North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Aggie Digital Collections and Scholarship Theses Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 An Ontology-Based Assistant For Analyzing Agents' Activities Roland Johnson North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digital.library.ncat.edu/theses Recommended Citation Johnson, Roland, "An Ontology-Based Assistant For Analyzing Agents' Activities" (2010). Theses. 355. https://digital.library.ncat.edu/theses/355 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at Aggie Digital Collections and Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of Aggie Digital Collections and Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN ONTOLOGY-BASED ASSISTANT FOR ANALYZING AGENTS’ ACTIVITIES by Roland Johnson A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Department: Computer Science Major: Computer Science Major Professor: Dr. Albert Esterline North Carolina A&T State University Greensboro, North Carolina 2010 School of Graduate Studies North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University This is to certify that the Master’s Thesis of Roland Johnson has met the thesis requirements of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Greensboro, North Carolina 2010 Approved by: _________________________________ Dr. Albert Esterline Major Professor _________________________________ Dr. Gerry Dozier Department Chairperson _________________________________ Dr. Alan Letton Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies ii DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my daughter, Destiny. Your life has brought me unexplainable love and joy. I love you with all my heart. iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Roland Johnson was born on September 5, 1968, in Martinsville, Virginia. He received a Diploma in Electrical/Electronics Engineering Technology from Danville Community College in 1998 and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from North Carolina A&T State University in 1996. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Albert Esterline for his many years of direction, assistance, guidance, and understanding. Special thanks should be given to my wife, Anishia Johnson, for her encouragement and assistance through some very difficult times in my life. I love you, sweetheart. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND ......................................................................................... 6 2.1 Representing Objects and Qualitative Spatial Relations .................................... 6 2.2 Linguistic Notions and FrameNet ....................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Frame Semantics ........................................................................................11 2.2.2 Example Lexical Unit ............................................................................... 16 2.2.2.1 Move Lexical Unit ................................................................................ 16 2.2.2.2 Survey Lexical Unit .............................................................................. 18 2.3 Jena ................................................................................................................... 19 2.4 Google Earth and KML .................................................................................... 21 2.4.1 Google Earth ............................................................................................. 21 2.4.2 KML .......................................................................................................... 23 2.4.3 Google Earth API ...................................................................................... 26 2.5 XSLT ................................................................................................................. 27 CHAPTER 3 SOFTWARE FOR ANALYSTS AND MODELERS ................................ 31 3.1 Initial KML Files .............................................................................................. 32 vi 3.2 The Analyst ....................................................................................................... 33 3.3 The Modeler ...................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER 4 COGNITIVE IMPLICATIONS ................................................................. 40 4.1 Intentions and Possibilities Open to the Player................................................. 40 4.2 Situation Awareness .......................................................................................... 43 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................... 45 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................. 49 APPENDIX A USING JENA WITH RDF ...................................................................... 53 APPENDIX B SPARQL/JENA ....................................................................................... 56 APPENDIX C PROCESSING OWL WITH JENA......................................................... 60 vii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1 The Theme Moving along a Path from the Source to the Goal ...................................... 3 2 Graphical Representation of an RDF Resource ............................................................ 19 3 Graphical Representation of an RDF Triple ................................................................. 20 viii ABSTRACT Johnson, Roland. AN ONTOLOGY-BASED ASSISTANT FOR ANALYZING AGENTS’ ACTIVITIES. (Advisor: Albert Esterline), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University This thesis reports on work in progress on software that helps an analyst identify and analyze activities of actors (such as vehicles) in an intelligence-relevant scenario. A system is being developed to aid intelligence analysts, IAGOA (Intelligence Analyst’s Geospatial and Ontological Assistant). Analysis may be accomplished by retrieving simulated satellite data of ground vehicles and interacting with software modules that allow the analyst to conjecture the activities in which the actor is engaged along with the (largely geospatial and temporal) features of the area of operation relevant to the natures of those activities. Activities are conceptualized by ontologies. The research relies on natural language components (semantic frames) gathered from the FrameNet lexical database, which captures the semantics of lexical items with an ontology using OWL. The software has two components, one for the analyst, and one for a modeler who produces HTML and parameterized KML documents used by the analyst. The most significant input to the modeler software is the FrameNet OWL file, and the interface for the analyst and, to some extent, the modeler is provided by the Google Earth API. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis reports on research in progress that identifies and analyzes activities of actors (such as vehicles) in an intelligence-relevant scenario. A system is being developed to aid intelligence analysts, IAGOA (Intelligence Analyst’s Geospatial and Ontological Assistant) [1]. Analysis may be accomplished by retrieving simulated satellite data of ground vehicles and interacting with software modules that allow the analyst to conjecture the activities in which the actor is engaged along with the (largely geospatial and temporal) features of the area of operation relevant to the natures of those activities. Activities, such as movements of the vehicles, are conceptualized by ontologies. An ontology is a formal representation of a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the properties of that domain and may be used to define the domain. The research relies on natural language components (semantic frames) gathered from a large lexical resource namely, FrameNet [2], which is based on Fillmore’s frame semantics. FrameNet captures the semantics of lexical items with an ontology using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). It provides the ability to define activities by the targeted actors. Examples of such activities are move, hide, and survey. IAGOA associates an intelligence analyst’s understanding of a player’s activities with the geospatial features of the area of operation in which these activities take place. (The neutral term “player” refers to the monitored agent, which could be a 1 person but also, e.g., an unmanned vehicle. We use masculine pronouns simply for ease.) It will also help an analyst articulate conjectures about the player’s activities, stated in terms of verbs. The software has two components, one for the analyst, and one for a modeler who produces HTML and parameterized KML documents used by the analyst. The most significant input to the modeler software is the FrameNet OWL file, and the interface for the analyst and, to some extent, the modeler is provided by the Google Earth API. The Jena framework for