Geoagent-Based Knowledge Systems
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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Earth and Mineral Sciences GEOAGENT-BASED KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS A Thesis in Geography by Chaoqing Yu © 2005 Chaoqing Yu Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2005 The thesis of Chaoqing Yu has been reviewed and approved* by the following: Donna J. Peuquet Professor of Geography Thesis Adviser Chair of Committee Brenton M. Yarnal Professor of Geography Alan M. MacEachren Professor of Geography John Yen Professor of Information Sciences and Technology Roger M. Downs Professor of Geography Head of the Department of Geography *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ABSTRACT Modern geography focuses on studying processes. In addition to observed phenomena, the study of geographic processes must (and does) place emphasis on understanding how components interact within geographic systems. As a fundamental tool for geographic representation and spatial analysis, current GISystems (geographic information systems) are nevertheless still data centered. While they are good at representing “what” and “where” information, they have limited capabilities in representing higher-level knowledge. This is because in the current GISystems there is a lack of means of capturing and representing human understanding of geographic processes to address “how” and “why” questions. In addition, non-observational factors such as laws, policies, regulations, plans, and cultural elements (e.g. religions, customs) cannot be easily represented. Instead of the traditional data-centered approach, this dissertation presents a knowledge-oriented strategy for the representation of geographic processes. To reach that end, two major steps are adopted: (1) introducing the concept of GeoAgents as the spatiotemporally distributed knowledge-representation components, and (2) presenting an integrated approach to incorporate multiple knowledge-representation techniques with geospatial databases. GeoAgents are defined in this dissertation as spatial, dynamic, and scale-dependent agents within an explicitly geographic context. By incorporating GeoAgents with graph-based concept maps, rule-based expert systems, quantitative models, and geospatial databases, this research develops a Java-based prototype — iii GeoAgent-based Knowledge System (GeoAgentKS) — that allows the representations of diverse kinds of geographic knowledge and spatial data to be integrated in a single cohesive software system. To examine the knowledge-oriented strategy of geographic representation in real- world problems, GeoAgentKS are employed in a case study to represent the complex geographic processes relevant to community water systems (CWSs) in Central Pennsylvania. In this case study, geographic knowledge is captured via interpretation of the pre-existing documents and computer-based-concept-mapping interviews with domain experts. To evaluate the usability of GeoAgentKS, evaluation interviews with different experts and novices were conducted to assess the adequacy of the knowledge representation and the effectiveness in conveying knowledge. The experts in the evaluation interviews believed that it was possible to use the GeoAgentKS to represent the complex, dynamic and scale-dependent human-environment interactions. And the knowledge stored in the GeoAgentKS could be quickly learned by novices. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of figures.................................................................................................................. viii List of tables........................................................................................................................x Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.2 What are data, information, and knowledge?.............................................................4 1.3 Geographic processes and knowledge representation ................................................8 1.3.1 Defining process...................................................................................................8 1.3.2 Complexities in representing process...................................................................9 1.4 Existing strategies for representing knowledge........................................................11 1.5 Goals and methods of the current research...............................................................14 1.6 Case study: representing human-environment interactions relevant to CWSs.........15 1.7 Organization of this dissertation...............................................................................16 Chapter 2 Existing knowledge-related representation techniques.............................18 2.1 Bridging data and knowledge...................................................................................19 2.1.1 Categorization ....................................................................................................20 2.1.2 Fuzzy set theory .................................................................................................22 2.1.3 Ontology.............................................................................................................22 2.2 Explicit and implicit knowledge representation techniques.....................................25 2.2.1 Rule-based knowledge systems..........................................................................25 2.2.2 Graph-based knowledge representation .............................................................28 2.2.3 Implicit knowledge representation strategies.....................................................36 2.3 Distributed knowledge representation: intelligent agents ........................................40 2.3.1 Definitions of intelligent agents .........................................................................41 2.3.2 Typology of agents.............................................................................................42 2.3.3 Agent applications in GIScience........................................................................46 2.4 Summary...................................................................................................................49 Chapter 3 A description of GeoAgents and implementation in an integrated representation scheme .....................................................................................................51 3.1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................51 3.2 Definition of GeoAgents ..........................................................................................52 3.2.1 The basic concept of GeoAgents........................................................................52 3.2.2 Interactions between GeoAgents and geospatial databases ...............................54 3.2.3 Communication among GeoAgents ...................................................................55 3.2.4 Concept maps in representing world state dynamics .........................................56 3.3 A brief example: using multi-GeoAgents via concept graphs for representing geographic processes ......................................................................................................57 v 3.4 Facilitating geographic knowledge sharing and decision making............................60 3.5 Summary...................................................................................................................61 Chapter 4 Implementation of the GeoAgent-based Knowledge System....................62 4.1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................62 4.2 Open source software adapted for GeoAgentKS......................................................63 4.2.1 MadKit ...............................................................................................................63 4.2.2 JESS ...................................................................................................................64 4.2.3 Touchgraph.........................................................................................................64 4.2.4 GeoTools ............................................................................................................65 4.3 Integrating multiple representation techniques in GeoAgentKS..............................65 4.3.1 The architecture of GeoAgentKS and overall information flow........................66 4.3.2 The user interface...............................................................................................68 4.4 Knowledge acquisition for GeoAgentKS.................................................................74 4.5 Summary...................................................................................................................75 Chapter 5 Case study design: geographic knowledge acquisition, representation, and performance evaluation ...........................................................................................76 5.1 Objectives of the case study .....................................................................................76 5.2 Overall methodology ................................................................................................77