Context plays a significant role in situation resolution by intelligent agents (human or machine) by affecting how the
situations are recognized, interpreted, acted upon or predicted. Many definitions and formalisms for the notion of context
have emerged in various research fields including psychology, economics and computer science (computational
linguistics, data management, control theory, artificial intelligence and others). In this paper we examine the role of
context in situation management, particularly how to resolve situations that are described by using fuzzy (inexact)
relations among their components. We propose a language for describing context sensitive inexact constraints and an
algorithm for interpreting relations using inexact (fuzzy) computations.
KEYWORDS: Surgery, Cognitive modeling, Systems modeling, Telecommunications, Data modeling, Homeland security, Intelligence systems, Control systems, Signals intelligence, Space operations
The response, rescue and recovery teams that are engaged in disaster management operations require a continuous and
comprehensive information flow of the disaster environment and a situational awareness in order to undertake fast and
coordinated actions. Because of highly dynamic and often unpredictable disaster situations the teams need to adjust their
goals, resources and actions both on an individual member level (agent) and on an entire team level (multi-agent
system). This paper investigates a new approach to an agent's adaptability based on cognitive feedback introduced into
the framework of inter-agent collaboration. The paper is a continuation of our work on situation-aware multi-agent
systems. We discuss how agent adaptation and cognitive feedback is applied in the architecture of multi-agent systems
for disaster situation management.
Forces engaged in tactical urban combat operations require a continuous and comprehensive picture of the combat
environment to quickly detect the target and effectively reduce opposition. This requires a significant coordination of
actions, situational awareness, and fast decision-making. This paper focuses on modeling the collaboration acts among
multiple combat units. We analyze the tactics of urban combat operations and then propose a general framework for
modeling collaboration among units. Our approach uses Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) as a paradigm for modeling
Command and Control (C2) in urban combat operations. We introduce the notion of scenario-based and policy-based
MAS collaboration, and analyze different MAS inter-agent structural and control architectures, including hierarchical and
federated architectures. This paper shows how scenario-based and policy-based collaboration matched with different
MAS control architectures fits the C2 requirements of urban combat operations.
We discuss the problem of making sense of very large amounts of multi-sensor data in terms of information fusion and
situation awareness. Our focus is on the application layer of the GIG in support of ISR analysis, sometimes referred to as
level 2 fusion or cognitive fusion. We discuss an approach where the key ontological constructs are events, event
correlation, situations, and situation assessment. We extend classic Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) agents with situation
awareness, as a result of which the actions of BDI agents are triggered by situations rather than single events. We discuss
our reasoning mechanism against the background of ontology and knowledge base development and provide a simple
illustration of the concept towards opportunistic reasoning.
KEYWORDS: Multimedia, Distributed computing, Systems modeling, Data processing, Computing systems, Data modeling, Televisions, Imaging technologies, Imaging systems, Video processing
Distributed multimedia information systems (DMIS) are concerned with multimedia information processing, multimedia information models, and multimedia information delivery in distributed computing environments. Today there are two approaches being pursued for developing large scale DMIS: the world-wide web and interactive television systems. This paper examines and compares the state and direction of these two systems. Areas of comparison include systems architecture, content models, client and server services, extensibility, and limitations. We conclude the paper with a review of the role of imaging technologies in distributed multimedia information systems, including content-based retrieval and processing of digital video.
Current approaches for continuous media (CM) file systems focus on scheduling requirements for sessions consisting of single video or audio streams. This paper examines the multimedia delivery problem from the perspective of hypermedia document servers. Such hypermedia documents can be characterized as a web of nodes, each node containing a set of time-dependent CM and discrete media objects. We first look at a hypothetical user's view of a hypermedia session. We then present two service models, the CM service model and the hypermedia service model, and compare them. We propose a new view of session, a hypermedia session, suitable for scheduling the delivery of hypermedia documents, and present sample scheduling algorithms. This notion of hypermedia session is examined from the standpoint of resource management at the orchestration layer of distributed MM system.
KEYWORDS: Video, Analog electronics, Multimedia, Networks, Switches, Control systems, Local area networks, Video compression, Computer simulations, Circuit switching
The prevailing vision for next generation multimedia communication systems is a digital one. However, we anticipate a transitional period in which hybrid networks involving both analog and digital technology will coexist. These analog facilities will include crossbar audio-video switches, CATV distribution systems, and dedicated lines. For some scale of use, these facilities may offer economies for connectivity to conventional analog video equipment. We are interested in connection routing that will be needed in such hybrid networks for services including video conferencing and broadcast results. The routing problem in such topologies resembles but is not identical to that found in telephone systems because of the presence of broadcast connections. We discuss representative topologies, review related work, and describe algorithms and simulation results. In addition we describe a hybrid system that we have implemented in our research lab which involves several A/V switches, CATV channels, digital video on a LAN, and a point-to-point link to an offsite conference area.
We have developed a set of interactive tools for collecting, annotating, and analyzing group communication sessions. These tools have been used to model group meetings which we have enacted on our computer-based video conferencing system as well as single location meetings. The purpose of this work is to support the analysis of group meetings over computer-based video conferencing systems. The resulting analysis can be used for various purposes including creating meeting summaries, identifying communication patterns, facilitating group communication, and suggesting agendas for follow-on meetings. The current system is used for off-line annotation and analysis of communication sessions which involve various parallel media tracks including the video and audio component for each participant, the text transcription of the meeting, and various documents and media forms referenced during the session. In this paper we review these tools and describe an architecture for employing these techniques for real-time feedback to a communication session. Real-time feedback could include suggestions for materials and individuals to include in the current meeting, change of topic, and suggesting problem solving strategies.
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