posits
– We are unable to model living (complex)
organisms because
• We cannot see everything there is to see
• Our modeling tools are not up to the representation
of all of the relationships that may exist
• Relational Biology – relational thinking in
the large is born*
Rachevsky, Nicholas. “Topology and Life: In Search of General
Principles in Biology and Sociology”, Bull. Math. Biophys. 16, 317-348.
6. Today’s Useless Quote
"Classical watches display time, but can hardly do
anything else. This limitation is artificial: for
instance, several people confessed to be often
in want of mustard... and what is the point in
knowing time if you cannot get mustard?
The concept of mustard watches comes from
this basic observation. They combine the basic
advantages of watches and mustard pots: a
quite accurate display of time together with the
critical amount of mustard sufficient to cope with
emergencies."
http://iml.univ-mrs.fr/~girard/mustard/page1.html (Jean-Yves Girard October 1990)
7. Maybe not so useless after all:
Playing with words
“I happen to like my hot dogs with lots of
onion and covered with mustard. I can't
have any of the more enticing ingredients
so I make the most out of the ones I can
have. So, I would need a mustard
grandfather clock if you please.”
Patrick Durusau. Personal communication, 23 September, 2005
8. Playing with words: Rosetta Stones
“Communication is possible across universes of
discourse only because people are like human
Rosetta stones. They share enough common
experiences that with more or less difficulty they
can at least intimate what something means in
another universe of discourse.
Yes, perhaps that is the ticket: People are human
Rosetta stones which can (but don't always)
bridge universes of discourse.”
Patrick Durusau. Personal communication, 23 September, 2005
9. From Rosetta Stones to Topic
Maps
“If a person wants to allow his/her ability to serve
as a Rosetta stone for multiple (always specific)
universes of discourse to be exploited by as
many other people as possible, and without
constantly answering the telephone and/or e-
mail, she/he can codify her/his Rosetta
stone-ness as a TMA. [Topic Map Application]
Thus, the subject maps paradigm shows a way to
make *human* understandings about *human*
universes of discourse widely machine-
exploitable.”
Steven Newcomb. Personal communication, 23 September, 2005
10. Acknowledgements
• Patrick Durusau
• Steven Newcomb
• Bernard Vatant
• John Sowa
• XML Topic Maps [5] co-
authors
• Murray Altheim
• Sam Hunting
• Steve Pepper [4]
• Judith Rosen
• Jeff Conklin
• Glen and Helen Haydon
11. Outline
• What's next?
– Why ask?
• motivations
– Where's the beef?
• A Tale of Two Programs – Looking Ahead
• Hypothesis
• Use Cases
– Indexing
– Culture Fusion
» Augmented Storytelling
– Modeling
• IT Fusion – A Proposal
– Technology marriages
12. Motivation
In short, the future belongs not to those
who merely navigate us through cyberspace,
nor those who populate it with data.
Rather it belongs to those who help us make
sense of all the data that is available to us.
– John J. Regazzi, 2004 *
* http://www.nfais.org/publications/mc_lecture_2004.htm
13. Challenge
The challenge of Cyberinfrastructure is to
integrate relevant and often disparate resources
to provide a useful, usable, and enabling framework
for research and discovery characterized by broad
access and “end-to-end” coordination
–NSF Workshop on Cyberinfrastructure
for the Social Sciences, 2005*
* http://vis.sdsc.edu/sbe/
14. Software
Software ultimately should facilitate
communication – either between people,
between people and their desired goals
within the computer system
or between systems.
–Kurt Cagle, 2005*
* http://www.understandingxml.com/archives/2005/08/the_future_of_s.html
15. Information Commons*
A Platinum Ring
The Information Commons makes public information
from multiple sources more accessible by blending
it into a single "information space."
* http://www.maya.com/web/infocommons/infocommons.mtml
16. Outline
• What's next?
– Why ask?
• motivations
– Where's the beef?
• A Tale of Two Programs – Looking Ahead
• Hypothesis
• Use Cases
– Indexing
– Culture Fusion
» Augmented Storytelling
– Modeling
• IT Fusion – A Proposal
– Technology marriages
17. A Tale of Two Programs
• The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Program
– Replicate human cognitive processes in
computers
• The Augmentation Program
– Augment human cognitive processes with
computers
• A motivating opportunity:
– Fuse AI technology with Augmentation
technology
18. Hypothesis
“Nothing can better satisfy the needs of
augmentation of human cognition and
relational thinking than the fusion of
technologies.”
Bernard Vatant. Personal communication, 30 September, 2005
19. About Indexing
• The prime use case
– Rendering information resources navigable
• Classical back-of-the-book indexing of
information resources
– Topics
– Associations
– Occurrences
– Scopes
– Topic Names
20. Culture Fusion
• Second prime use case
– Codified Rosetta Stones
– “Just for me”
• Uses two topic maps properties
– Subject Identity
– Names for things
• Allows different cultures, disciplines,
languages to share subjects
• Bridging different universes of discourse
22. Modeling
• Creating topic maps is modeling
knowledge
– What’s being proposed here?
• Topic Maps already do that
• Extending Topic Maps paradigm
• Opens the door to simulation
• What is modeling?
– The Modeling Relation
• Why Model with Topic Maps
• A Modest Proposal
23. What is Modeling?
• From wikipedia*
– Models as abstractions or representations
• Abstract model
– Theoretical representation of a phenomenon
• Computer model
– Computer program which attempts to simulate an
abstract model of a particular system
• Mental model
– A person’s cognitive representation of an idea or thought
process
• Goal is to bridge a gap between computer
models and mental models
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modeling
24. The Modeling Relation
Due to Robert Rosen [2]
Copied with permission from http://www.panmere.com/rosen/faq_mr1.htm
25. Modeling Natural Systems
• The primary function of a topic map is to
serve as a formal system which provides
resources for identification of subjects
(ideas and concepts in natural systems)
– Putting everyone “on the same page”
– Identifying relationships between subjects
• Additional functionality supports inferences
beyond simple question answering
– e.g. reasoning by analogy
26. Why Model with Topic Maps
• “What's the use of thinking/talking when
you don't know what you're thinking/talking
about? The only hope of communication
between people rests on context that they
already share. Communication is about
extending the area of shared context, and the
possibility of such extension depends entirely on
leveraging the context that is already shared. “*
• Topic Maps facilitate representation of shared
context
* Steven R. Newcomb, personal communication, 21 September, 2005
27. Outline
• What's next?
– Why ask?
• motivations
– Where's the beef?
• A Tale of Two Programs – Looking Ahead
• Hypothesis
• Use Cases
– Indexing
– Culture Fusion
» Augmented Storytelling
– Modeling
• IT Fusion – A Proposal
– Technology marriages
28. A Modest Proposal
• Marry Topic Maps technology to other
knowledge modeling tools
– Specifically:
• TMRM and its Assertion Model (aka Subject Maps)
• Conceptual Graphs (due to Sowa)
– A potential “marriage made in heaven”
• Target Platform
– AminePlatform [8]
• How?
– Following slides
30. Towards A Modeling Architecture
• Goal:
– Fuse relational modeling tools with the
topic/subject maps paradigm
• Outline:
– Topic/Subject Maps comparison
– Closer look at the Assertion Model
– Sketch a marriage between Conceptual
Graphs and Subject Maps
• CG implemented as Assertion
• CG implemented as CG spliced with subject
proxies for actors
31. Topic/Subject Maps Comparison
• A Local Hypothesis
– Modeling action resides in the relationships
represented
– Topic Maps associations are ripe for extension
• Comparison
– XML Topic Maps Association Model
– Subject Maps Assertion Model
• Will Show
– Assertion Model appears appropriate, but…
– A different marriage might be necessary
32. XML Topic Maps Association
Model
T
Role
Player
T
Role
T
Assn
Type
T
Role
T
Role
Player
A
One node (A) is not a Topic: Can be reified as a Topic
33. Subject Maps Assertion Model
X
Role
Player
X
Role
Player
R
Role
R
Role
T
Assn
Type
C C
A
R = Role
T = Assertion
type
A = Assertion
C = Casting
X= Role
player
All nodes are SubjectProxies (Topics)
41. Proposed Marriage
• Partners:
– Conceptual Graphs
– Subject Maps
• Two Possible Approaches:
– Extend the Assertion Model
• Conceptual Graph structure mapped into the
Assertion Model
– Map a Conceptual Graph structure to Subject
Proxies (Topics)
• Not an adaptation to the Assertion Model
42. What is an Assertion?
“A statement of a relationship between
subjects, each of which is a called a "role
player" in the relationship.”
http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmmm/TMMM-2.32/TMMM-2.32.html#parid0816
43. What is a Conceptual Graph?
“Informally, CGs can be thought of as a
formalization and extension of Semantic
Networks, although the origins are
different.
They are labeled graphs with two types of
nodes: concepts (which represent objects,
entities, or ideas [Subjects]) and relation
nodes, which represent relations between
the concepts.”*
* [7] page 5
44. Assertion Model Marriage
• Two examples which model two situations
– Simple example
• John is going to Boston by bus
– More complex example
• Tom believes that Mary wants to marry a sailor
• Presented two ways
– Basic Conceptual Graph (CG)
– CG as a new kind of Assertion
45. John is going to Boston by bus
Shamelessly copied from [3]
47. Tom believes that Mary wants to
marry a sailor
Shamelessly copied from [3]
48. Tom believes that Mary wants to
marry a sailor
Three Assertions in play
1. A Belief
2. A Want
3. A Marital Situation
Role Player topic
gets Subject Identity
from Assertion
topic
49. CG as Assertion Post Mortem
• The Assertion Model marriage with a
Conceptual Graph structure alters the
nature of the CG
– A CG is a directed graph
– Subject Map Assertions are not directed
graphs
– Cannot use existing CG graph traversal tools
• Because we are forced to rewrite the target CG
software to accommodate this marriage, this is not
an attractive approach.
50. CG as CG married to Subject
Proxies
• CG represents roles for actors to play
– Link actor subject proxy to CG through a
casting into a role
• Similar to Assertion model
• Replaces Actor (concept) nodes in CG
– Remainder of CG remains its original graph
51. CG as CG Post Mortem
• Marries CG processing with Subject
Mapping
• Substitution of a SubjectProxy node for a
Concept node may call for some changes
to the target platform
– Trick is to reduce changes needed to support
CG processing
• Leave CG graph manipulations as close to native
in the target platform as possible
• This might offer a plausible approach to the
marriage of CG software with a Subject Map
engine.
52. Concluding Remarks
• In earlier threads, I argued for fusion of technologies
– Storytelling
– Topic Maps
– Dialog Maps
• Today, I argue for fusion of other technologies
– Subject Maps
– Conceptual Graphs
• The topic maps paradigm can better satisfy the needs of
augmentation of human cognition and relational thinking
through fusion with other technologies.
• If you aren’t steaming angry now, you didn’t listen to this
talk. ☺
53. References
• [1] TMRM: http://www.isotopicmaps.org/tmmm/TMMM-2.32/TMMM-2.32.htm
• [2] Rosen, Robert, Life Itself, Columbia University Press, 1991.
• [3] CG Standard http://users.bestweb.net/~sowa/cg/cgstand.htm
• [4] Pepper, Steve, “The TAO of Topic Maps”, http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tao.html
• [5] Park, Jack, and Sam Hunting, Editors. XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web,”
Addison-Wesley, 2002
• [6] Sowa, John, Knowledge Representation: Logical, Philosophical, and Computational Foundations, Brooks/Cole,
2000
• [7] Corbett, Dan, Reasoning and Unification over Conceptual Graphs, Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York,
2003.
• [8] AminePlatform: http://amine-platform.sourceforge.net/
• [9] Dialog Mapping: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/
• [10] Augmented Storytelling: http://www.nexist.org/nsc2004/