Title: Uniscript: a Model for Persistent and Incremental Knowledge Storage
1Uniscript a Model for Persistent and Incremental
Knowledge Storage
- Adorjan Kiss, Joel Quinqueton
- LIRMM, Montpellier, France
2Objective (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.
3Personal 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.
4What 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.
5Situated 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)
6Stancification
- 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.
7Traditional Knowledge Storage
- Writing it in a language or communicative medium
- Decompose into identifiable units
- Serialize
ideas
terms
8Stance network
- Identify stances
- Identify relations between stances
- Build a stance network
- Define the semantics of links
9Everything 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.
10Stance as a 4D interval
- 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
11Related stance examples
Example my apple tree in blossom during last
summer
12Related stance examples
- Member (part) of a stance
Example the root of my apple tree
13Stances 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.
14Individuals, 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.
15Uniscript 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.
16Representing a simple situation
I
went swimming
after
work
Today, I went swimming after work
2004-10-05 (150)
Me (1)
Swimming ( 32)
Working ( 21)
( 151)
( 152)
17Incrementally 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)
18Ubook 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
19Resources
- 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.
20Stance-resource association
21Text 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
22Ubook 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.
23An 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
24Connection 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.
25Future Work
- Inter-platform synchronization
- Remote access to non-essential resources (URI)
- Description language, frames, compressing
recurring configurations
26From 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.
27Extra 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
28Events 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.
29Events with 1 preexisting stance identified
- a) The event makes the stance lose its identity
(disappearance)
30Events with 1 preexisting stance identified
- b) The event does not affect the stances
identity (state)
31Events with 2 preexisting stances identified
- a) Both stances lose their identities (fusion)
32Events with 2 preexisting stances identified
- b) One of the stances loses its identity
(absorption)
33Events with 2 preexisting stances identified
- c) Both stances keep their identity (interaction)