Uniscript: a Model for Persistent and Incremental Knowledge Storage

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Uniscript a Model for Persistent and Incremental
Knowledge Storage

• Adorjan Kiss, Joel Quinqueton
• LIRMM, Montpellier, France

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Objective (a world to dream of)

• The knowledge of a person gathered and instantly
  accessible anytime by anyone.
• Each piece of knowledge should be true. Its
  truth should be guaranteed by the author.
• Each piece of knowledge should be unique.
• Access to a piece of knowledge should be possible
  through any related piece of knowledge.

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Personal Knowledge Representation

• Knowledge representation in computers
• To be used in foreseen scenarios
• Knowledge elements considered universally
  accepted (information).
• The objective
• De-couple knowledge from expected usage.
• A piece of knowledge can be recorded not only
  when its utility is certain. People may feel a
  piece of knowledge is important, without being
  able to explain why.
• Record permanently.
• Represent only knowledge that you are certain of.
  That is, you believe to have the least chances to
  become invalidated by time.

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What is everlasting knowledge?

• A seemingly obvious answer
• Perfect classifications
• The unquestionable rules of our physical world.
• The alternative answer
• Objects, events, facts that had a real existence.
• That is, situated knowledge.
• Les theories passent, les grenouilles restent
  (Theories pass, the frogs remain) - Jean Rostand
• Ok, but these individual pieces of knowledge (the
  frogs) are countless. Cant hope to represent
  everything. Which ones to choose?
• Everything important for a person see Memex.

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Situated knowledge pieces

• Observer
• the person who contemplates the world
• His attention is attracted by certain phenomena
  that he can delimit, identify an trace through a
  period of time.
• Stance
• A delimitation (cut-out) from the world
  (space-time continuum) that presented an
  importance for the observer.
• Its borders in space, and time are subjective
• They can be fuzzy
• The observer is not constrained to agree with
  anyone else about where he draws the borders.
• It presents some regularities the features
  allowing the observer to trace it (hence the
  name stance)

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Stancification

• What to stancify?
• Final objective progressively learn to store
  everything a human mind can represent and
  explicit.
• How to select what to stancify next?
• Lasting importance. A stance should be found
  interesting beyond a foreseen usage scenario.
• Guidance by strength of belief. No surprise is
  expected that could contradict the reality of a
  stance.
• Principle of uniqueness. Before recording a
  stance, make sure it is not already there.

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Traditional Knowledge Storage

• Writing it in a language or communicative medium
• Decompose into identifiable units
• Serialize

ideas
terms
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Stance network

• Identify stances
• Identify relations between stances
• Build a stance network
• Define the semantics of links

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Everything is a stance

• Individual objects
• Parts of objects that can be delimited
• States of objects
• Individual events
• Groups of stances (of the above) that share some
  regularities
• The 4d interval corresponding to a stance is not
  necessarily contiguous neither in time nor in
  space.

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Stance as a 4D interval

• Compressed to 2D

• t0 the beginning of the stance when the
  observer considers it assumes its identity
• t1 the end of the stance the moment when the
  observer considers it looses its identity.
• the shape the stance could have moved and
  changed size, form, etc during its life
• Note a stance is not necessarily contiguous in
  space or time

Example the apple tree near my window
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Related stance examples

• State of a stance

Example my apple tree in blossom during last
summer
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Related stance examples

• Member (part) of a stance

Example the root of my apple tree
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Stances are finite

• Stances have a finite lifetime
• Once a stance is dead (ended), it will never
  exist once again death is a change in identity.
• End of a stance transformation into other
  stance(s) identifiable by different criteria
  or into something that cannot be delimited.
• If a transformation of a stance is reversible,
  it can be seen as states (sub-stances) of a more
  generic stance.

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Individuals, groups and classes

• Groups as stances
• Finite groups are stances (whether they are
  countable, or not).
• Classes as stances
• An observer can consider a class as a stance
• A class must be finite (not abstract)
• The group of all individuals (instances) that the
  observer has found to belong to that class
  through his lifetime.
• Classes cannot pre-exist before their instances.
• Difference between artifacts and natural classes.
• There is NO DIFFERENCE between individuals,
  groups and classes.

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Uniscript a language for representing (storing)
stances

• Stances can be stored in a digital (i.e. numeric)
  memory
• Each stance is permanently associated to a memory
  location (number).
• Stored stances can be connected through oriented
  links
• Containment complete space-time inclusion
• Transformation causality temporal precedence
• Revision exceptional modification in the
  identity of stances.

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Representing a simple situation

• Today,

I
went swimming
after
work
Today, I went swimming after work
2004-10-05 (150)
Me (1)
Swimming ( 32)
Working ( 21)
( 151)
( 152)
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Incrementally augmenting the knowledge

• Today, I went swimming after work

I was driving from work to swimming
2004-10-05 (150)
Me (1)
Swimming ( 32)
Working ( 21)
( 151)
( 152)
Driving ( 38)
(153)
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Ubook an implementation of a Uniscript
knowledge base as personal memory aid

• Structures for representing the knowledge graph
• Methods for accessing knowledge pieces
• Storing and connecting stances
• Browsing the network.
• Computer-interpretable data (resource) layer for
• Rendering stances to help reconstitute the
  meaning of stances
• Direct access to stances through indexed resources

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Resources

• Data packages that can be interpreted (rendered)
  by a computer
• Text, image, video, sound, etc.
• DAC output (screen, speakers, printer, etc)
• Standard rendering (decompression and decoding)
  methods
• Unicode (text), jpeg, wav, mp3, etc.

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Stance-resource association
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Text rendering

• Important, but not fundamental
• Stances are not equivalent with words (terms) of
  natural language
• Allows indexation
• Direct access to key stances
• Quick rendering
• Offers the possibility of immediate
  identification
• Resource stance associations are not definitive

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Ubook system architecture

• Implemented as a middle-layer
• Core applications
• Rendering and browsing interface
• Visual knowledge editing interface
• Add-on applications
• Viewing and composing complex and/or recurring
  structures (stance configurations)
• Engines generating overviews, transformations and
  batch processing
• Reasoning applications to ease ensuring knowledge
  consistency, etc.

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An implementation on PDA

• The rendering and browsing interface (Finder)
• Text rendering of stances
• The standard format
• Stance number (ex. 127)
• List of text resources
• Eventually recursive rendering of one or more
  levels of neighbors, e.g. Containers.
• Example
• 128 my nose 22 nose 10 me

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Connection editor

• Visual interface for creating stances and
  connections
• The workspace setting up a stage
• Set up actors stances that are involved (ensure
  we know what are we are talking about)
• Create new stances (after checking that they do
  not exist)
• Associate stances with resources
• Connect actors through the 3 possible link types.

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Future Work

• Inter-platform synchronization
• Remote access to non-essential resources (URI)
• Description language, frames, compressing
  recurring configurations

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From personal knowledge to the dream world (after
Memex)

• People will start storing their personal
  knowledge
• Natural selection
• Some of them will store too greedily
• will eventually loose control over their
  knowledge base (difficulties to retrieve and
  interpret their knowledge, redundancy will grow
  out of manageable limits).
• Hopefully, some will find clever ways,
  configurations to store specific situations
• These ways of representations (formulations or
  expressions) will be shared among people, and
  spread until some of them will eventually gain
  general acceptance.
• Emergence of a language
• when there will be a way of expression for most
  current situations from everyday life.

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Extra slidesEvents

• Events have a duration in time they can be
  stancified.
• Several objects can take part in events, having
  different roles. How to connect them to event
  stance?
• 3 types of events
• No preexisting stance
• 1 preexisting stance
• 2 preexisting stances

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Events with no preexisting stance identified

• Origins (causes) of the event could not (were not
  interesting to) be identified

One or more stances can emerge as consequences of
the event.
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Events with 1 preexisting stance identified

• a) The event makes the stance lose its identity
  (disappearance)

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Events with 1 preexisting stance identified

• b) The event does not affect the stances
  identity (state)

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Events with 2 preexisting stances identified

• a) Both stances lose their identities (fusion)

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Events with 2 preexisting stances identified

• b) One of the stances loses its identity
  (absorption)

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Events with 2 preexisting stances identified

• c) Both stances keep their identity (interaction)