Riichiro Mizoguchi

Knowledge acquisition for knowledge-based systems

The work reported at the first Japanese Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems Workshop is discussed, providing both an overview of the field and an introduction to a series of articles on knowledge acquisition. The discussion covers tools, methods, and mediating representations; real-time problem solving; the system-model-operator metaphor; an interview architecture based on dynamic analysis, inductive knowledge acquisition from structured data; research in Japan; how to make application programming easier; justification-based knowledge acquisition; integrating knowledge acquisition and performance systems; tasks, methods, and knowledge; rule induction; hypertext; explanation-based learning and case-based reasoning; and interviewing.<<ETX>>

Deployment of an ontological framework of functional design knowledge

Although the importance of knowledge sharing among designers has been widely recognized, knowledge about functionality in the conceptual design phase is hard to capture and is often scattered across technical domains. Aimed at capturing such functional knowledge that can easily be applied to other domains, we developed an ontological framework to systematically describe it. It includes six kinds of knowledge about functionality, i.e. two types of functional models, two types of organization of generic knowledge, and two ontologies of functionality. This paper reports on the successful deployment of the framework in a production company. The Plant and Production Systems Engineering Division of Sumitomo Electric Industries has used our framework to share functional design knowledge on production systems since May, 2001. An empirical evaluation by Sumitomos engineers was unanimously positive. They said that this framework enabled them to make implicit knowledge possessed by each designer explicit and to share it among team members. This paper discusses some successful use-cases in tasks such as a design review, a patent application, and solving a quality problem. We also discuss effects of our ontological framework as a consistent viewpoint for capturing implicit functional knowledge and as a conceptual interlingua among designers. The limitations of our framework are also discussed.

Ontology-based Description of Functional Design Knowledge and its Use in a Functional Way Server

In conceptual design of engineering devices, a designer decomposes a required function into sub-functions, so-called functional decomposition, using a kind of functional knowledge representing achievement relations among functions. However, such knowledge about functionality of engineering devices is usually left implicit because each designer possesses it. Even if such knowledge is found in documents, it is often scattered around technical domains and lacks consistency. Aiming at capturing such functional knowledge explicitly and sharing it in design teams, we discuss its systematic description based on functional ontologies which provide common concepts for its consistent and generic description. We propose a new concept named “way of achievement” as a key concept for capturing such functional knowledge. Categorization of typical representations of the knowledge and its organization as is-a hierarchies are also discussed. The generic concepts representing functionality of a device in the functional knowledge are provided by the functional concept ontology, which makes the functional knowledge consistent and applicable to other domains. We also discuss development of a design supporting system using the systematized knowledge, called a functional way server. It helps human designers redesign an existing engineering device by providing a wide range of alternative ways of achievement of the required function in a manner suitable for the viewpoint of each designer and then facilitates innovative design.

Ontology-based systematization of functional knowledge

It has been recognized that design knowledge is scattered around technology and target domains. One of the two major reasons for it is that different frameworks (viewpoints) for conceptualization of design knowledge are used when people try to describe knowledge in different domains. The other is that several key functional concepts are left undefined or even unidentified. In this paper, we first overview the state of the art of ontological engineering, which we believe is able to make a considerable contribution to resolving these difficulties. We then discuss our enterprise aiming at systematization of functional knowledge used for synthesis. We discuss ontologies that guide conceptualization of artefacts from the functional point of view. The framework for knowledge systematization is based on an extended device ontology and a functional concept ontology built on top of the extended device ontology. This paper particularly discusses the extended device ontology and its application in the mechanical domain. The utilization of the systematized functional knowledge in several application systems is also discussed, together with its advantages.

The Semantic Web – ASWC 2006

Invited Talks.- The Semantic Web: A Network of Understanding.- Transformation from OWL Description to Resource Space Model.- Next Generation Semantic Web Applications.- Annotation.- Hierarchical Topic Term Extraction for Semantic Annotation in Chinese Bulletin Board System.- Automatic Annotation Using Citation Links and Co-citation Measure: Application to the Water Information System.- Semantic Annotation Using Horizontal and Vertical Contexts.- Semantic Wiki as a Lightweight Knowledge Management System.- Ontology Alignment.- Partition-Based Block Matching of Large Class Hierarchies.- Towards Quick Understanding and Analysis of Large-Scale Ontologies.- Matching Large Scale Ontology Effectively.- Finding Important Vocabulary Within Ontology.- Document and Recommendation.- Ontology-Based Similarity Between Text Documents on Manifold.- A Formalism of XML Restructuring Operations.- FTT Algorithm of Web Pageviews for Personalized Recommendation.- Social Network and RSS.- D-FOAF: Distributed Identity Management with Access Rights Delegation.- Community Focused Social Network Extraction.- Behavioral Analysis Based on Relations in Weblogs.- UniRSS: A New RSS Framework Supporting Dynamic Plug-In of RSS Extension Modules.- Ontology Integration and Interoperability 1.- Ontology-Based RBAC Specification for Interoperation in Distributed Environment.- Business Process Collaboration Using Semantic Interoperability: Review and Framework.- An Ontology Architecture for Integration of Ontologies.- Automatic Alignment of Ontology Eliminating the Probable Misalignments.- Ontology Integration and Interoperability 2.- Semantic Integration of Enterprise Information: Challenges and Basic Principles.- Application Integration Using Conceptual Spaces (CSpaces).- A New Evaluation Method for Ontology Alignment Measures.- Representing and Reasoning with Application Profiles Based on OWL and OWL/XDD.- Reasoning.- OWL-Full Reasoning from an Object Oriented Perspective.- Visualizing Defeasible Logic Rules for the Semantic Web.- A Reasoning Algorithm for pD*.- Triple Space Computing: Adding Semantics to Space-Based Computing.- Application 1.- Full-Automatic High-Level Concept Extraction from Images Using Ontologies and Semantic Inference Rules.- Dental Decision Making on Missing Tooth Represented in an Ontology and Rules.- Ontology Driven Visualisation of Maps with SVG - Technical Aspects.- Applying CommonKADS and Semantic Web Technologies to Ontology-Based E-Government Knowledge Systems.- A Semantics-Based Protocol for Business Process Transactions.- Information Search.- Fuzzy View-Based Semantic Search.- A Semantic Search Conceptual Model and Application in Security Access Control.- Document Filtering for Domain Ontology Based on Concept Preferences.- Database.- Qualitative Spatial Relation Database for Semantic Web.- Automatic Creation and Simplified Querying of Semantic Web Content: An Approach Based on Information-Extraction Ontologies.- HStar - A Semantic Repository for Large Scale OWL Documents.- Minerva: A Scalable OWL Ontology Storage and Inference System.- Semantic Web Services 1.- Exploring the Flexible Workflow Technology to Automate Service Composition.- Mediation Enabled Semantic Web Services Usage.- Toward Automatic Discovery and Invocation of Information-Providing Web Services.- Automatic Composition of Semantic Web Services - A Theorem Proof Approach.- Semantic Web Services 2.- A Semantic Rewriting Approach to Automatic Information Providing Web Service Composition.- Web Services Analysis: Making Use of Web Service Composition and Annotation.- WWW: WSMO, WSML, and WSMX in a Nutshell.- Automatic Generation of Service Ontology from UML Diagrams for Semantic Web Services.- A Composition Oriented and Graph-Based Service Search Method.- Ontology and Tool.- DODDLE-OWL: A Domain Ontology Construction Tool with OWL.- Knowledge Elicitation Plug-In for Protege: Card Sorting and Laddering.- Towards a Topical Ontology of Fraud.- Application 2.- Product Data Interoperability Based on Layered Reference Ontology.- Design of Semantically Interoperable Adverse Event Reporting Framework.- Protein Data Sources Management Using Semantics.- Semantic Web Modeling for Virtual Organization: A Case Study in Logistics.- A PSO-Based Web Document Query Optimization Algorithm.- Ontology and Theory.- Modular Ontologies - A Formal Investigation of Semantics and Expressivity.- A Pi-Calculus Based Ontology Change Management.- A Comprehensive Study of Inappropriate Hierarchy in WordNet.- Autonomous Ontology: Operations and Semantics OR Local Semantics with Semantic Binding on Foreign Entity.- Peer-to-Peer.- SemreX: A Semantic Peer-to-Peer System for Literature Documents Retrieval.- Personal Information Modeling in Semantic Web.- A Semantic Reputation Mechanism in P2P Semantic Web.- Client and Server Anonymity Preserving in P2P Networks.- Industrial Track 1.- A Map Ontology Driven Approach to Natural Language Traffic Information Processing and Services.- A Knowledge- and Workflow-Based System for Supporting Order Fulfillment Process in the Build-to-Order Supply Chains.- A Distributed IR Model Based on Semantic Web.- Experimental Study of Semantic Contents Mining on Intra-university Enterprise Contents Management System for Knowledge Sharing.- Industrial Track 2.- Semantic Autocompletion.- Ubiquitous Metadata Scouter - Ontology Brings Blogs Outside.- Networked Interactive Photo Annotation and Reminiscence Content Delivery.- Task-Oriented Mobile Service Recommendation Enhanced by a Situational Reasoning Engine.

A functional concept ontology and its application to automatic identification of functional structures

Abstract Functionality of artifacts as well as structure and behavior plays crucial roles in problem-solving such as design. This article discusses automatic identifications of functional structures of artifacts from given behavioral models of components and their connection information (called functional understanding). We propose a functional concept ontology which provides a rich vocabulary representing functions together with clear definitions grounded on behavior. The ontology enables the automatic identification system to make the search in the functional space tractable and to screen out meaningless interpretations. Furthermore, the ontology includes a new category of functional concepts named meta-functions representing conceptual categories of interdependency between functions. It plays a crucial role in consolidation of functions to give criteria of grouping functions, that is, identity of consolidated functions. It enables the identification system to generate such functional hierarchies that do not correspond to physical structure.

Advances in Intelligent Tutoring Systems

The idea for this book on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) was sparked by the success of the ITS08 international conference. The number of presentations and their quality bore witness to the vitality and maturity of the field, and the enthusiasm of the participants held out a promise of sustainability and innovative research. Long life to ITS research! The book is divided into five parts. The introductory chapters to these parts, which summarize foundations, developments, strengths and weaknesses in each of the areas covered, are addressed to all readers. For those who want more in-depth knowledge, we give the floor to researchers who present their work, their results, and their view of what the future holds. It is our hope that all readers will find the book informative and thought-provoking.

Hozo: An Environment for Building/Using Ontologies Based on a Fundamental Consideration of Role and Relationship

We have developed an environment for building/using ontologies, named Hozo, based on both of a fundamental consideration of an ontological theory and a methodology of building an ontology. Since Hozo is based on an ontological theory of a role-concept, it can distinguish concepts dependent on particular contexts from so-called basic concepts and contribute to building reusable ontologies.

Tutorial on Ontological Engineering : Part 2 : Ontology development, tools, and languages

Practical aspects of ontological engineering are discussed in this part. First topic is the methodology of ontology development. Next, ontology representation languages and support tools are discussed as well as ontology alignment and merging which are becoming practically important to cope with distributed development of ontologies. We next discuss several ontologies developed thus far including large-scale knowledge bases such as Cyc, practical domain ontologies such as Enterprise ontology and gene ontology and generic ontologies such as PSL: Process Specification Language and SUO: Standard Upper Ontology. The first topic of ontology applications is the semantic web in which semantic interoperability, metadata and web service ontology are described. e-Learning is also a good application area of ontology in which LOM: Learning Object Metadata and ontology-aware authoring systems are discussed followed by conclusion.

An Ontology Engineering Approach to the Realization of Theory-Driven Group Formation

One of the main difficulties during the design of collaborative learning activities is adequate group formation. In any type of collaboration, group formation plays a critical role in the learners’ acceptance of group activities, as well as the success of the collaborative learning process. Nevertheless, to propose both an effective and pedagogically sound group formation is a complex issue due to multiple factors that influence group arrangement. The current (and previous) learner’s knowledge and skills, the roles and strategies used by learners to interact among themselves, and the teacher’s preferences are some examples of factors to be considered while forming groups. To identify which factors are essential (or desired) in effective group formation, a well-structured and formalized representation of collaborative learning processes, supported by a strong pedagogical basis, is desirable. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to present an ontology that works as a framework based on learning theories that facilitate group formation and collaborative learning design. The ontology provides the necessary formalization to represent collaborative learning and its processes, while learning theories provide support in making pedagogical decisions such as gathering learners in groups and planning the scenario where the collaboration will take place. Although the use of learning theories to support collaborative learning is open for criticism, we identify that they provide important information which can be useful in allowing for more effective learning. To validate the usefulness and effectiveness of this approach, we use this ontology to form and run group activities carried out by four instructors and 20 participants. The experiment was utilized as a proof-of-concept and the results suggest that our ontological framework facilitates the effective design of group activities, and can positively affect the performance of individuals during group learning.