Current and Future Challenges in Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning is a central, longstanding, and active area of Artificial Intelligence. Over the years it has evolved significantly; more recently it has been challenged and complemented by research in areas such as machine learning and reasoning under uncertainty. In July 2022 a Dagstuhl Perspectives workshop was held on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The goal of the workshop was to describe the state of the art in the field, including its relation with other areas, its shortcomings and strengths, together with recommendations for future progress. We developed this manifesto based on the presentations, panels, working groups, and discussions that took place at the Dagstuhl Workshop. It is a declaration of our views on Knowledge Representation: its origins, goals, milestones, and current foci; its relation to other disciplines, especially to Artificial Intelligence; and on its challenges, along with key priorities for the next decade

Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia : workshop : proceedings, 3rd, Sonthofen, Germany, July 14, 2001 and Aarhus, Denmark, August 15, 2001

This paper presents two empirical usability studies based on techniques from Human-Computer Interaction (HeI) and software engineering, which were used to elicit requirements for the design of a hypertext generation system. Here we will discuss the findings of these studies, which were used to motivate the choice of adaptivity techniques. The results showed dependencies between different ways to adapt the explanation content and the document length and formatting. Therefore, the system's architecture had to be modified to cope with this requirement. In addition, the system had to be made adaptable, in addition to being adaptive, in order to satisfy the elicited users' preferences

Adaptive hypertext and hypermedia : workshop : proceedings, 3rd, Sonthofen, Germany, July 14, 2001 and Aarhus, Denmark, August 15, 2001

This paper presents two empirical usability studies based on techniques from Human-Computer Interaction (HeI) and software engineering, which were used to elicit requirements for the design of a hypertext generation system. Here we will discuss the findings of these studies, which were used to motivate the choice of adaptivity techniques. The results showed dependencies between different ways to adapt the explanation content and the document length and formatting. Therefore, the system's architecture had to be modified to cope with this requirement. In addition, the system had to be made adaptable, in addition to being adaptive, in order to satisfy the elicited users' preferences

Ontic Occlusion and Exposure in Sociotechnical Systems

Living inside built environments - infrastructure - it is easy to take for granted the things that we do not need to engage, but are at work behind the scenes nonetheless. Well-designed systems become invisible, but to engage them, how do we know which perspectives, objects, and relationships are useful? I examine the University of Michigan Digital Library (UMDL), a mid-1990s interdisciplinary project attempting to build an agent-based digital library architecture. Through analyzing project data, I develop the concept of ontic occlusion and exposure - mechanisms of choice regarding objects and relationships that enter discourses and representations. By analyzing project artifacts, interview transcripts, and meeting records, this study iden- tifies key sets of discursive elements bridging concepts between disciplinary communities on the surface, but were the fundamental sites of contestation between groups’ understanding of project goals. I examine narratives of project personnel to understand the positioning of terms and ideas relating to project design, execution, and assessment, and discuss the role of the ontic in interdisciplinary work. Using data from the UMDL project, I discuss the tension between occlusion (the hidden) and exposure (the revealed) in understanding the digital library as an object through meet- ings of the project operating committee - the primary engagement site between researchers from different departments, primarily computer engineering and library science. Examining interpretive differences, use of fundamental terms, and observations about the contested responses toward resolution, we can better understand the outcomes of the project, the disciplinary positioning of institutional change, and perspectives of evaluating the project in the subsequent years. This dissertation contributes to an understanding of discourse development in interdisciplinary projects where shared language is important to design, execution, and evaluation. It combines perspectives in philosophy, digital libraries, and interdisciplinarity studies. The complementary mechanisms of ontic occlusion and exposure are useful devices to decode and describe change in sociotechnical systems, and highlight the need to examine more closely both what is rendered in accounts of infrastructure, and residual categories often left unaddressed.Ph.D.InformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78763/1/cknobel_1.pd

Dynamic Integration of Evolving Distributed Databases using Services

This thesis investigates the integration of many separate existing heterogeneous and distributed databases which, due to organizational changes, must be merged and appear as one database. A solution to some database evolution problems is presented. It presents an Evolution Adaptive Service-Oriented Data Integration Architecture (EA-SODIA) to dynamically integrate heterogeneous and distributed source databases, aiming to minimize the cost of the maintenance caused by database evolution. An algorithm, named Relational Schema Mapping by Views (RSMV), is designed to integrate source databases that are exposed as services into a pre-designed global schema that is in a data integrator service. Instead of producing hard-coded programs, views are built using relational algebra operations to eliminate the heterogeneities among the source databases. More importantly, the definitions of those views are represented and stored in the meta-database with some constraints to test their validity. Consequently, the method, called Evolution Detection, is then able to identify in the meta-database the views affected by evolutions and then modify them automatically. An evaluation is presented using case study. Firstly, it is shown that most types of heterogeneity defined in this thesis can be eliminated by RSMV, except semantic conflict. Secondly, it presents that few manual modification on the system is required as long as the evolutions follow the rules. For only three types of database evolutions, human intervention is required and some existing views are discarded. Thirdly, the computational cost of the automatic modification shows a slow linear growth in the number of source database. Other characteristics addressed include EA-SODIA’ scalability, domain independence, autonomy of source databases, and potential of involving other data sources (e.g.XML). Finally, the descriptive comparison with other data integration approaches is presented. It shows that although other approaches may provide better performance of query processing in some circumstances, the service-oriented architecture provide better autonomy, flexibility and capability of evolution

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

Spatial ontologies for architectural heritage

Informatics and artificial intelligence have generated new requirements for digital archiving, information, and documentation. Semantic interoperability has become fundamental for the management and sharing of information. The constraints to data interpretation enable both database interoperability, for data and schemas sharing and reuse, and information retrieval in large datasets. Another challenging issue is the exploitation of automated reasoning possibilities. The solution is the use of domain ontologies as a reference for data modelling in information systems. The architectural heritage (AH) domain is considered in this thesis. The documentation in this field, particularly complex and multifaceted, is well-known to be critical for the preservation, knowledge, and promotion of the monuments. For these reasons, digital inventories, also exploiting standards and new semantic technologies, are developed by international organisations (Getty Institute, ONU, European Union). Geometric and geographic information is essential part of a monument. It is composed by a number of aspects (spatial, topological, and mereological relations; accuracy; multi-scale representation; time; etc.). Currently, geomatics permits the obtaining of very accurate and dense 3D models (possibly enriched with textures) and derived products, in both raster and vector format. Many standards were published for the geographic field or in the cultural heritage domain. However, the first ones are limited in the foreseen representation scales (the maximum is achieved by OGC CityGML), and the semantic values do not consider the full semantic richness of AH. The second ones (especially the core ontology CIDOC – CRM, the Conceptual Reference Model of the Documentation Commettee of the International Council of Museums) were employed to document museums’ objects. Even if it was recently extended to standing buildings and a spatial extension was included, the integration of complex 3D models has not yet been achieved. In this thesis, the aspects (especially spatial issues) to consider in the documentation of monuments are analysed. In the light of them, the OGC CityGML is extended for the management of AH complexity. An approach ‘from the landscape to the detail’ is used, for considering the monument in a wider system, which is essential for analysis and reasoning about such complex objects. An implementation test is conducted on a case study, preferring open source applications

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation