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SUO: *Date 02 May 2002 -- Intelligence Production Process Ontologies




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| And thus the native hue of resolution
| Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
| And enterprises of great pith and moment
| With this regard, their currents turn awry,
| And lose the name of action.
|
| Hamlet, 3.1.86-90

JS = Jim Schoening
RT = Richard Tong

JS: Can you tell us more about your  "Intelligence Production Process?"

RT: This is a very early stage effort to look at ways
    in which we can model the human mediated process
    of transforming data (in whatever form -- text,
    images, video, etc) into information that can be
    used by a decision maker.

RT: I'm doing this in support of a US Govt. Program called AQUAINT

    http://www.ic-arda.org/InfoExploit/aquaint

    and at this stage am mostly just gathering data about any work
    that has been done in the general area.

RT: The nominal objective is to develop an
    "Intelligence Production Process Ontology" (IPPO)
    that can be used to provide a framework in which the
    design and evaluation of advanced Question Answering
    systems can be embedded.  A key issue for such systems
    is the notion of "context" and I believe that an IPPO
    would allow us to talk about context in a meaningful
    and useful way.

RT: I suspect the details of what we're trying to do are
    outside the scope of this forum, but I'd certainly be
    interested in a general discussion about such processes.
    I was actually hoping that someone was further along in
    their thinking about this than I am :-)

Richard,

You touch on a topic on which I suspect that this Forum may be
experiencing a bit of fatigue, as we have frequently discussed
the problems of "context" (pragmatics of communication) and the
questions of "action enabling information production" (inquiry)
to the point where our native hues are now blue in the face, so
I am going to try and approach the issue this time around from
a sleightly fresh angle.

Three questions:

1.  If someone were "further along in their thinking about this"
    than you are, would you be able to tell, from where you are,
    that they are?

2.  If someone were "further along in their thinking about this"
    than you are, but in a different direction, would it matter
    at all to you, given the direction you have decided to go?

3.  If someone were "further along in their thinking about this"
    than you are, but along a different path, would you expect
    there to be, of necessity, in the course of inquiry and
    the fullness of time, a meeting minds at some time in
    the future, or not of necessity any such reunion?

These questions touch on whether "context" is
a "path independent notion" (PIN), indeed,
a "context independent concept" (CIC),
or not.

Jon Awbrey

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